The Moment of Letting Go

by J. A. Redmerski

  Sadness. It’s unmistakably how I feel inside. Because I know I can’t help Luke the way he needs to be helped; I can’t be the one who heals his pain; I can’t be his crutch.

  But still … I say nothing. Because it hurts too much to think about it, about what I know I have to do.

  Suddenly I realize why I’ve waited so long to say anything, why I’ve put off telling him that I can’t pursue a relationship with him, why I haven’t tried harder to change his mind about jumping or express my feelings about it: because I know that right now, at this dark point in his life, nothing I say will register with him. He will take my concern and only try to make it better by bandaging it, rather than seeing it for what it is. He will kiss me and smile at me and tell me that everything’ll be OK, that I shouldn’t worry about him.

  But also I fear that Luke will be able to somehow shake my resolve not only about his jumping, but more so about having to leave him … for good. Because I don’t want to. I want to stay here with him forever. Already, right now, as I sit here with him on this beach under the stars, surrounded by his thoughtful hard work that has softened my aching heart, I’m at risk of becoming putty in his hands. If I’d told him yesterday that I just can’t be with him, or the day before, I fear he’d already have changed my mind by now, despite what I know I should do.

  That’s why I have to do it in the morning, just before I have to leave.

  He won’t have time to shake my resolve then.

  He won’t have time to change my mind.

  Later, after Luke blows out the candles in the jars and unplugs the lights, we head inside to go to bed.

  “I’m going to miss you like crazy,” Luke says, moving in and out of me slowly. “I think I already do.”

  He kisses me hungrily, pushing himself deeper inside of me.

  Later, like I’ve done nearly every night since I came here, I curl up in his arms and listen to his heart beating as he sleeps. I stare up at the ceiling, the shadows cast by the trees outside the window dancing along it in a slow, swaying motion. But it isn’t until hours after Luke has fallen asleep that I begin to drift off myself, accompanied by the sound of rain pattering on the roof and Luke’s steady breathing.

  And those thoughts about knowing what I have to do lingering in my head, cruel and victorious.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Sienna

  Luke gets me up on time at nine. My flight leaves at eleven. I sit up in the bed, feeling like a bundle of frayed nerves, just as he’s coming around the corner with a mug of coffee in one hand and a smile on his face. I can barely look at him at first; my rapidly beating heart sits deep in the pit of my stomach; my hands are trembling against my bare legs; my mouth is incredibly dry and I know that no amount of water in the world can moisten it.

  “I ran out of sugar,” he says, leaning against the doorframe. He takes a sip and makes a face. “I don’t know how Seth drinks this shit black.”

  “Luke,” I say and then pause, looking down at my hands wedged between my thighs.

  He steps farther into the room.

  “You want some coffee?” he asks, even though he knows I always say no.

  I look up at him.

  “You … Luke, you said something to me the other day that I can’t stop thinking about.”

  He places the coffee on the nightstand and sits down next to me.

  “What did I say?”

  I sigh and look down at my hands again, my fingers tangling nervously.

  “That you’d never want me to change who I am for you or anyone else.”

  “And I meant that,” he says, all traces of the good morning he was trying to maintain before gone from his voice—he knows something’s wrong.

  And I know I can’t linger on this anymore.

  Finally I raise my head and look over at him next to me, pain and regret at rest in my eyes. I know because I feel it in every part of my body.

  “Well, I’m a firm believer of that,” I say, “and I’d never want you to change for me, either—I wouldn’t let you.”

  He waits for me to go on, but the sudden look of realization in his eyes tells me that he wishes I wouldn’t.

  A tear rolls down my cheek. I reach up and wipe it away quickly.

  “I watched that documentary on Tian Keng yesterday.” His jaw hardens as if he’s fighting to suppress emotion. “I-I didn’t make the connection until I saw it: your paintings, the ones at the community center, the ones in that room at the end of the hall”—I look right at him again—“the one you were painting when I found you that night.”

  “What are you saying, Sienna?” He stands up from the bed and begins to pace.

  I stand up, too.

  “Luke,” I say, meeting his eyes, “I know you’re going to Norway to honor your brother, but … do you really, down deep inside of you, feel like it’s going to help make his death OK?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing will ever make his death OK.”

  “I know, but”—I’m struggling to find the words; this is all so much harder than I expected, and I expected it to be excruciating—“but do you really have jump off that rock?”

  His eyes crease with confusion.

  “Have to?” he says. “I—well, I want to. Landon and I were going to do it together. On his birthday. We made plans. And I—”

  He stops and stares at the wall, struggling as much as I was moments ago. When he looks back at me, there’s even more pain in his eyes. More guilt. More heartbreak. More of everything that makes me want to take back everything I’ve said.

  And I feel every ounce of it, burning me from the inside out.

  “I was supposed to jump with him in China,” he says, angry with himself, and although he’s said these things aloud to me before, I feel like this time he’s repeating them only to himself, condemning himself with the memory, over and over again. “I was supposed to be there. I was supposed to check his pack like I had always done. I was supposed to be there.” Tears fall from his eyes and it’s breaking my heart—and taking everything in me not to reach out and comfort him. But I can’t. I can’t keep being his crutch. “But I didn’t go. After all that planning we did, all of the excitement, I was too busy with work to keep my promise, to stay true to my brother. Too busy with my bullshit life”—he slashes his hand in front of him—“to go with him and make sure he was going to be OK.”

  He looks beyond me, his jaw hardening, his eyes focused and wet around the edges. His hands clench into fists at his sides.

  “He’s dead because I was supposed to be there!”

  The sharpness of his voice quietly stuns me. But I’m not afraid of him—the anger he’s projecting is only at himself.

  But I know finally, looking back on my two weeks with him, hearing his friends tell me how much me being here has changed him, witnessing his anger seconds ago, the turmoil inside … I know now that I’m not what he needs right now, that this isn’t something anyone else can help him with.

  “I feel better when you’re here with me,” he says, but he can’t look at me. “I haven’t felt at peace with anything since he died. Nothing. My life just stopped. I might as well be dead, too. But here I am. And he’s gone. And it should’ve been me because Landon was good.” He swallows. A tear rolls down his face. He wipes it away angrily with the back of his hand. “I was the older brother, but I was the one learning from him. He was the one helping me overcome my shit. He had his head on straight. He knew what was important in life, what really mattered. But me, I lost my way and forgot everything that mattered, and I didn’t listen to him when he tried to make me see it.”

  He pauses and looks back over at me. “Sienna, you’re the first thing that has made me smile since Landon’s death.”

  I choke back the tears.

  “But, Luke,” I say softly, compassionately, “I can’t replace him.” Silence.

  “I … I want to help you,” I say, stepping up to him, his eyes red-rimmed and glistening with moisture. “But I think you’
re so scarred by the guilt that you have to make this kind of peace on your own. Covering up the pain with me won’t heal it. I … can’t replace Landon.”

  Luke sits back down on the edge of the bed, defeated, his legs apart, his hands dangling between them.

  “This isn’t just about my brother, is it?”

  “No,” I say softly and sit down next to him. “I know that this jump is important to you. I understand why, and as much as I want you to change your mind about it, I can’t ask or expect you to change who you are. I know that BASE jumping is part of your life … but the thought of being in love with you and losing you the way you lost your brother … I, well, I just can’t put myself through that. Not now. Not ever.”

  He looks down at his interlocked hands, and I can’t escape the feeling that, judging by the wounded look on his face, he expected this, he knew it would end like this even though he tried so hard to have hope. And it just makes me feel that much worse.

  After a moment I add, “But, Luke, I think more than anything, bigger than me, bigger than us, you need to find yourself again, find your way again and your peace with Landon’s death, before anything else.”

  He glances over but doesn’t meet my gaze. He knows that I’m right.

  “Y’know,” he says, “I would say that I shouldn’t have let it go this far, this thing between us, but I don’t regret a moment of it. Maybe I’m being selfish again, but even though I knew the day I met you that it probably wouldn’t work out, I don’t regret taking it as far as we did.”

  I smile softly. “Neither do I.” I reach over and take his hand. “You did something for me that no one has ever come close to doing—my fear of heights, of course, but you did more than just try to help me overcome it. You helped me see everything else with a whole new perspective: my career; my family and financial priorities; my future.” I pause and look off at the wall. His fingers slip between mine, over the top of my hand.

  “Landon may have been good, like you said,” I say, meeting his eyes, “but something tells me he learned it from you. Little brothers always look up to their big brothers.”

  I stand up and step in between his legs. He gazes up at me and takes both of my hands into his.

  “I want you to promise me something,” I say.

  A brief moment of quiet passes between us.

  “Anything,” he says, tugging on my fingers.

  “When you go to Norway, before your feet leave that rock, promise me, Luke, that it’ll be for the right reasons.”

  “The right reasons?” he asks, confused.

  “Yes,” I say softly. “Luke, you can’t do something like this, take such a risk with your life, unless it’s for the right reasons. You can’t go through with this if you’re only doing it because you feel guilty, or because you’re holding on to”—I pause and take a deep, uneasy breath—“holding on to something you had with Landon that’s no longer there.” Mentally I hold my breath, hoping that my words don’t hurt him and that he won’t take offense to them.

  For a split second, I see his jaw harden and a flash of pain shoot across his eyes. But he recovers quickly and pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around my waist and laying his head against my stomach. I spear my fingers through the top of his hair.

  Then he raises his head and answers, “Yeah … I am doing it for the right reasons,” and that’s all the answer he gives.

  Disappointment, thick and heavy, floods me. My shoulders fall with my breath, my heart with my hopes.

  I want to believe that he’s lying to himself—I want to believe that I’m right—but if he won’t, or can’t, admit it to himself, then he can’t admit it to me. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m too blinded by my feelings for him and wanting nothing to stand between us being together, and he really and truly loves this dangerous sport. But if that’s the case, if that’s the truth, then I can’t stand in his way.

  And I can’t stay with him, either.

  I could never in a million years ask him to give up something that makes him feel alive and free. It would be the same as him asking me to give up photography.

  “You know I have to do this, Sienna, don’t you?”

  I nod, holding back my protest.

  “And you know I’ll be OK, right?”

  I don’t answer—he can see the answer in my teary eyes.

  “I’ve been doing this a long time, so don’t worry about me.”

  “I will always worry, Luke. Nothing you can ever say will ease my fears or change my thoughts on this.”

  He sighs and then stands up from the bed with my hands still in his and he smiles. “Sienna, you have to know that you’re important to me.” His hands grip mine more firmly with emphasis. “I never imagined I’d meet someone like you. I want you to be a part of my life. I want to share everything with you. Look, I understand completely why you can’t put yourself through this. But I know what I’m doing. I’m careful. I’m precise. And although I know there’s truly no such thing as a safe jump, I minimize all the risks by taking the safety measures that I take.”

  “But you could die doing this, Luke. At the end of the day, safety measures or not, you could die.”

  “I could die walking out the door, babe,” he says with emphasis, squeezing my hands. “Death can happen at any moment. Life is finite, Sienna. The one thing we’re all destined to do, no matter what, is die. I don’t want to be someone always afraid of it. I want to live what life I have left to the fullest and have as much fun as I can while doing it.” His eyes soften on me, his head tilting thoughtfully to one side. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  No you won’t, Luke. Nothing you can ever say …

  I want to say these things to him aloud, but I can’t. I can’t because I know Luke is still in a place where guilt and redemption have such a strong hold on him that it will take much more than my words to convince him of it. This he has to do on his own. This he has to realize on his own.

  I look away.

  “I … I just can’t do this.”

  His hands fall away from mine.

  “I’m not giving you an ultimatum, Luke. That’s not the kind of person I am. And even if you said to me right now that you’d give up BASE jumping to be with me, I wouldn’t change my mind. I wouldn’t because I know you can’t ask someone to give up something they love. Ultimatums come with consequences. And resentment. You might be happy with me for a little while, but sooner or later you’d miss what you gave up to be with me, and then you’d resent me for it.”

  Luke takes a step back and puts up his hand. He shakes his head, looking downward at the floor, struggling to find words.

  Then he looks at me.

  “Sienna, please don’t say that.” A knot moves down the center of his throat. He takes a deep breath as if to compose himself. “Don’t say you wouldn’t change your mind either way—that means you’re giving up on us.”

  “No, Luke, it—”

  He moves toward me, cupping my face in the palms of his hands. Seeing the devastation in his eyes feels like a fist is collapsing around my heart, another one about my throat, choking me to death slowly.

  “I want you to be in my life, Sienna.” His hands tighten against my cheeks. “Before you, my brother was my life—”

  “And I said I can’t replace him,” I remind him. “Luke … I know you’re not doing it on purpose; I know with all my heart that you don’t see what you’re doing, but—”

  “What am I doing, Sienna?” He looks wounded—it kills me inside.

  I swallow hard.

  “Instead of making peace with yourself,” I say, my hands trembling, “you’re ignoring what happened, ignoring the pain, the guilt you feel, and using me to forget about it—Luke, you have to face this.” I lower my eyes, sniffling back the tears. “And I wish I could help you—I want that more than anything—but I can’t do for you what you have to do for yourself, all on your own.” I just hope he understands.

  He looks away.

  Finally I say
, “I think it’s best we just go our separate ways.” I swallow down my tears—it’s so hard to say these things without breaking down in a weeping mess. Because I don’t want to say them—I want to be with him.

  His face falls, the sudden surge of determination becoming devastation in an instant.

  Then suddenly he rounds his chin as if to gather himself, and his expression shifts to something more casual, but to me it feels like denial. He nods a few times, licking the dryness from his lips.

  Then he looks me in the eyes, takes a deep breath, and says, “I’ll prove it to you then. After Norway, I’m not jumping anymore. I will give it up for you. And I’ll wait for you, Sienna.”

  Shaking my head, I take a step to the side and away from him; his hands slide away from my elbows.

  “I told you … it can’t be like that.” I stop with my back to him, my arms crossed tight over my chest. I can’t look at anything but the floor. And I treat this as if his answer were true, that he’s jumping for the right reasons—there’s no other way I can treat it at this point. “This is your life, Luke. It was your life long before you met me.” I turn to face him. “I’m not going to take you away from your life, from your friends, your passions. I won’t be the cause of that.”

  “Norway will be my last jump,” he repeats, growing more desperate, more hurt. Then he steps up to me again, cupping my cheeks within his large hands. “I’ll leave you alone and I’ll wait for you to come to me. I’ll let it be your choice to come back to me, but if you do, if you decide a year from now that you want to be in my life, you’ll see that I’m still here and I was yours the whole time we were apart.”

  Tears tumble down my cheeks, my lips quiver, and my hands tremble down at my sides.

  He presses his warm lips against my forehead.

  “I don’t know what else to say other than I’ll wait for you.”

  I want to fall into his arms, but I don’t.

  I want to throw my beliefs and my code out the window and embrace consequence. I want to forget about what my conscience is telling me and listen only to my heart.