Six Days: Book One in the SIX Series

by Randileigh Kennedy

  “Mallory,” I said inquisitively, “any chance this is yours?”

  Mallory chuckled. “Of course it isn’t mine, Addie. I don’t have anything that mysterious or interesting going on in my life,” she said, smiling at me. She climbed into the car.

  As we drove home, I opened the box. Inside was a pair of pink square shaped goggles.

  “Wow, so are you guys welding stuff tomorrow?” Mallory asked, snickering with amusement.

  I pulled out the note card from the bottom of the box.

  Day 5: Fly with me, Addie. Please trust me.

  It’s a good thing I had a few glasses of wine in me, otherwise I would have likely passed out from a message like that. Fly? What could that be a metaphor for?

  I put the goggles and the note card back in the box, smiling the rest of the way home.

  Chapter 11

  As usual, Griffin arrived promptly at eight-thirty a.m. I elected to wear yoga capris and some sturdy shoes again, since Griffin’s adventures seemed to take place in the great outdoors. This adventure was proving to look the same as we drove higher up into the hills. The mountains were thick with trees and I wondered where he was taking me.

  “So you’re not going to tell me anything?” I mused, wondering why Griffin had given me such few details about the day.

  “So last night was the first time in a really long time I’ve played in front of a group of people,” Griffin began. “But it was actually the first time I’ve played in front of a room full of people I knew.”

  “Are you trying to change the subject?” I interrupted, throwing up my hands and smiling.

  “No, just trying to explain my motive for today. It was never really a big deal for me to play in front of people I didn’t know, I could do that anywhere. I really didn’t even get nervous about it,” Griffin continued. “But last night, having to sing my songs in front of a bunch of people that care about me, it completely freaked me out. But I knew it would be a good thing to do, like character building as my mother would say, right? Something that makes you nervous, but it’s good for you to get over your nerves.”

  I nodded, still unsure of where he was going with all of this.

  “So today, I know this adventure is going to be really out there for you. But you can trust me Addie, I promise. Just say yes.” Griffin looked at me with his deep eyes and long lashes, and I couldn’t imagine any other response.

  “Yes,” I replied softly. “I trust you.”

  “Good. At least it’s not bungee jumping, right? I’ll stick to my word on that,” Griffin said with a big grin. “Just promise me you won’t be mad about this one, okay?”

  “Griffin, you’re freaking me out now. What on earth do you have planned?” I paused, thinking for a moment. “Shit, we’re not getting in a plane, are we? These goggles, they aren’t little plane goggles, right? Like John Denver-killing little plane goggles?” My voice sounded shaky. Griffin just laughed.

  “Oh how John Denver has ruined you, Addie,” Griffin said laughing, pulling the car into a small gravel lot next to a dirt trail. “So here’s the deal, we’re heading almost two miles up the path, but it isn’t too steep. Are you ready?”

  “So we’re just going for a hike?” I asked, stepping out of the car. My nerves were calmed by the fact that we weren’t anywhere near a place where a plane could land, so that must not be it.

  “Something like that,” Griffin said, leading me up the trail.

  The hike was a little more exhausting than I would have imagined, but I guess the last month or so that I had spent in a bakery five to seven days a week wasn’t doing anything for my endurance. As we reached the top of the trail, I gasped. Sitting on top of the hill rested two very large, very fluorescent sails of some sort.

  “Griffin, what is that? What are we…” I struggled to form a complete sentence, instinctively stepping back a few feet out of fear.

  “Have you ever been hang gliding before?” Griffin asked, reaching for my hand.

  “No, has anyone ever been hang gliding before? Griffin, this is so much worse than bungee jumping!” I shrieked, starting to panic.

  “I’ve done it, twice actually. Addie, it is the most amazing feeling,” Griffin said, taking another step towards me with his outstretched hand. “This is a beginner course, I promise. Look.” Griffin led me to the edge and pointed below, out in the distance, to a large pasture area. “It’s nothing but a large, grassy field, right?” he asked softly. I didn’t know how to respond. “And you’ll have an instructor with you who knows what he’s doing,” Griffin added, motioning to one of the guys all strapped up with gear standing next to one of the gliders. “It’s completely safe. You literally just glide down onto the field. It’s only a few thousand feet.”

  “Oh good, it’s only a few thousand feet. That seems like a normal distance to plunge down to my imminent death, sure,” I said sarcastically. I looked over at the man wearing all of the equipment and he nodded, confirming everything Griffin was saying to me.

  “Griffin,” I pleaded. “You said I got seven days of adventure. Why are you trying to kill me on day five? This is a crazy thing to do. How is this even on your radar of things to do in life?”

  “I know, it’s a little crazy. But I’m telling you Addie, it is the most exhilarating feeling you will ever feel. There’s nothing else like it, nothing. I will promise you the whole world that nothing will happen to you. You’ll be safe. There is no way I would let you do this if I had any doubt whatsoever about that, Addie.” Griffin paused. “Please?”

  I stared at him. How could this man, so sensitive and so sweet one moment, really be asking me to jump off a cliff with some nylon wings attached to my back? It seemed absolutely crazy. You know how there is good crazy, and then there’s bad crazy? Well this was some whole new kind of crazy. Who just jumps off a mountain? Then, in that exact moment, my mind flashed back to Ardell and the nine year old me.

  “These wings will keep you safe, Adelaide,” Ardell had told me. “You have to know that everything that’s happened to you is over. You are free. You will never again be tied to this life. When you’re ready, you can just… fly. Anywhere. Be anything, do anything. You can now know that when life throws something at you, you have two choices. Either you can’t move on from the life you’ve had and that becomes you. Or, you jump. Into a new life. You just let go of the anger, and the hurt, and the abandonment, and you choose freedom. A life free from everything you know. I truly believe that these wings will follow you somewhere big, Adelaide. Somewhere where you can finally make the choice to become what you were intended to be.”

  My focus turned back to Griffin. “Yes,” I said softly.

  “Yes?” he repeated, sounding a little shocked. “You’ll do it?”

  “Yes. I’ve never done, well, really anything for myself. I’ve just been existing. I watch you, and you’re so, well, alive and carefree. I’ve been afraid of that my whole life. Granted, I’m not saying I feel good about this decision per se. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to jump off a perfectly safe mountain. But I don’t know, you and all your friends talk about all of these experiences you’ve had. All the places you’ve gone, the things you’ve done. My story doesn’t have a lot to it. Nothing good, anyway. I finally get the point of you trying to encourage me to make more spontaneous decisions. So, either I die jumping off a cliff and it’s the perfect dramatic ending to my existence thus far, or, I actually live, literally and perhaps a little bit figuratively. I’ll do it.”

  Griffin nodded and squealed. He squeezed my hand and motioned for the instructor to come and get us ready. He beamed with excitement, but seemed in a hurry to get me strapped up to the equipment. I imagine Griffin’s urgency was likely due to his fear of me changing my mind.

  The instructor walked me through the drill. He explained all of the equipment and told me what to expect. I was relieved to know he had a backup parachute in case of any mishaps. Once everything was set up and ready to go, the instructor looked a
t me for confirmation I was ready.

  “You promised, Ardell,” I muttered under my breath. I pulled on my pink goggles and gave the instructor a thumbs up.

  Griffin blew me a kiss and flashed a sly smile. Somehow, in that exact moment, jumping off a cliff actually felt right.

  Seconds later, my feet left the ground. Nothing could have prepared me for the feeling that followed. I never would have imagined the serenity of soaring through the sky. The earth below seemed surprisingly more beautiful than I ever recalled it to be, and the wind in my face felt like a rebirth, as if I was shedding the ability to ever feel fear. It felt so pure, as if soaring through the sky was a natural experience for a human.

  Just as the instructor explained in the beginning, we glided down onto the grassy field. It was a little rushed at first, until we got our footing. Once we came to a stop the instructor began releasing me from all the straps, and I thanked him profusely. I tipped my head back and raised my arms to the sky. The world somehow felt different.

  Within a few minutes Griffin had landed too, and the look on his face mirrored mine. Once he was released he casually walked towards me, sauntering, as if he needed to look even sexier than he already did.

  “Griffin, I don’t even know what to say,” I gushed. “That was incredible!”

  Griffin grabbed my hand and squeezed it. He didn’t let it go.

  “The Jeep will take you back to your car. Thanks a lot, Griffin,” one of the crew members in the field stated. “I hope you both enjoyed your flight today.”

  Griffin and I thanked everyone and climbed into the Jeep they had waiting for us. He still didn’t release my hand, and I certainly didn’t want him to. We rode back to Griffin’s car in silence, still reveling in the exhilaration from our experience. Or, maybe it was the exhilaration of his hand entwined with mine, I wasn’t sure.

  Once we got back to Griffin’s car, we loaded in and Griffin again grabbed my hand. We rode that way down the mountain, recounting how amazing it was, and how big of a rush it was to jump. He spoke about it as whimsically as I did, even though he had done it all before, which made me smile. His phone rang a couple times as we drove down the mountain, but he ignored it.

  “So, your songs last night,” I said, changing the subject, “you wrote all of those?” I was eager to know more about them.

  “Yeah, I write a lot,” Griffin answered, looking a little shy. I liked that about him. “It’s always been easier to write about what’s in my head rather than talking about it, I guess.”

  “So some of those songs, are they about a particular person? A girl maybe?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant about it, though I was clearly prying for information.

  “A few of them, yeah. No one in particular now though, I wrote some of those years ago. Some of them aren’t even about a girl even though it may sound like it. A few of my songs are about my father. Those ones are a little angrier if you can imagine that. Some are about my grandfather too. It was rough on me after he passed, so I wrote a lot after that. I suppose some of the themes sound the same even though they are about different people. Leaving kind of sounds the same no matter who it is, I guess.”

  Griffin’s words resonated with me more than he probably knew.

  “Honestly I write about everything, life, sometimes even about my friends. That kind of thing,” he said, shrugging.

  “So you’re saying you could write a song for me sometime?” I asked, amused at the thought.

  “No, probably not,” he replied with a sly smile.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked with a confused expression on my face.

  “Because most of my songs are sad, and I guess you just don’t really make me feel that way,” he said nervously.

  Griffin’s phone rang again for the fourth time in a row.

  “I am so sorry, Addie, but it’s my dad. He keeps calling, which is unlike him. It makes me think something is wrong. Do you mind?” Griffin asked politely.

  I shook my head no, smiling, knowing that nothing could sour this day.

  Within a minute of Griffin answering his phone, his mood turned serious. It sounded like his father was doing most of the talking, and his voice through the phone sounded angry. Griffin only uttered a few “yeahs” and “uh-huhs,” not saying much else.

  As we pulled in to my apartment complex, Griffin was still on the phone, looking annoyed and apologetic. He mouthed ‘sorry’ to me, and I could tell by the expression on his face that he meant it. His father’s tone on the other end sounded even angrier than when the call began.

  I pulled an old envelope and a pen out of my purse and scribbled a note on the back of it.

  ‘Thanks for making me jump off a cliff today. Call me later?’ the note read. I held it up for Griffin to see it. He smiled and nodded. I squeezed his hand and climbed out of the car, smiling all the way into my apartment.

  I took a long bath that afternoon, surprised at how tense and sore my body started to feel. Probably from all my muscles tightening as I jumped off a mountain today. A smile crossed my face as I again relived the experience in my head.

  By the time evening rolled around I made a sandwich for dinner. I checked my phone for the hundredth time that afternoon to see if Griffin had called. I was a little disappointed to see a blank screen. I cleaned up my apartment and did a little bit of laundry. I finally threw on a movie to take my mind off my silent phone, and I fell asleep somewhere during the last half of it. As I eventually made the walk from my couch to my bedroom, I looked up at the clock. Ten-thirty p.m. I checked my phone again, frustrated that I hadn’t missed any calls.

  Who just jumps off a mountain with someone, holds their hand for an hour, and then doesn’t call? I half smirked as I realized that sentence had probably never been uttered before, in life. Was I looking too much into this? I mean, if we were just friends, he wouldn’t have to call, right? But all the hand holding? That meant something, didn’t it? Damn, who am I, a 1950s movie? That had to be the last decade anyone lost any sleep over the idea of hand holding. I was a mess. I moped into my bedroom and fell asleep, slightly annoyed, but too exhausted to think of anything to do about it.

  Chapter 12

  The next morning I awoke to my phone ringing at seven twenty-five. I knocked my alarm clock off the table, thinking that’s where the noise was coming from. In my sleepy haze, I struggled to answer the phone on the fourth ring.

  “Addie? I’m so sorry to wake you. I thought you might be up already, or maybe even at the bakery,” Griffin’s voice said on the other end. I quickly sat up, realizing I was likely going to be late meeting Mallory this morning at the shop. That was very out of character for me.

  “Griffin!” I said, failing at trying to sound nonchalant. “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t call last night. I was at the office with my dad. There are some issues right now. Things are a mess. All of a sudden it was one in the morning, time just got away from me. I figured you were sleeping,” he said, his voice sounding tired. “I’m really sorry, Addie, I meant to call. I wanted to see you. I actually drove by on my way home, just to see if there were any lights on, but your place was dark.”

  “Yeah, I went to bed early. Don’t worry about it,” I replied, trying not to let him know how anxious I was to hear from him.

  “Well open up your door when you have a sec,” he said. I crawled out of bed and walked towards the door. “You’re spending most of the day at the bakery, right? I remember Mallory said you guys had a big day today,” Griffin said softly.

  “Yeah, I think I’m supposed to be there in about four minutes. I guess I forgot to set my alarm last night. We have a party to bake for and then we have an open house tomorrow afternoon, so I will probably have to be there until five or six,” I replied, hoping I would still get to see him later that evening.

  “Sounds perfect. I’m really looking forward to seeing you tonight, Addie. Remember to check your door,” he said again, then hung up.
>
  I immediately flung open my door. Sitting on the ground was a note tied with a bow around the stems of some beautiful pink Gerber daisies.

  Day 6: Star showers. Meet me at my place at 9 p.m.

  As usual, I was beaming after reading the note. My mind liked the words ‘shower’ and ‘Griffin’ in the same sentence. This note at least sounded more tame than the other activities we had been doing. I put the flowers in some water and quickly threw on some capris and a loose white shirt, thankful that I had at least washed my hair the night before. I headed over to the bakery.

  As I suspected, Mallory was already inside by the time I had arrived and she was turning on all the equipment.

  “Sorry I’m a few minutes late, Mal,” I said, shutting the door behind me.

  “Wow, Addie, you look well rested. That seems unlike you this week,” Mallory said in a teasing tone. “Unless it was one hell of a late night adventure and you’re still beaming from the high of it.”

  “Actually I fell asleep around nine o‘clock. So I feel wonderful, thank you for noticing,” I teased back. There was a long pause and I could tell Mallory wasn’t sure I was telling the truth.

  “I swear, Mal, I didn’t do anything last night. Griffin had to work so I just watched a movie and fell asleep,” I said, pulling out some bags of sugar and reaching for one of the mixers.

  “Well I have to say, Wednesday night, while Griffin was singing,” Mallory said, eyeing me, “you looked quite smitten, Adelaide.”

  I blushed. “I just, well, I don’t know what this thing with Griffin is, honestly,” I said, shaking my head. I told Mallory about our hang gliding experience and the ride home. “I just feel like I never know if I’m reading into this too much, you know? I mean, you guys are obviously all really close. I see how playful and endearing he is with you and Megan, so I usually think that he’s just that kind of guy, you know? Like just a good, honest, genuine, friendly guy. But then we have these moments, every time he touches me really, and I just feel this surge of electricity. I guess I just can’t decipher if maybe there’s more going on. I don’t know, do I sound crazy?”