“She’ll be okay,” Jay assures me. Somehow he ended up at my side.
I grab his arm. “She thinks you’re her insurance policy or something. Talk to her, Jay. Maybe she’ll listen to you.”
He chuckles, and there’s an intense light in his eyes, the gleam they used to get when he had an exciting secret. “The rest of you definitely shouldn’t go up there. But trust me, she can do it. And so can I.”
He starts to climb, fast as a spider scuttling up a wall, hands barely gripping the black stones before he’s reaching again, hauling his lithe body upward quickly, higher and higher. He’s already gaining on Jordan.
My fingers flutter to my mouth. “Show-off,” I whisper.
What if he falls? What if Jordan falls? I’ll lose two friends at once.
“He’s something, isn’t he?” Myrtle giggles, elbowing Catherine. “I could watch him climb all day.”
Tom grabs her hand roughly. “Let’s go find somewhere to cross.”
He drags Myrtle toward the pool beneath the falls, where large rocks create a path to the other side. McKee, Catherine, Nick, and Bek follow them. But I stand rooted, watching Jordan and Gatsby scale the cliff like a couple of free-climbing experts.
“I could climb it, too,” says a voice at my elbow. Myrtle’s brother, George. His face is flushed with heat and shame. “My sister never thinks I can do stuff.”
“Myrtle doesn’t know everything,” I say, barely listening.
“Right? She doesn’t know what I’m capable of. No one ever does.”
Part of me resonates with those words, on a deeper level than he could possibly know. I’m at a different stage of life than he is, but I feel just as frustrated, just as lost, just as desperate to discover my “thing” and prove my worth to the world.
“I’m sorry you feel like that.” I reach over and squeeze his shoulder for a second, and he blushes deeper. “But you don’t have to listen to your sister about everything. You should follow your instincts and be brave. Show people what you can do.”
I let my voice trail off as I spot Jay glancing down at me from high above, with a grin of wild glee on his face. He never used to be this athletic, and I’m not complaining, exactly, but I’m not sure I can have two daredevils among the people I love.
By watching this, I’m encouraging both of them.
“Risk your neck if you want,” I yell up to Jay. “But I don’t have to stand here and witness it.”
Deliberately I turn my back to the cliff and focus on the glitter of the sun-dappled pool and the frothy foam of the waterfall. Tom is showing off too, crowing about how fast he can spring from rock to rock across the pool.
I don’t want to attract his attention, so I walk a little farther downstream and occupy myself by tossing a few pebbles from the bank into the water, enjoying each satisfying plop. Then I pick out a different crossing for myself—a chain of smaller stones and a falling log that juts out from the opposite bank. I step to the first stone, spending only a second on its uneven surface before I move to a flatter rock with better footing.
It’s a struggle not to look back at the cliffside, to check on Jay and Jordan’s progress. Please be okay, please be okay…please reach the top safely… Oh god, and then they’ll have to come back down…
I hop to the next rock, watching the glossy flow of the water over the pebbled floor of the pool. Everything’s fine as long as I don’t hear anyone scream…
Screw it… I have to look back and check on them. I have to know they’re okay. I’m poised on a jutting stone, so I have to turn carefully or I’ll lose my balance.
Jay has just reached the top and is hauling himself up to stand next to Jordan…
And George Wilson is about halfway up the cliff.
Shit.
Did the kid think I was telling him to climb the cliff to prove himself, or to spite his sister? That’s not what I meant at all… I was giving life advice, not urging him to do something incredibly dangerous.
I’m too far away to try my persuasive voice on him. It requires a low, gentle tone, and he wouldn’t hear me from this distance. I want to yell at him to get down, but I’m petrified that a shout from me might startle him and make him lose his grip.
I clench both hands, my nails digging into my flesh in an agony of suspense. George isn’t as athletic as Jordan and Gatsby. He’s going to fall.
Myrtle is standing on the bank with her back to the cliff, pulling the heads off flowers. She gives me a scornful look. “What are you gawking at, Daisy?”
I can’t speak. I don’t dare.
Something in my face must tip her off, because she turns around. Sees her brother clinging to the rocks. Above him, on the lip of the cliff, Jay kneels, his arm extended, speaking words we can’t hear.
“That Gatsby is egging him on!” screeches Myrtle. “He’s going to get my brother killed! George Wilson, you get down from there this instant!”
Her shrill tone spears the humid quiet of the forest, slicing through the rush of the water.
George turns his head to look at her.
Misses a foothold.
Claws at the slick rock.
He bucks, flailing in panic, and peels away from the cliffside, his body arched like a falling angel.
I’m moving, yelling—bounding across the rocks to the bank—but it’s already too late, because the boy’s keening shriek ends with a wet, sick thud, a crack, and the hollow drumlike bounce of his skull off rock.
George lies several feet from me, his neck at a strange angle. His blue eyes mirror the sky, unblinking.
Myrtle screams, and I want to scream too, but her screams are sucking away all the air—I can barely inhale enough to stay clearheaded.
