Faking Christmas(43)
“Shut up.”
Now that I wasn’t fighting for my dignity, I took a few tentative steps onto the dock.
He settled in beside me, his shoulder brushing against mine as we both stared down into the dark abyss complete with chunks of floating ice.
“Why haven’t you jumped yet?” I asked. “I would have thought you’d be on round four by now.
“I don’t usually stop and think. I just do it. You made me stop, and now I’m thinking that this sounds like a terrible idea.”
“It is a terrible idea.”
He chuckled softly. “Big chicken.”
“I don't see you jumping in.”
“Your chicken-ness is rubbing off on me.”
“I’m helping you to see that there are other ways to enjoy life that don’t involve doing dumb things.”
A grin split across his face. “But I’ll bet you don't remember anything special about the nights you read your book until 9 pm and then went to bed.”
The cold was beginning to pierce through every part of my body.
“I’m living the dream,” I said, shivering with each word.
He held out his hand to me. “When’s the last time you had a chance to jump in a frozen lake with your good friend Miles?”
I snorted. “Who?”
“I’m not completely past the idea of pushing you in to get this over quicker.”
“Fine. I’ll jump. At this point, the water can’t be any colder than I am right now.”
“That’s optimistic.”
We counted down from three. When we got to one, Miles grabbed my hand and shouted, “Hold on tight!”
The snow-covered dock was a blur beneath us, and then we were falling.
FOURTEEN
"I knew you would do me good in some way, at some time--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you."
- Charlotte Bront? - Jane Eyre
It felt like a thousand needles jabbing every inch of my skin. When I came up for air, my mouth opened and closed like a gaping fish, but I couldn’t seem to catch a breath. The shock was too great upon my soft book-reading, coffee-drinking, movie-watching body. Miles grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the dock. I wasn’t sure how he was moving, because I had become a frozen statue.
His movements did seem slower, but he was able to lift himself out of the water before he turned back to me.
“Come here.”
“Is this what hypothermia feels like?” I asked through chattering lips. I attempted to heave my body out of the water—the keyword being attempted.
“Not yet, but you’ve got to move faster.” He leaned down further, hooked his hands underneath my armpits, and hauled me up and out of the water like I weighed nothing more than a sack of flour. Another point for his secret muscles. I hadn’t been aware that he had grabbed our towels and brought them with us, but suddenly, he was wrapping me in fluffy blue cotton and herding me back toward the hot tub.
“I’m…going to…kill you,” I sputtered. The fierce-sounding words in my brain came out as an incoherent gurgle of short breaths.
“What?” Miles asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as we hobbled up the snow-covered pathway together. “Did you just say you loved me? And after such a short time of dating, too. I’m surprised at you, Celery Stick.”
I couldn’t find the energy needed to push him away, so I allowed his body to press against my side as he propelled me forward.
Glenn was drying off with a towel next to the hot tub when our frozen limbs arrived.
“Well, I’m impressed you got her to jump,” he admitted, pulling a sweatshirt over his head. “You must be a better man than me.”
My teeth clattered almost violently as I brushed past Glenn to climb up the stairs. My body seemed to sizzle when I stepped into the heated tub and sank down with a deep sigh, allowing the hot water to cover my frozen limbs.
“She did it all on her own,” Miles stated generously as he climbed in after me, settling in across the hot tub from me.
Glenn snorted at that, not believing Miles any more than I did. He turned to go, giving us a halfhearted wave as he slunk out of sight.
Our chests were both heaving as our limbs began to thaw. My heartbeat ran rampant in my chest. I couldn’t believe I had done that. My mind was racing as fast as my heart. Glenn had been right when he said I wasn’t a daredevil, not even close, but—much to my surprise—I felt amazing right now.
The emotions and adrenaline zipping through my body at that exact moment needed an exit, somewhere to go, or else I would explode. I felt myself smile broadly. I had a hard time believing that the girl who jumped in the frozen pond (i.e., was basically held at gunpoint) was me. Now that it was over, and I had survived, and my ice-cube fingers and toes were beginning to regain feeling, a sense of wonder and pride overcame me. And then I did the last thing I ever expected to do in front of Miles. I tilted my head back, gazed up at the dark sky, and laughed.
And then I kept laughing. Like a certified maniac.
I felt like all the cool heroines in all the books I read who did daring things like it was no big deal. If there was a ladder, I’d walk across the ridge pole to show up Josie Pye. Give me a gun and a sleek car, and I think I could put up a good fight in a car chase. I imagined myself being an amazing, ultra-cool assassin who could make a sandwich at the same time I fended off an attack. Where the heck was Machu Picchu? As soon as I found out, I’d be on the first plane to climb it. I leaned my head back on the side of the hot tub and simply let myself live in the moment of pure, joyful, and unadulterated elation.