It’s a hot day in Montana, so the falls are packed.
I continue gazing, waiting for Martina to resurface as my heart rate needlessly quickens. She’s done this jump hundreds of times, and it appears none of them have resulted in disaster so far. There’s no logical reason for Martina to have any trouble this time around, but as I stare down at the reflective surface below, I can’t help the tiny seed of fear that blossoms at the pit of my stomach.
For some reason I’ve found myself caring a lot about how things turn out for her. It feels, in a word, weird.
A wave of relief pulses through my body as Martina breaks the surface, taking in a big gulp of air and instinctively whipping her red hair from side to side. She begins swimming gracefully across the water, making her way to the shore.
From up here I can see her body move in a completely new light, propelling forward with majestic elegance. She looks like a frog as she kicks her legs, but that comparison sounds brash and awkward, while Martina is nothing of the sort.
“You gonna give it a shot?” a voice abruptly questions from behind, breaking my focus and causing a startled breath to catch in my throat.
I turn around to find my friend Isaiah, his shirtless body already deeply tanned in the afternoon sun. His hair is still wet from the last leap, and I have no doubt he’d love to make another running launch off this cliffside. However, Isaiah has taken a moment away from his own madcap antics to nurture my growth as a future daredevil.
“I was thinking about it,” I admit.
Isaiah cracks a smile. “It’s not as hard as it looks. I mean, we’re only thirty feet up. You’re not gonna die.”
“People died while jumping here in 1977, 1980, and 2016,” I inform him. “So … it’s possible.”
“Oh,” Isaiah replies, his enthusiasm abruptly deflating. He narrows his eyes as a confused expression crosses his face, suddenly confronted by an unexpected kernel of self-doubt.
The average speed of a dive is fifteen feet per second. Therefore, a swimming hole between ten and fifteen feet deep could paralyze you in less than a second.
I don’t mention this.
“You’re still not going to die,” I assure him. “The chances of fatal injury are phenomenally low. If you want to increase your survival odds, just make sure you jump feet first. Never dive.”
Isaiah nods along as I pull him back into mental alignment.
“Plus, God’s watching over you,” I continue.
Isaiah smiles a toothy, all-American grin. My friend reaches out and places a hand on my shoulder in a gesture of reassurance, lingering there a little longer than I might’ve expected. “Amen.”
Finally, I let out an awkward laugh and my friend removes his hand.
“Let’s see it, then,” Isaiah says, nodding toward the cliff’s edge. “What you got, Rose?”
Isaiah backs away and motions for the other kids up here to clear a path. They’re waiting and watching now, their eyes trained on me in anticipation of the leap to come.
Nine out of ten accidents occur when people are playing near the water’s edge, not when they’re focused on jumping in.
I pull off my long dress and toss it to the side, revealing the most decidedly modest black one-piece I could find online. Unlike Martina, however, I’m not yet comfortable enough to flip myself into oblivion without a good look below.
I know I’ll be fine, that most of the danger here is nothing but an illusion, but my brain understanding this is one thing and my body appropriately reacting is another. My heart is slamming hard within my chest, thundering away as a sizzling hot tingle makes its way across my skin.
This is your fight-or-flight response. Your sympathetic nervous system is releasing catecholamines and making you hyperaware of your surroundings.
The solution, of course, is grounding and prayer.
I spend a moment observing the scene around me, taking in faces on every side of the watering hole. Across the way, on the opposite cliff, even more of my peers watch with excitement and anticipation.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?
Some people come here to jump, others just wanna be a part of something. As the school year comes to an end and we all prepare to leap from our own metaphorical cliffs into adulthood, it’s easy to get restless. We’re all pretending it’s midsummer and we’re finally free, despite the fact that tomorrow we’ll be right back to the Monday grind.
I get the distinct feeling I’m living in what will someday be a fond memory.
With that, I command my foot to take its first step toward the edge.
My body refuses to move.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation,” I repeat. I take a deep breath and center myself once more, focused on compelling my body forward.
Still, nothing.
I remain motionless, staring out at a sea of classmates on the opposite cliffside while they gaze back at this curious standoff between mind and body.
“It’s not so bad once you start running,” Isaiah says from behind. “Once you reach the edge, the hard part is over.”
His words are kind, and I appreciate this vote of confidence, but in a practical sense it does absolutely nothing. I’m displaying textbook freezing behavior, and Isaiah has no more control over my basolateral amygdala than I do.
Suddenly, another familiar voice chimes in, hooting like a baseball coach from the dugout. “Let’s go, Rose!”
I glance over to find Martina has already climbed back up, soaking wet with a towel wrapped tightly around her body. Our eyes meet and she smiles warmly, immediately melting away the anxiety and fear that had paralyzed me with its icy grip. She winks.
I grin back, basking in this feeling for a moment, then return my focus to the cliff.
Feeling renewed, I prepare a third attempt to compel myself forward, but before I get the chance my gaze falls onto something strange across the ravine. The other side of the cliffs is fairly close, some forty feet across with a small waterfall carving its way down the middle in a never-ending cascade. Fellow classmates in their colorful swimwear line the opposite edge, but tucked back into the forest is another figure that watches with stoic intensity.
I squint a bit, struggling to parse whether my eyes are playing tricks on me through the shady wood.
A frighteningly pale woman is standing in the forest, her hair long and black as it hangs limply over her face and around her bony shoulders. It appears she’s staring directly at me, but it’s difficult to tell because her eyes lack irises or pupils. They’re solid white globes.
The woman is smiling, her expression frozen and her teeth unusually stained with dark brown and black smears. The teeth themselves are crooked and long, as though her gums have receded to provide an unnatural length.
Yet despite all of this, the strangest thing about the woman’s appearance is what she’s wearing. She sports a deep red polo shirt with a stark white name tag pinned to the chest. It’s the kind of top you’d expect to see worn by someone arriving to fix your wireless internet or telling you which aisle to check at a department store. She also wears a thick metal band around her neck, pulled tight like a collar, and khaki pants.
“Uh … do you see that?” I question, whispering to Isaiah as my gaze remains fixed on the woman in the woods.