[edit] i realize some of the formatting got messed up when i switched from my word doc to here, so, sorry bout that...
Prologue: Impact
I crawled out of our demolished 1999 Toyota Sienna, pushing away pieces of gnarled metal with my glass-imbedded hands. I felt something wet percolate between my eyes and I tried to remember if I was hit on the head. I must have missed it in the furor of it all. I wondered if I had a concussion. On the other side of the wreck I could hear my dad yelling my name. When I tried to call back I gargled with blood, for I had bit through my tongue at some point. The breathing started and I reached for my inhaler. Suddenly, an intense pain wracked my body as my leg hit the side of the oblique window I had been crawling though. The last thing I saw before passing out was the two and a half inches of bone sticking out the side of my leg.
I woke up in the hospital. My leg had some sort of material around it; I couldn’t tell if it was just a splint or a cast. It didn’t hurt excruciatingly like before, so I guessed I must have been given painkillers. My mom was sitting in a chair on the other end of the room. I tried to sit up but a new pain tinged in my back.
“Mom.” I spoke, timidly, arduously. She stood, startled, and rushed to my bed.
My mom was a very calm woman, usually. My childish views of her wonderful stability were broken when I saw her discontent. She shook as she moved and aged, scared eyes showed through a mess of brown hair. I could tell she was barely keeping things together.
“Oh, Jerry-boy,” She said, stroking my hair, “How are you feeling?”
“My leg hurts,” I quavered, “and my head...I think I'm okay though...I'm okay, right?” For a moment my mom had a glazed, tired look, but she shook it off.
“Yeah.” She assured me, “The doctor says that it was only a simple fracture. You cut up your hands and arms pretty good, scraped your head, too, but nothing needs stitches, and no concussion.” She touched my face, “I'm so glad you're okay.” She shook silently and her eyes watered up.
“What is it?” I asked. My mother stopped stroking my hair. She started to speak, but her throat clenched. She put her hand over her mouth and found her words again.
“It’s your dad.” She floundered, “He uh- He left.”
“What?” I spoke. Then my mother's speaking ailment was shuddered off, and she was able to speak freely again, yet she spoke quickly, as if she had tried to say it all in one breath but then added each sentence on without thinking.
“Well they say he called the police for the ambulance, but then he must have left because when they got there he was gone. But they said they didn’t think he could have gotten far because they thought he must have gotten hurt pretty bad by the looks of the car and the glass and the blood and everything. So the police are out searching for him because the other driver disappeared too and they say something might be up but they don=t know and he wont answer his cell phone and-” She stopped herself only when I reached for my inhaler.
"Oh Jerry I'm sorry!" She sobbed, breaking into tears. I was crying too, but I didn’t realize. "I didn’t mean to scare you."
"He just left" I said, timidly.
"We don't know."
I never saw my father again. That was nine years ago. I was seven.
Plummet
1.
There are moments in a guy's life that define him: his values, his personality, his lifestyle, his past, his future, and his dreams, all evaluated in one sweep. Sometimes these moments are in his control, and sometimes they aren’t. Now, the guy can chose if he wants to accept this moment, see it as his defining chance, or he can shut his eyes, wave it away, and pretend it isn’t happening. But knowing the general population of guys, shutting out these moments isn’t a possibility, because most of them are about girls.
The girl in my defining moment was Emily Jupiter Corman. She moved to Redmond City a month before school was out. She had stunning cardinal red hair and vivid brandeis blue eyes, she was provocatively smart, had a scurrilous sense of humor, and she was even a band geek.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I have yet to introduce myself! My name is Jeremy Sileis, nice to meet you. I am sixteen, and I’m in tenth grade. I have brown hair, green eyes, glasses, and I usually wear some sort of shirt and/or pants. Typical American teenager, that’s me. My friends say I’m very funny, so I guess that’s my greatest quality. Other than that, nothing about me strikes the idea of an “outsider” or an “over-achiever” or even a “weirdo.” I’m just plain old me. My main interests would probably be video games and music. I play piano and trumpet, which brings me to the next part in my story…
In middle school, my parents signed me up for jazz ensemble, which I hated at first, but ended up liking enough to take again and again until high school. I was second trumpet by the time I was in 10th grade, and proud of it, because I never thought I was really that good at playing the trumpet until jazz band.
There were two practices left before the end of school, but Emily joined anyway. It seemed like she was just pretending that school wasn’t going to be over soon, while everyone else was counting down the days. I reasoned that it must have been easier to adjust to the move that way.
She was stunningly good, and immediately placed at first chair. Yet she asked Mr. Jason, our band director, to move her down a few spots. I wondered if she was shy or just modest. I couldn’t tell.
Either way, there she was, at the second to last practice. I had talked to her before; she had asked for my history packets to take notes on what she missed. I sat with her at lunch, during that awkward transition period when she didn’t really have a ‘group’ that she belonged in yet. We had become friends, you could say, the type of friends who you hang out with at school, but you don’t go anywhere with them.
Jazz band ended, and we were cooped up in the entry room to Redmond West High. The other kids had driven home, given up and walked in the rain, or hitched a ride with their respective parents. No such luck for Emily and I though. She was refusing to walk home in the storm, and my mom wasn’t picking up the phone.
“Mom, answer your phone!” I said at the ring-ringing in my ear.
“No luck?” Emily asked. She was sitting against the wall, her backpack to her left, and her saxophone to her right. She held an open novel in one hand, and a lime Diet Coke in the other.
She was, simply put, very pretty. Her striking red hair was contrasted by her soft complexion. She had a kind of simple beauty to her, each feature attributing to the overall look, adding to each other’s brilliance with ease and comfort. She was wearing a white tee shirt that had the words “Whoa Dude” sprawled across in colorful retro-90s lettering, below that a pair of dark jeans, and green vans. Her outfit may not have matched, but she didn’t care. Her confidence shined though her like light though a filament. She operated every miniscule task with a certain assurance that made me jealous, not to mention embarrassed that I noticed such things. It was like she had some secret bond with the world and everything around her. By taking notice in that bond, it seemed that I might accidentally break it.
“Nope. She’s probably held over at work.” I replied, with an exaggerated unhappy face.
“Or, maybe she moved to the desert cause she’s sick of all the rain?” Emily suggested, with a stupid grin on her face.
I shrugged, and then jokingly replied, “that’s probably it.” After a moment of silence, my cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. “It’s her.” I said, and answered. “Mom?”
“Hey Jerry-Boy,” She said, using her pet name that I resented, “sorry I’m late, I had a…well, an unexpected appointment. I’m leaving now, I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Okay,” I replied, trying to hide my annoyance. My mom had a difficult job. She was an Emergency Psychiatrist, which meant she had to deal with things like suicide attempts, substance abuse, panic attacks, and crazy people. I knew enough to give her a break when it came to her job. I can’t even count all the horror stories: psychotic crack addicts taking a swing at her, alcoholics with knives, etc. But one thing’s for sure, she’s good at it, and that’s what counts.
“See you in fifteen then,” I spoke.
“Kay. Love you.”
“You too,” I replied, rolling my eyes at Emily. My mom said bye and we hung up.
“Looks like you’ve got a ride.” Emily said, smiling.
I asked, “You want us to take you home?”
“Nah, I’m good.” She refused, “Looks like its clearing up, anyway. I’ll just walk.” I asked if she was sure, and she said she was, so I left it at that.
I sat down to wait. After a few minutes, the rain stopped, just as Emily had said.
“Well there you go.” I said, looking outside.
“See you on Monday,” Emily said, packing up her stuff.
“Yeppers,” I replied, “have fun at your…thing.” She put on her backpack.
“It’s called…” She started, then mouthed the words to remember, and finally speaking, “The Tri-Annual Junior Big-Sister Two-K Fun-run Picnic Family Gathering.”
“Yeah, that.” I replied. She stuck out her tongue.
“Well, I will,” She said, “Thanks.” Emily Corman walked out the door, and was from then on fixated in my thoughts.
2.
The week passed uneventfully. So uneventful, in fact, that I realized its uneventful nature had become somewhat eventful. The bland taste of the week was only broken by my encounters with Emily, which seemed to both confuse and enlighten me. When I was with her I was back in middle school, just starting to realize girls weren’t icky but still confused about how to deal with them. I was cool, I was coy, I was suave, and I was terrified.
While the general girl thing was muddling enough, Emily was an enigma. She seemed to be giving me hints sometimes…She’d ask if I liked anybody, but she’d never talk about herself in that regard. She’d talk to other girls about me within earshot, and deny it when I confront her. I couldn’t figure out if she knew I liked her and was messing with me, or if she liked me and was feeling me out. Either way I was too dumbstruck to do anything about it.
She told me that her Tri-Annual-whatever-its-called had gone just fine, and her “Little Sister” Jennifer had run like a champ. According to Emily, her parents had signed her up for the Big-Sister thing because she was an only child and she needed more interaction, or something like that. Emily told me that she loved it right off the bat, and that her and Jennifer were inseparable for the entire first month.
As the week went on, the subtle hints (or were they hints?) became more and more frequent and I decided that I was going to put an end to it on Friday at band practice. One way or another, I thought to myself, I’ll figure this girl out.
That wasn’t as easy as I had hoped.
It wasn’t really what I was going to say that gave me trouble; it was saying it. I knew the words: ‘Emily, do you like me?’ or possibly ‘If it isn’t obvious already, I like you a lot.’ I knew the words by heart. They were easy. Putting the words into action? That was a different story.
We we’re walking home from band practice; my mom had an emergency at work and wouldn’t be home till six. Good thing for us, it wasn’t raining this time.
I knew this was my time to act. If I didn’t say something now, I’d have to dwell on it all weekend. Yet I couldn’t speak. My throat was stuck, unable to make words. Emily was quietly reading to herself, sometimes taking a sip from her lime Diet Coke. Our steps were the only sound heard through the rustling trees, windswept by the brisk June air. I forced myself to speak.
“Emily?” I started. She gave me a muffled ‘hm?’ with her eyes still on her book.
“I-” I started again. The quiet sounds of the afternoon were contrasted by the chaos in my head.
She stopped reading, “You wanted to ask me something?” She said, showing a coy smile that said ‘ask me, I dare ya.’ I stopped dead in my tracks like a deer caught in the headlights. Only the headlights were her knowing eyes and fixated smile.
“Never mind.” I said, simply.
“Aw, Jeremy Sileis. That’s no way to treat a lady.” She was playing with me again. Her use of my full name made my heart rate increase even more, to my amazement. Before I could reply, she spoke again, “I wanna show you something. Follow me.” She ran ahead to a spot in the old fence that followed the sidewalk. I caught up and found that somebody had pushed some of the boards aside so that one could get through to the woods beyond. She went in, and I followed.
Inside there was a lightly trodden pathway, barely visible though the shade of the trees. I struggled to catch up as Emily ran ahead. The veil of mysteriousness about her had me caught up in a never-ending struggle with myself. I was strung along without a choice, and somehow the simple act of telling her how I felt was out of the question.
At last we emerged from the forest. The pathway brought us out at a small clearing that abruptly ended at a cliff over Jason Lake. The view was magnificent from this secret cliff; the lake spanned out so far that the opposite shore was barely visible though the distant fog. Emily was sitting on the edge, her feet dangling over. She motioned for me to come closer. I complied, but cautiously, for heights was surely not a forte of mine. I looked over the rim to find a sheer drop, about fifty feet down, to the water.
“One time,” Emily spoke, staring out at the waves, “when I was really young, my grandpa took me to a cliff just like this back in Wisconsin, and he told me a story. He told me about how he was in the navy, and his drill sergeant would take them out to a cliff, and he would line them up so their back was to the water, right on the edge. He would yell ‘this is Cliff Fearless! Under my command, you are all fearless! You are fearless fighting machines!’ and so on. He would have them each fall backwards into the water to show that they were truly fearless. My grandpa told me that he couldn’t do it for a while, but eventually he did, and then whenever he was scared of something, he’d think of Cliff Fearless, and it would help him.
“I said I wanted to be fearless too, but I was too scared to drop. Every day I would go out there and try to drop, until I finally did it. When I did, all my fears about everything, school, growing up, friends, it all disappeared with the drop. It was the best thing I ever did.”
“Wow,” was all I could say, “that’s really cool.”
“Anyway, I found this cliff a few days after I moved here.” She got up, and took my hands, “turn around.”
“What?” I said dumbly, “No way!”
“Its okay,” she reassured me, “I’m not gonna make you drop or anything, and I wont let you fall.” I turned, not really thinking about much; a ringing pitch in my ears numbed my heart’s incessant pounding, and the chaos in my head just sort of died away. Emily said, “Close your eyes.” I did so.
The ringing fell silent and my chest pounded on full blast again. Her warm hands burned my wrists with their magnificence. I felt like nothing mattered any more; I could drop into the water for all I cared. All that mattered to me was Emily, and what she would do next.
“So,” she started, leaning in towards me. I could feel her hair against my forehead. Her soft breathing prickled my lips like a barely tangible breeze. I could hear the waves crashing against the shore below me like my emotions clashing in my brain; they had no regard for what they were doing, nor could they stop if they wanted to. After what seemed like a decade, Emily spoke, “Are you fearless?”
The increasingly intense chaos simply ceased to exist for a moment. In that moment, that defining moment, I leaned foreword and kissed Emily Corman.
I thought, Well…that solves my problem…
3.
It had been a long time since I had last kissed a girl: maybe two years or so. However long it was, I had long forgotten the sweet touch of a girl’s lips. Yet, with some skill that was awakened from its dormancy, I still remembered how.
After an initial moment of shock, Emily reciprocated the gesture. Her hands released my arms, one reaching around my waist, and the other holding the back of my head. We stepped away from the cliff and I wondered how long it had been since she had been kissed.
Her phone chirped. She pulled back, startled and blushing, as if she was taken over by some other force and had just regained control. She read the text.
“Its my dad.” She said, and then checked the time. “Oh crap! Jeremy, I gotta go. I was supposed to be home 15 minutes ago.” She brushed the hair out of her flustered face and put her cell back in her pocket. “I’ll text you later, okay?”
“Um,” I realized my face felt hot as well, “Okay.” With a final, awkward goodbye, Emily ran off.
On the way home, my phone buzzed with a new text. It was from Emily, and it said: ‘you’re a good kisser’ I replied ‘you too.’ I reached my house in a dumbfounded state. I was convinced something was wrong with the situation, and I was set on figuring out what it was…yet I couldn’t. I had kissed the one girl I had intense feelings for, and she had kissed me back. Was it that simple? It couldn’t be! Could it?
No matter what I did to keep my mind off her, my boyish mind kept on with its many doubts and backtrackings. Was she playing with me? Did she really like me? Did she expect me to kiss her? I had no answers, and there was no end to the questions.
Relief and excitement ran through me when she called me later that night. I quickly picked up my cell.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Jeremy,” She said, “I think something bad is happening.” My excitement was washed away.
“What?” I said, blandly, “What is it?”
“I can’t really…explain it…now,” she said, her ease and confidence lost as she struggled to find words, “But I’m afraid I might have brought you into a very bad situation.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my breathing quickened by adrenaline’s sharp tinge, “What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain it all to you soon.” She assured me, “But you need to leave your house now.” Adrenaline washed though me again.
“Where should I go?” I asked, haste and worry spreading though me like a sugar rush.
“Meet me at the cliff.” She said, then after a pause, “Jeremy, I need to go. You’ve got to hurry.” She hung up.
“Mom!” I yelled upstairs, “I’m going for a walk!”
“At seven on a Friday?” My mom yelled back, with a tone that said ‘what a weirdo,’ “Have fun I guess!” Startled and quite confused, I ran for the cliff.
Finding the opening in the fence was hard, for the sunlight was diminishing. After I did so, I ran though the woods to the cliff. I saw Emily, waiting by the cliff’s edge. She looked tired, shaken, and scared. As I approached her I could see a long, thin cut under her left eye, fresh and bleeding. She had a bruise on her right cheek.
Exhausted and out of breath, I spoke, “Emily, what’s going on? What are we doing here?”
“Some bad people are after me.” She said, also out of breath, “They know about you, about us. I’m sorry, Jerry. We’ve got to go now.”
I stammered, “I-- But where?”
She smiled, actually smiled, and said, “Cliff fearless, remember?”
“No way,” I started, “no way…” She took my hand, and led me to the edge. We stood with our backs to the water. “I cant, I cant, I cant…” I mumbled to myself, “I can’t do this…”
“Yes you can,” She reassured me, “You are fearless.” The dim light of approaching flashlights shone through the trees and I could hear several figures moving about. “Jeremy, they’re coming. We’re gonna drop on three, okay?”
“O-kay.” I stuttered. She squeezed my hand.
“One…” the rustling grew louder, “Two…” I could see two figures about to emerge into the clearing, “Three!”
Before I knew what I was doing, I fell backwards off the cliff…
…And landed somewhere else entirely.
