Chance watched from the tree line, and felt more distance than the hundred yards between them. Brothers, he thought. What could be closer? They would smile at times, and looked normal when nothing was normal. Jason. Detective French. It didn’t matter. People asked Chance if he was okay, and each time, he did the same thing. He nodded and said yes; but the sun was rising, and he was in the dark.
When Gibby and Jason returned to the trailhead, Chance stood quickly and awkwardly. “Um, does anybody mind if I stay up here for a few more minutes?”
“Here? Why?”
“I don’t know, Gibs. The view. The quiet.” Some of that darkness came out in his voice, so he dialed it down the best he could. “Look, it’s been a rough couple days and one hell of a night. Can you give me a minute?”
Gibby’s dad nodded as if he understood. “We all have things to think about. Take your time. We’ll wait at the car.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Chance watched them file down the trail, and disappear into the trees. When he was alone, he stepped to the edge of the cliff, and looked down. Wind rose up the stone, cool on the sweat of his face. How many times had he stood here? Not at the very edge, not like this …
Chance hung his toes over the drop, and leaned out to that … exact … point.
He’d always been so afraid of the cliff, even when it was Gibby at the edge. Each time he talked of diving. When he tried to find the will to do it.
Chance was tired of being afraid.
Last night, he’d been afraid, but not all the time. He’d helped them escape, and had been a few steps back when Gibby charged the gun.
Maybe it could be more like that.
Or had he followed Gibby on instinct? That was the pattern of his life, and the thought that wouldn’t die.
Was he a follower?
A coward?
Chance stared across the water, and then down, a young man at the top of the world. He felt a hundred different fears: the fear of war and mutilation, of falling now, just now, or of diving wrong, and breaking. He feared his friend might not forgive him, that the wound would fester and that the cracks ran all the way through. Most of all, he feared whatever life waited at the bottom of the trail, the future if he walked instead of dove, the man he might become. That was the devil inside, a demon with a face as familiar-soft as Chance’s own. Maybe it was fate that brought him to this place, or fate that people called it the Devil’s Ledge.
Four seconds to the water.
Four seconds to know.
Chance spread his arms and counted to three.
He bent at the knees.
He rose.