Ezra and I arrived at the waterfall shortly after Ruby and Kai, thankfully before she started undressing. We stood at the top of what looked like a ten- to twelve-foot waterfall cascading into a deep blue pool of water roughly fifty feet wide and thirty feet long and half surrounded by a rust-colored beach that met bits of nature that climbed up a steep hill. The pool fed into a ravine through a small crevice on the opposite side where a rock face surrounded the other half of the pool and shot straight up to where we stood near the waterfall’s edge, similar to The Narrows in Zion. The water fell aggressively enough to churn the base, creating a gorgeous repercussion against the rock face. The water foamed and frothed where the fall met the calm. I itched to jump in.
It was a sight for the ears as well as a sight for the eyes. Ezra bent forward toward me, and my belly felt much like the stirring water below. “Unbelievably beautiful,” Ezra commented in my ear.
I felt like I’d swallowed my tongue and so nodded my answer.
Ruby broke the moment in half with a happy girlish squeal, something I knew boys found attractive if Kai’s reaction meant anything, but could never bring myself to duplicate.
“Oh my God! Let’s get in!” she yelled over the deluge, reaching under her shirt for her bra clasp.
I grabbed Ezra’s arm, confident in my triumph, but she threw a wrench in my short-lived victory by simultaneously toeing the heel of a sandal. We both braced ourselves. It would be a race to the finish. With one shoe gone, she threaded her arm through the loop of her arm strap as she shoved the heel of her other sandal off and, much to my dismay, kicked it off to the side before she even got the other arm through.
“No!” I shouted at the sky, then fell to my knees. Goodbye, Colonel Brandon monologue!
Ezra could not stop laughing at me as Ruby jumped over the drop. Silly Kai shoved his shirt off his head and joined her, shouting something as he fell.
“You won!” I cried out.
Ezra bent over me, holding out his hand. I took it and he pulled me so quickly up to his side, my head swam. An unsubtle reminder of how strong he was.
“Shall we?” he asked, gesturing toward the falls.
I bent to unlace my boots and tugged them off, walking a bit to tuck them into the V of a low tree. Without thinking, I ran straight for the edge of the falls, past a surprised-looking Ezra, and tossed myself over, turning toward him at the last second to catch an expression of wonder and something liken to amazement. I winked as I disappeared behind the mantle and over the brink, in every sense of the expression.
The fall was exhilarating. Three seconds of pure adrenaline, free falling to the sound of rushing water, and suddenly I couldn’t remember a moment before that one, at least not with the same eyes. It was as if the look on Ezra’s face started everything new again. No one had looked at me like that before. It felt so final, so adult, like a line drawn in sand, but heated to an impossible temperature, and solidified into glass. A once malleable life calcified into two definite pieces composed of “what was before” and “what was after.” No longer was I Jupiter Corey, daughter, sister, child. I was Jupiter Corey, adult, with adult thoughts and adult feelings.
I blasted through the cool water feet first and my body felt paralyzed for a moment. I wasn’t prepared for the cool temperature, but quickly shook the shock, bobbing to the surface with an involuntary shout, stupefied by newly open eyes, open ears, and an unexpectedly open life, the haze of girlhood somewhere at the bottom of that chilled pool. The possibilities were unexpectedly endless.
I’d surfaced in time to see Ezra tumbling off the edge of the falls down toward me, his arms and legs flailing to keep himself upright. His smile was infectious, and I found myself copying him. He shot through the water next to me, disappeared for half a minute, then popped up beside me, tossing his hair to the side to shake the water out of his eyes. He was utterly adorable. His expression was open and was one of pure happiness.
He swam nearer, his face a foot from mine. “Totally worth coming out here,” he said.
I looked around at my magical surroundings. “It’s pretty amazing.”
“Come on, guys!” Kai yelled from the shore, making his way up the sloped nature path to jump once more.
Ruby was already at the top of the hill.
I turned back to Ezra. “Should we?”
Ezra looked around him back toward the falls. “No, not yet,” he said. “Come here.” He grabbed my arm and we waded over to the falls themselves.
He guided me around the falling water and up onto a little alcove buried behind the cascading water.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
We stood upon the ledge, the water echoing around us. Tiny, varying rivulets of water spilled down the alcove’s walls in a symphony of dripping song, the sound magnified by its secluded recess. It was a place where wondrously only two people in the world could exist at once. It was surreal, the stuff of literal dreams. I knew I would never forget that place, never forget the feeling I was experiencing, and who I was with for as long as I lived.
Ezra reached out his hand and caught the fall, interrupting its flawless veil for a mere moment, but it was a moment it would never get back again, frozen in those precious seconds despite its ability to immediately forget the brief intermission, because I was there to witness it, like we were influencing history forever in that tiny, dazzling, exclusive world.
“It’s seductive!” I yelled over the din of water.
Ezra shook his head, letting me know he hadn’t heard me. He edged closer and leaned his ear near my mouth. I swallowed, afraid to repeat myself in such an intimate way.
I tried to shrug it off as if it was nothing. Ezra stood, balanced himself next to me, gripped me by the shoulders, and bent his mouth to my ear. “Tell me,” he ordered.
I swallowed. “It-it’s seductive,” I told him.
He pulled away and his eyes met mine. He stared at me with the most serious expression and my heart raced, beating so harshly in my chest I was convinced he could hear it even over the cacophony. Finally, and with obviously great difficulty, he turned his gaze to the water and dropped his hands to his side.
Before I had the chance to feel my disappointment, he whipped his stare back toward me and mouthed something at me, but I couldn’t read his lips. He grabbed my shoulders and brought me in so closely my chest rested against his panting one. We were so close I could feel the heat of his breath on my face. His eyes searched my own for something and my blood pumped furiously once more through my head, chest, and stomach. His eyes betrayed a furious war battling within him. He’s going to kiss me, I thought. His hands raised to my hair and he ran them through its wet length, pulling it to the ends. The sensation of Ezra’s hands on my hair was more than I thought I could bear, until, that is, his fingers found the tops of my ears. Silently, he rubbed the tips between his thumb and index fingers, his eyes studying what he was doing as if he’d forgotten everything else around him. He closed his lids like he was memorizing the feel of my skin. I was learning the roughness of his fingertips, the temperature of his unbelievably powerful hands.
I felt like I could tip over at any moment. In a daze, I began to pitch forward, so I grabbed one of his forearms with a hand to steady myself. This startled him back to the present and he pulled away so quickly it left me stunned.
“What?” I asked, confused.
He shook his head and pointed toward the outside edge of the falls and guided me out, falling into the water without looking back, so I followed him, diving through, and coming out near the shore. He whipped out of the water so fast I couldn’t keep up.
“Ezra, wait!” I yelled, but he ignored me. “Wait!”
“Can’t,” he said, sounding a little desperate.
I fought to gain footing up the hill to follow the path. Being fully clothed and sopping wet didn’t help. By the time I reached the top, I was out of breath but ran after him anyway. “Ezra, jeez, calm down! Can you just stop?”
He was at least twenty feet away before he ceased walking, his head hung low, yet he didn’t turn around. He lifted his head, his hand brushed across the back of his neck. His hair clung everywhere his touch hadn’t disturbed.
“What did you say to me behind the falls?” I asked, advancing toward him.
I reached him. His jaw was clenched, his forehead pinched in frustration. His T-shirt plastered itself against his chest; his jeans hung on his hips.
“What did you say behind the falls, Ezra?”
“Get your boots, Jupiter.”
“No.”
He looked at me, narrowed his eyes. “Fine,” he said, turning toward the waterfall’s edge, straight for my shoes. I followed him closely.
“Tell me what you said back there and I’ll leave you alone about this. It’ll be like it never happened,” I told him.
He shook his head, his teeth clenched. I grabbed his arm, made him look at me. There was something in his expression. “Instant regret,” I whispered to no one, making my stomach drop to my feet.
I let go of his arm and sprinted up the incline to the tree that held my boots. Absently, I noticed Kai and Ruby weren’t anywhere around. I yanked the boots from their resting place, leaned against a nearby boulder, and shoved the shoes back on. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Get to your phone. Call Frankie. Get to your phone. Call Frankie. And don’t cry!
The hill was steep and in my manic state, I wasn’t being as careful as I should have. I slid, my hands catching on the rocks below. I saw the blood dripping before I felt it, but I ignored it. I spun around, desperate to find the first ribbon. I could have sworn it was right here, I thought.
“They ripped them off,” Ezra said quietly, shocking me. He was leaning against a tree at the bottom of the incline, dripping water to the earth below.
“Kai wouldn’t do that,” I told him.
“You’re right, he wouldn’t,” Ezra said, “but I’m guessing Ruby would. I’m also guessing she let him lead the way.”
Ezra glanced toward my hands. “Jesus, Jupiter. What happened?” he asked. Without hesitation, he tugged off his T-shirt, drained it by twisting it, then tore it in two. “Let me,” he said, gently taking one of my hands and examining it. “They’re covered in dirt.”
“Who cares,” I told him, feeling dejected.
He didn’t respond, only took me by the elbow and led me back to the pool, and made me dip my hands into the running water. Gently, he examined the cuts.
“Not too deep, but when we find the car, I’ve got an antibiotic ointment I want to put on them. This water isn’t stagnant, but I don’t want to run the risk.”
I’d had enough. “Just stop it.”
He looked at me. “Only trying to help.”
“Who cares about my damn hands? It’s just a few scrapes. We both know you’re avoiding addressing what happened in there,” I said, pointing at the falls.
He took one hand in his and wrapped a scrap of his damp T-shirt around my palm then did the same for the other.
“We need to find the car,” he said.
“And kick Ruby to the gosh damn curb.”
“Agreed.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Told you so.”
“Yes, you did,” he said maturely, avoiding the bait. I rolled my eyes.
“Do you have any idea where to go from here?” I asked.
“That way,” he said with such authority I believed him.
“Tell me what you said,” I ordered as we walked into the woods together.
“No.”
“Why not?”
He breathed deeply. “Because. Just no.”
“So you like ears,” I told him.
His face flamed bright red. “Please let this go.”
“I’ll let this go when you tell me what you said.”
“I will never tell you what I said.”
I raised a brow. “Then I will never let it go.”
“You like to torture me.”
I like to torture you?
“Whatever you said, why’d you say it then?” I asked, curious.
“Y-you do things to me, and I couldn’t fight it anymore,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck again.
I was shocked and flattered by this. Flattered because it was obvious now that he found me attractive. Shocked because I would never have been able to even remotely guess he struggled with anything where I was concerned.
He stopped, studied his surroundings, then picked back up again. I followed.
“What are you fighting, Ezra?” I asked him.
“Instinct.”
“Oh yeah? What does your instinct say?”
“Run,” he said, deflating me. Then my blood boiled.
“What bullshit!” I told him. “People follow their gut when their mind stops getting in their way.” I pointed to the waterfall several hundred yards behind us. “What you did back there, that was your true instinct. And now your mind is meddling where it doesn’t belong.”
I pushed forward ahead of him, not really caring if I was going the correct direction. Eventually I’d have to hit road and I’d follow it down to Ezra’s car, or a bus, whichever came first. I was determined. Determined, that is, until Ezra yanked me back toward the direction he was following.
“I’m not letting you walk off, Jupiter. Stick by my side. No matter how pissed you are at me.”
For several minutes, I stayed quiet, but then the silence began to irk me so, to keep myself from talking to Ezra, I began to hum, to keep me busy but also, hopefully, to irritate him. Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” spilled between my lips, softly at first, but picked up as the song progressed and I gained a little confidence. Soon I found myself engrossed in my little song, examining the world around me, and seriously determined to wipe my slate clean. Any lingering doubt I had in letting my crush go was settling within the walls of the waterfall alcove.
When I got to Chicago, I was going to leave a note for Ezra thanking him for the lift and would purchase a ticket to Seattle with the little money I had saved.