“Okay, well the only harness I’m interested in is the one you have in your hand. Give me the lowdown.” Shaking my head, grinning, I give her the basics of skydiving, the harness she’ll wear that attaches to my chest, and what I’ll expect of her when we’re in the air. I tell her what I will do and how everything will happen. It’s a step-by-step process that makes her more comfortable the more I speak, so I continue on, giving her details that are meaningless unless you do this on a regular basis. I keep talking as we walk toward the plane, a small flashlight lighting the pavement in front of us. She nods her head and asks questions every so often. A little v forms between her eyes when she’s deep in thought. Though I can’t see it through the black night, I know it’s there. The fact scares me, but I’m not harnessing it as power. I lied. It’s something completely different when it comes to her. Love. Love. Love. Love. That’s what my subconscious screams at me anytime I try to make sense of my feelings. When I agreed to not fall in love with her last night, it was easy. What I didn’t tell her was that I already was there, I love her.
The pilot has the engines running. He saw us approach from the hangar. It’s a smaller plane, not the bigger ones we use when we’re flying anywhere a long distance away. It will be harder for her to hear me when we are closer to the engine so before we board, I halt her, both my hands on her shoulders. The smaller lights on the plane illuminate her face. Grinning, I say, “You’re ready.” She nods, her face a mask of horror.
“I’m ready!” she shouts out. “If you were a serial killer this would be the perfect time to kill me!”
Tipping my head back I chuckle. “Serial killers are narcissistic. I’d never kill myself to kill a victim. That doesn’t make any sense. Come on!” I cup her face, lean down, and kiss her. My stomach tilts as my eyes meet hers. Her arms lock around my waist, under my harness. “Don’t fuck with my harness, Black Widow.” My joke quells her nerves, her smile more genuine as each second passes.
Both of our nerves steeled, we board the plane. I connect her harness to mine. Her back to my front and sit on the bench along the wall. She sits on my lap, her rapid pulse evident in her stomach where my hands are placed. The flight up to jumping altitude is the worst part. The pilot gives me a thumbs up once we’re where we’re supposed to be altitude and landing zone wise. There’s a lit field to the left of the airport we use for night jumps so we know where to safely land. I lean into Malena’s ear and tell her we’re going to walk to the door. She nods once.
The pilot gives me another signal that we’re good to go. This is it. The adrenaline hits again but different this time. A life is in my hands that is not my own. I have to go into business mode because it’s my autopilot and that’s where I perform perfectly. There’s no room for error right now. The cabin is lit so I check everything I can see.
“Toes on the edge,” I command, calling it loud enough for her to hear over the air and engines. With both hands on the sides of the hatch door and Malena’s tiny frame in front of me, completely at my mercy, I start the countdown. To keep her calmer, I count three and two in my head. “One,” I shout and launch us out of the door. Her scream pierces the darkness of night. I bet she doesn’t even realize she’s screaming. Once I adjust my arms and legs after the initial tumble from the aircraft, we’re steady. “Open your eyes!” I yell, using a deep tone she’ll be able to hear. I already told her that when I was explaining everything, but it’s the one thing most forget when they’re terrified. The ocean is visible off to the side, the bioluminescence lighting the deep ocean a neon blue. The landing zone is lit with lights, forming a circle. You can see the town from up here, the lights shining like little ants.
I move my arm methodically to check the altimeter on my wrist. We’re almost to the proper height to pull the chute. I don’t hear anything from Malena and I wish I could see her face, wish I could see if she was loving this as much as I do. There’s a freedom up here. A recognition of how small we really are in this big, wide world. How impossible is it that one person actually finds the other one they are meant for? How impossible it seems. Except, at this moment, that one human, is strapped to my chest. A part of me.
I pull the chute and silence follows, the wind of falling changes to a soft whooshing as we begin our descent under the chute. Malena’s giggles cut through the quiet.
“I’m not dead!” she squeals out. “Do you see that?” She points to the ocean, and then the town, and the horizon where we can see the next city over.
My hands are busy holding the toggles to control where we glide. “It’s beautiful,” I call out. “Remember what I said about landing. It’s the toughest part of tandem. Feet straight out in front of you. Just let me do the landing.”
Her reply is another burst of laughter. I pull the left handle hard to spin us toward the lighted landing zone, the spotlights surrounding the grassy circle like an alien spacecraft imprint.
“Brace,” I tell her. Her body tenses, and we glide into the center of the circle far faster than anyone ever expects. I try to protect my knees by waiting until the last possible moment to place my feet on land. It’s smooth. Easy. The way every landing is supposed to be. I unhook her from my chest as quickly as I can. She turns to look at me. The lights lighting her smile like she’s some Hollywood star on stage—ready to give her acceptance speech.
“I can’t believe you get to do that for work. That is so unfair.” She bends down and hops up and down, as if she’s testing the earth’s solidarity.
I grin. “Safe to say you enjoyed yourself. I love doing it at night. You can see so much. The lights are always amazing.”
“That was surreal,” Malena says, shaking her head. “Nothing will ever compare to that feeling. I…I…It was the greatest, the freest I’ve ever felt in my life. That view. The rush—falling.”
Her lips are still calling to me—shining in the dim glow. “I need to kiss you right now.”
“Because I love what you do for work?” Her brown eyes turn an amber color with the way the light is reflecting on them. Her white smile the shade of I’ll-never-fucking-shake-this-woman-in-a-lifetime.
This isn’t adrenaline I’m feeling. My breaths push through my mouth fast—harried, irrational. “No.” I shake my head.
Malena tilts her head to the side. “No?”
“I need to kiss you right now because I’m so fucking in love with you that I need your kiss to breathe.”
Her mouth pops open, and I take that as my sign from God. Taking her face into my hands, running my hands into her wind-blown hair, I press my lips to hers, my tongue taking hers, my heart pounding against hers. Her hands wind up and around my neck. It’s comforting.
I imagine what we look like from where we just were high up in the sky. A bird’s eye view of us kissing in the middle of this lit circle. All signs pointing to what is so now blatantly obvious to me. I love Malena. And I’ll love her for as long as she’ll let me. The kissing turns into a frenzy of tossed clothing and our bodies colliding. I make love to her on top of the parachute that guided us safely from the sky.
Her skin against mine is the only feeling I’ve ever craved in such a perilous degree. Like I may die if I go too long without being inside her. When Malena comes this time, she doesn’t call out my name, she whispers three sweet words into my ear. Over and over.
Over and over.
