Moonlight kisses.
I never want to stop doing it. I want to raise my hands and bury my fingers in his hair, but I’m afraid to move. So, River holds me even tighter, like I might fall or disappear.
Suddenly, there’s something else in our kiss—something that doesn’t belong, something that makes me tense, but I don’t know what it is. It’s strong, too intense.
The slackline starts to wobble. River backs away, balancing himself with his arms, but that causes the slackline to sway even more. I pull my arms up abruptly.
“Head down, Kansas!” River shouts, and from my training, I know what he means. If you fall headfirst off the line, you won’t get tangled up in the leash. But I can’t voluntarily jump down head first. I instinctively make compensatory movements, even as I realize I can’t stay up.
River quickly lowers himself so that he is sitting astride the slackline.
“Catch, hold on to the line!” he shouts, but I’m already flying through the night as a thousand frightening thoughts run through my mind.
What if the knot gives way? What if the belt breaks? I don’t get any further because my thoughts are cut off by a hard yank of the rope. Helplessly, I dangle a body length below the slackline, bobbing up and down. For a moment, I hang in the safety harness in a daze.
The knots held. All is well. Nevertheless, my heart is pounding in my throat. All the magic vanished with the fall.
In the end, however, it wasn’t just magic. There was a feeling that scared me, something that didn’t fit.
Was it anger? Despair?
With trembling fingers, I reach for the leash.
River squints at me and lights a cigarette. “If I were mean, I’d leave you hanging there for the night,” he says, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs. “So you could think about how to fall next time.”
The line is still moving, and I’m bobbing in the night. I’m a bit concerned that the knot will come loose, and my elbow hurts.
River is now sitting on the line like it’s a swing, peering off into the distance. He seems completely absent.
I unsteadily wrap one leg around the safety line like River showed me, then pull myself up and use the other leg to steady myself with the leash. However, I don’t have enough strength and sink downward. I can’t get up alone.
River is still looking out over the dark forest as if he’s a million miles away. Resignedly, I remain hanging there and rest for a moment. Silence surrounds us. Even the crickets are no longer chirping. He’s probably regretting the kiss, while I still taste his lips on mine and wish he’d do it all night. Not like the second time, but like the first. Soft. Tender. Questioning.
The next time I try to pull myself up using the safety line, he grabs my arm and helps me up.
We sit together on the slackline and peer into the night. The mood is strange.
“Hey!” River takes my hand, which I’m clenching. “A fist disappears when you open it. You should do that more often. Let go. Fall… I don’t know why you’re silent, Kansas, but you seem to find it easier to stay out of life than to give it your voice.”
I look at him, and he looks back, serious and worried. The moon is shining. Is there more to my silence now than shyness and fear of speaking?
“Maybe you’re silent because you no longer have anything to say to life.”
I reach into the pocket of my shirt. Miraculously, the crane didn’t fall out when I fell. I hold it out to River.
“I regularly throw Jack and cigarette butts down,” he says with a grin.
I look at the ground. I no longer want to jump, so there’s no reason to drop the crane, but I do it anyway, and the night swallows it without a sound.
A little later, River dismantles the slackline, which looks incredibly complicated due to the many knots and the long line. I keep thinking about his statement about my silence. Do I refuse life and people because none of it is reliable? Because I prefer to stay alone so no one can leave me?
My gaze moves to River, who’s putting the backpack in the trunk of the Porsche. I involuntarily touch my lips.
Frozen peas, I think with a smile. Fried rice with chicken and frozen peas.
Just as River slams the trunk shut, car headlights flash in the distance. A car has turned off the highway onto the forest roadand is approaching quickly. Maybe it’s rangers who will yell at and fine us because, of course, it’s against the law to camp in the wilderness.
I reach for River’s cell phone, which he said I could use if my battery was dead, when I notice his eyes widen.
