Page 26 of Letting Go

This is my favorite jumping-off spot. Wriggling out of the pack, I turn to him and say, "Can you swim in those?"

Chapter Eight

Bryce

"They're cutoffs. Sure. But here?"

I'm slightly alarmed, there seems to be no easy access except over to the left. There's another path that opens onto a little sandy beach. "Let's go down there. There's gotta be a trail."

"Oh no," Chloe says, stepping out of her shorts and peeling off her T-shirt, "It's much better just to jump." She's in a black one-piece with a zipper down the middle. She's gorgeous.

I glance down. It's a good twenty, twenty-five-foot drop. "You're jumping into water, Chloe. You don't know what's below. There could be rocks or something hidden."

"It's crystal clear."

She's right. It's as if we're looking through glass. But there are huge boulders tumbled under the expanse of clear water.

"This is a quarry." I feel the need to remind her of this fact as she edges out to the shelf of rock.

"Oh, stop, it's fine. I've done this my entire life," she says standing there. And then, "Follow me or be lost."

She just launches herself into the air. My heart is in my mouth watching her go, disappearing into the water in a spray, feet first. I hold my breath deciding where to dive if I spot her unconscious. But her dark head erupts from a wreathy froth of white water.

"Come on," she yells, treading water and looking truly, extraordinarily happy. I unbutton my shirt as she flips over and starts a backstroke towards the quarry's beach. I step off the ledge and tuck, throw my legs up, and dive into the water, barely making a splash.

The water is warm, not cold like the ocean and it catches me by surprise. I used to love to swim and I'm a strong swimmer. As a Seal, I can swim forever. We're trained for it. This was almost like bathwater, just cool enough to be refreshing and not cold enough to take your breath away.

Within seconds, I've already overtaken her and we're standing, heading to shore in waist-deep water.

"See," she says, standing, wiping the hair out of her face. "No worries. There's nothing here that can hurt you. There are no boulders, no nothing. It's the one spot you can jump into and not have to be careful. There are other places you can jump into, but you have to know just where."

The beach is filled with little black and white pebbles, and granite sand. It's funny to be this close to the sea and smell the salt air and look down and see no seashells.

"You know, they used to drill the granite," she says flopping herself down onto the hardpack, pebbly sand.

She looks up at me. Her hair is streaming with water and it snakes around her face and across her chest. She takes a hand and wipes it back. She has no idea how beautiful she is.

"They used to drill holes in the granite, fill the holes with water and let them freeze at night and that's how they cracked it. So, all along here, you'll see pieces of granite with these long, long, you know, four or five-foot tubes in them, and that's where the rock split. It's pretty interesting."

"Physics. Works every time."

She laughs. Come here," she says, and we walk to a pretty little inlet and she steps back in the water. "See this underwater shelf? We can walk out about ten feet and then it drops."

"It's so pretty in here," I say, slipping back into the water. Stepping carefully, we are now both on the submerged ledge. My heart begins to beat hard under my sternum, while the sun burns my bare back.

The feel of the sun, watching bits of sand fall from her thighs into the water as she walks along the edge of the quarry, is heaven. When she slips on the rock under her feet, and she steadies herself with a hand on my shoulder, my crotch tightens. I don’t want this to end.

"Oh, sorry," she breathes, but her hand remains.

My nipples start to tighten. I'm waist-deep in water so she doesn't see the bulge in my pants.

"Look at you," comes under her breath. She looks at me and her blue eyes light up and she stares into my eyes, and ever so slightly, drags her fingers across my left pec, a fingernail catching on my nipple. I shiver. "Chloe," I say "What are you doing?"

"This," she says, and does the same thing to the other one. I take her wrists in my hands. There's a small resistance and then I pull her hands down to her side and move so close to her I can't catch my breath. Except for our hands, we are still not touching. A gull cries overhead.

I have to know. What I am desperate to ask is "Can you feel this?"

I say nothing.