Page 9 of A Summer to Save Us

“By the way, the Golden Gate Bridge holds the record: two thousand one hundred jumpers since 1937. One every ten days. Some people tie waterproof farewell letters to their legs. Heartache, unemployment, loneliness, terminal illness, grief, or depression are the main reasons. Someone once even mentioned a toothache.” He chuckles briefly and looks at me for a moment, as if trying to find out why I want to jump.

You didn’t list humiliation and torment, McFarley, and you certainly won’t hear it from me .

He raises his eyebrows as if I’d said something.

“A jump from the Golden Gate takes four seconds. Guess it would be less here. Four seconds is about two hundred and twenty feet of free fall. If you jump off the Golden Gate, you’ll shatter on the surface of the water since it’s like concrete.

Then the crabs and sharks will eat your remains… if you’re not rescued.”

I swallow.

“Should I continue?”

I don’t want to hear it, yet I nod anyway.

Maybe it’s because he hasn’t said anything about my silence or wet clothes yet.

Maybe it’s because he’s a bit crazy, too.

He has to be if he wants to jump. Most likely, as he put it.

Plus, it distracts me from myself when he talks, and he’s still paying attention to me.

“So far, only twenty-six people have survived the jump. One had an epiphany during the incident. He said he realized in those four seconds that everything in his life he thought was unfixable was entirely fixable. Except for the jump.” His eyes are all but hidden behind the blond strands, but the intensity of his gaze burns me as if he were looking through my eyes into the girls’ bathroom at Kensington High.

As if he saw all the many humiliations of the past.

“You should think about it again over the summer, Girl-Without-A-Name. Maybe there’s something you can fix.”

He sounds honest and overly confident. Unfortunately, I can’t fix myself— three psychologists have tried and failed.

I look away because I can’t hold his gaze. I think it’s been months, maybe even years, since anyone has looked at me and paid attention to me for this long. For a moment, I stop digging my nails into my palm like a crazy person, happy that he’s here.

Wait, you’re happy he’s here? Has your mind already jumped off the bridge?

Would I have honestly jumped earlier if he hadn’t said, Hey, you! ?

He looks at me seriously. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?

But before you jump off this decaying bridge and scare a pigeon to death, think about coming with me.

We’ll have a great summer together, and in September, we can jump off the Lost Arrow Spire together.

It’s easier to die together .” He empties the paper cup in one gulp and tosses it into the depths.

“Bye-bye, Mr. Daniel.” I watch as it’s carried away by the wind, not understanding what’s happening, what I’m doing here, or why my body has lost some of its usual rigidity.

“The last sentence is not mine, but Leo Tolstoy’s, Diary, 1901.

” River rubs his nose as if he’s embarrassed that he didn’t think of something that good himself.

Tolstoy again. My face contorts.

River grins. “Oh, a smile, Miss Nameless. Then, our deal stands?”

I shake my head. I can’t go with him. A few minutes ago, I wanted him to disappear, but then he was still a stranger.

Not anymore. Not now that he told me he wanted to jump, too.

Well, most likely. Something like this connects two people somehow.

Just like me and Mr. Spock were united by our speechlessness and went from two strangers to kindred spirits. Still, I can’t just run away.

But why not?

Because Dad would have a fit!

Oh, and if you had jumped, he wouldn’t have had a fit? Besides, you couldn’t care less about Dad; he ignores you anyway.

There’s also a third option: go back and live my miserable life, isolated from everything.

I stare at the bubbling Willow River for a while. The urge to jump has faded and given way to something else—the vague fantasy of actually leaving both Cottage Grove and Kensington. It’s not the first time I’ve thought about it, but how far would a girl get without words? They would find me.

However, with River, I wouldn’t be alone . Something inside me tingles, like when you hold your hand over a glass of sparkling water.

I’m not someone who does crazy things. I divide my world into three safe zones and climb onto my windowsill every morning and consider jumping.

River is silent next to me, smoking. Perfect halos float past me and gradually dissolve, fizzle out into nothingness.

How can he casually say that he wants to jump at the end of the summer, as if it were his own personal vacation plan?

So, what are you doing for vacation?

Me? Nothing special. I’m jumping off a rock in Yosemite this year. I like trying something new every now and then. So what!

And from a highline, whatever that is. Doesn’t he have a family he’s attached to? Or friends? And why wait three months and not do it now? Maybe that’s just a ploy—he’s trying to lure me away from the edge, and once he succeeds, he’ll take me to my dad.

I steal another glance at him. He’s lying back with his head on the copper rail like a pillow.

Eyes closed, his arms are stretched out to the right and left like wings.

They’re lean but muscular like he actually wants to fly with them.

F-L-Y. His hair frames his face, beautiful in a strangely broken way, like this old enchanted bridge.

As if he had already jumped and irrevocably lost a part of himself.

A fallen angel. That’s what he reminds me of.

Only the smoking cigarette between his fingers disturbs the picture.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice one of the two pigeons approaching his hand, but when he raises his arm to blindly flick the butt away, the pigeon flies a few feet further, cooing and eying him suspiciously.

Now that his eyes are closed, I grow a bit braver. I pull my phone out of my back pocket and think about the forum. He doesn’t know me or have anything to do with my life or Kensington. I’ll probably never see him again.

You are under arrest. You just scared a pigeon. Besides, it’s almost impossible not to scare a pigeon. What kind of law is that, anyway?

I slide my cell phone over the wood next to the track in his direction, like I’m curling, but I don’t dare draw his attention by knocking on the planks with my hand or whatever.

Nevertheless, he opens his eyes and immediately sits up as if he were just waiting for a reaction from me.

My mouth is dry.

Before I can nod at my phone, he grabs it.

I press my nails into my palm. I’m communicating with a stranger! I cannot believe it.

When he reads the text, he laughs mockingly, a broad chuckle with enviably white teeth.

“You have no idea about America’s strange laws.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, flirting in public is punishable by thirty days in jail.

And in Alabama, men are only allowed to beat their wives with a stick if it’s no thicker than a thumb in diameter.

” He taps his forehead and slides the cell phone back toward me.

“That’s absurd. I mean the beating in general. ”

I don’t know what to do. I clumsily pick up the phone and hold it tightly against my chest. It’s quiet for a while.

A bumblebee buzzes by, and I spot a fly wriggling in a spider’s web between the railroad ties.

Without thinking, I destroy the web, but unfortunately, the fly falls into a narrow crack where I can’t get it out.

“You couldn’t have helped it anyway. The threads stick like the best putty. Once caught, forever lost.”

Was he watching me?

Do you know any more strange laws? I type shakily, just to do something, and nudge the phone toward River again.

He reads the words and looks up. “Bizarre knowledge and weird things are an obsession of mine.”

I’m weird , I think.

He shoots the phone back at me. “By the way, if you don’t tell me your name, I’ll call you Jon Snow from now on.”

I wonder how he managed to get me to communicate. I never speak—or rather text—with strangers. Okay, I don’t meet strangers either. I’m either at school or in my room.

Kansas , I type, surprised and shocked at myself.

Cell phone handover.

He looks at me. “Kansas?”

Bizarre, I know. It’s a family thing , I type after getting the phone back. My mom chose our names by closing her eyes and putting her finger on the map of the United States. If she didn’t land on a city, it became the state.

I shoot the phone back a few feet to River.

The map was Mom’s idea. She was so young, and her head was full of nonsense. I wonder how she ever suited a serious man like Dad.

Why am I even telling him this?

River reads the text, stands, and walks toward me on the ledge of the bridge. “Lucky.” He grins. “Imagine if she had landed on Mooselookmeguntic in Maine or just Kentucky... or Washington or Illinois. Not to mention Connecticut.”

If he stumbles now, he can forget about Yosemite. He must be completely crazy. But he doesn’t seem a bit unsure—more like an acrobat. And he’s coming closer!

“Now, don’t look so shocked, Kentucky. This isn’t even risky, at least not for me. And apart from that, only those near death feel truly alive.”

I don’t understand anything anymore—or what frightens me more: that he’s putting his life in danger or that he’s coming toward me.

This is too much; he is too much. Today, everything is too much.

River, all over me . As if in slow motion, I open my left fist and spread my fingers to loosen them because they’re almost numb.

He reaches me and hands me the phone. He’s too close. Way too close. I stiffen and briefly hold my breath. Then, I smell his aftershave—or maybe just him. A wild, bitter blend of leather, forest, and herbs. Alcohol and masculinity.

Part of me wants him to disappear, but he won’t think about it.

Why are you called River? I type out of sheer desperation so he doesn’t notice how confused I am. Are your parents hippies, New Age, or something?

He leans down, reads, and stands again. Tentatively, I inhale.

“My brother’s name isn’t Leaf or Rainbow.

” He looks at me piercingly, the sun behind him, casting his face in shadow.

He’s tall with broad shoulders. A tremor runs through me, but it’s not only fear; it’s also excitement.

He’s nice to me. He saved me. He doesn’t ask for my words.

I still can’t tell the color of his eyes, but they seem dark.

I don’t dare look at him any longer, so I glance away.

“We’re getting off the bridge now, Kentucky, no matter what else you had planned here.

” He holds his hand out to me, but I remain on the edge. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

My gaze darkens.

“Understood.”

I doubt that. For him, school was probably not the cruelest place in the world.

River backs away a bit but keeps his hand outstretched. I could jump now. All I would have to do is slide all the way to the front and fall.

Would he be faster and grab me?

I peer downward again. Everything that seemed unfixable... suddenly feels fixable...

Something arises within me, a feeling for which I have no words. A mixture of sadness and happiness.

“Kansas, come on.” River’s voice sounds warm as he says it, warm, familiar, and smoky, a bit like whiskey and as if he’s said that name countless times before.

Like he knows me and is my friend. Someone who takes me seriously and never laughs at me.

In that moment, I realized how much I longed for someone like that.

I look over my shoulder and see River standing right behind me.

For the first time, I see the color of his eyes as the wind blows his hair off his face: a bright, deep blue that’s incredibly dark, with a mysterious sparkle and anger.

His mouth is sweetly curved and a little too cocky.

If he weren’t so nice, I’d say he was arrogant.

“Hey, Kentucky, don’t leave me hanging.” Now, he suddenly sounds lost, like an angel banished from paradise—like he truly wants me to go with him. As if he didn’t just say that to stop me from jumping, but also to stop me from being alone.

But I can’t go with him, just like I can’t jump here in front of him. Death is something that cannot be shared, even if River or Tolstoy claim otherwise. And apart from that, I don’t even know if I want to jump today. I’d have to stay on the bridge for a while longer and think about it.

Besides, he’s too close to me.

I could pretend to go with him, then part ways and come back here. Or go home and call in sick. Or jump from the windowsill and hope I only break my leg. But even then, I’d eventually have to go back to school, and it’s hard to hide in the basement cupboard with crutches.

River is still looking at me. He won’t leave me up here alone; his eyes make that very clear, as do his raised eyebrows.

So, I rise and wipe my dusty hands on my damp pants.