Page 82 of When the Stars Rise

Dean and Shiloh were arguing over something, most likely Hayley, and whatever Dean said made Shiloh cry. The situation was already tense before the fight, but if anyone ever upsets Shiloh in my dad’s presence, you can bet your ass they’re going to pay for it. He punched Dean square in the jaw, and Dean, of course, fought back.

They’ve never been each other’s biggest fans for obvious reasons, but that fight was more of a setback than a resolution.

Tomorrow we’ll be in Denver, and I think Hayley is nervous about seeing Shiloh again. She insisted I go out without her today, claiming she wanted to work on some new music and nap. Maybe that’s all true, but I know there’s more to it.

“I’m going to run back,” I say, looking at the others before I take off.

It was the plan, but Liam bails and calls an Uber, so it’s just Aiden and me. Unlike running with my family, this isn’t a race, so we set off at a leisurely pace without trying to break any speed records.

As we run across the bridge spanning the Missouri River, I mentally calculate how high it is. Roughly three hundred feet above the water, I’d estimate. Plenty high for BASE jumping.

I did some low jumps like this in Italy. You just grab your chute and go, and as soon as you hit the ground, you’re flying sohigh that all you want to do is climb back up the cliff and do it again.

My heart rate accelerates, and my palms start to itch just thinking about it.

What I wouldn’t give to climb over the barrier and hurl myself off this bridge. Feel the wind rushing past me and all my nerve endings igniting.

I’m craving the rush. That crazy dizzy high when the adrenaline is shooting through your veins and flooding your body with feel-good chemicals, lighting you up like a power grid.

I don’t need drugs. I don’t need alcohol. I just need to chase those thrills.

Endorphins are the best drug I know. There is nothing more intoxicating than being on the edge of danger. That’s when I feel most alive.

Aiden stops next to me and gives me a wary look. “You’re not thinking about jumping, are you?”

“Nah.” The water’s high—they must have had a lot of rain this spring. I squint at the trees along the riverbank and search for a good landing spot. “Just checking the view.”

“Pretty sure you’d break your neck if you jumped,” Aiden says, peering down at the muddy water through the chain-link fence.

Maybe. Maybe not. It’s always a gamble.

“Could go either way but yeah, hitting the water from this height would be like hitting a brick wall. If you’re jumping with a parachute and your chute doesn’t open, your best bet is to steer toward the land where you can break your fall on tree branches or grassy hills. You’d be coming in at a velocity of a hundred twenty miles per hour, so you’d still get injured, but the terrain’s your best shot.”

“Thanks for that. Now I know what to do when Idon’tjump off a fucking bridge.” He gives me the side-eye. “Sounds like you know a lot about it, though.”

I shrug. I’m not about to admit that I’ve done it before and will be doing it again in a few days. If I tell Aiden, it will get back to Hayley before I’m ready to discuss it with her.

“So hypothetically speaking… because I’m pretty sure it’s illegal,” Aiden says, “you’d actually jump from a bridge like this?”

If I weren’t on tour with Hayley, I would come back and jump off thisbridge without giving it a second thought. “I’d consider it. Sure.”

“I don’t know, man. Seems more dangerous than skydiving. At least with skydiving, you have plenty of time to open your chute. But with this…” He waves his arm toward the river. “You’d only have a couple seconds. Pretty risky.”

“The risk is what makes it so much fun.”

He shakes his head. “Guess you’re the wrong guy to say that to, huh? Some of the shit you do is sick, man.”

I don’t know if he means sick in the fucked up in the head way or sick as in cool. Either way, it doesn’t matter.

If you can’t comprehend it, it seems crazy. But for the people who do what I do, we’re in it for the rush.

“I mean… you don’t have a death wish, right?”

He’s watching me intently, gauging my expression. It’s not the first time someone’s asked me this question, so I tell him the same thing I tell everyone. “I don’t have a death wish. I have a life wish. We’re all going to die. That’s just a fact. But my biggest fear is not living.”

On that note, we start running again—no need to mention that it’s been taking bigger and bigger risks to get me revved up.

“Hayley worries about you, you know. Pretty sure that’s why she invited you on this tour.”