“What is it?” Lexis asked.

“The Blue Hole,” I said. “You gotta see it.”

She took my hand and I led her, slipping and catching ourselves on the midriffs of thin saplings, down the path and into the ravine. We pushed through a crowded stand of hemlock, then came out suddenly on a shale ledge that jutted out over the swirling pool of water below the falls. The brunt of the water shot through a narrow groove at the falls’ head before plummeting another twelve feet to a whirlpool that had the reputation of being bottomless.

No less than three people had died in that hole during my lifetime and I was barely eight years old before my great-uncle closed it to the curious public. Still, the Blue Hole’s reputation tempted trespassers of all kinds, and the last person to disappear into its depths was a high school kid who had failed his final exam in math.

When the stream was high, as it was now, curtains of water spilled off either side of the shoot, hissing across the face of the precipitous shale that was bronzed with mossy slime. The noise reverberated off the steep walls and it sounded like a giant fist pounding the earth.

“My God,” Lexis said.

I gripped her hand, lacing my fingers in between hers. Already I could feel the constriction in my chest and the bolts of electric thrill surging up from my core to the spot behind my ears.

“We used to jump from here,” I said, above the din.

Lexis wiped a strand of hair from her face and wrinkled the corners of her eyes.

“What?”

I began stripping off my shirt and untying my shoes.

“Raymond?” she said. “What the hell?”

For nine months I had existed in a place between heaven and hell, neither alive nor dead, neither happy nor sad.

“Goddamn,” I said, breathing deep the smell of mud and water and broken rock, the heady sound of pounding water filling my brain. “It’s like we were here like this before.”

I handed her my shoes with the socks stuffed inside them. I stripped off my pants and even my boxers, rolling them up into my shirt, wrapping them in my belt, and handing them to Lexis.

“That water’s got to be freezing,” she said, her eyes wide, but taking the clothes and clutching them tight to her chest. “Are you crazy?”

I took her hand and gripped it again, pointing to the shale path that did several switchbacks through the steep grass before it ended at the bedrock below at the foot of another pool that belonged to a second and smaller falls.

“I’ve done it a thousand times,” I said. “I’ll meet you.”

“Raymond, you’re out of your fucking mind,” she said, yanking me back toward her.

I put my arm around her waist and held her tight to my naked body, kissing her hard, letting my blood rise even higher. Then I pulled away.

“I love you,” I said, letting go of her hand.

I turned and leapt from the ledge. It was the same ravine. The same crashing water. The same trees that hung on by their bare roots, fighting to stay upright. The same narrow pool that looked so ridiculously small from up here. It was all familiar to me. A feat I had performed countless times. So why was I scared so bad that my heart froze and my adolescent war cry got jammed up in my throat?

The milky green water came up fast and it hit me hard enough to jar my breath away. Then everything was cold and black and I was fighting helplessly against the swirl with all my might. My arms were flipped this way and that, out of control, grazing the rough rock walls. My feet kicked insanely and I realized I didn’t even know if I was fighting my way up or down. My eyes were wide and full of water. The blackness turned green, then white with swirling bubbles, and just before my lungs burst, I shot clear of the surface, sucking in air and flailing like a drowning cat.

The water spun me some more, and I grabbed desperately for the slick ledge on the far side of the pool away from the sheer rock. Finally, I pulled myself up, where I rested, shivering on my hands and knees, until that war whoop finally busted loose.

I heard Lexis’s voice calling my name, small between the great rocky walls. It echoed up from the hissing below. It pierced the thundering roar of the water, and I stood to wave my arms at her. She held out my clothes, and beckoned for me to come down.

That night, after we were tangled together beneath the warm blankets in my bed, she asked me what the hell I did it for.

I wanted to give her a reason that was bigger than the one I really had, but the best I could come up with was that I had forgotten what it felt like to control my own destiny.

“If you could control it,” she said, “it wouldn’t be your destiny.”

We slept like spoons with her head on one of my arms and my other wrapped around her firm belly. I kept waking up and whispering the promise to her that everything was going to be all right. I told her that she was going to be my wife and that I’d take care of her until the end of time.

The next day we drove to the courthouse through a chill rain. By four-thirty, the jury convicted me of murder. My body went numb. My mind whirled. The bailiffs snapped handcuffs on my wrists and started to lead me away. As I neared the door, I came to my senses and I looked for Lexis. Her eyes were glassy. Her mouth hung open. She slowly raised her fingers to me and then Frank was there with that slab of a hand on her shoulder, his head bowed.

I called out to her and pushed back against the bailiffs, struggling, but they shoved me through the door and someone slammed it shut.

IT TOOK ALMOST THREE MONTHS of processing before they were ready for me at Attica, the state prison notorious for its deadly riot in the early seventies. During that time, I was in isolation at the Public Safety Building in Syracuse. I saw Dan Parsons several times. He swore he’d fight this thing all the way to the Supreme Court. He had retained the famous Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz. But both of us knew enough about the law to realize that the judge hadn’t committed any reversible errors and no one could overturn a jury.

My father visited me as often as was allowed. Once a week.

He never mentioned my failure to escape when I could have. But just before they shipped me off, he appeared with his eyes puffy and red to tell me the news. Lexis had married Frank Steffano. She was pregnant with his child.

My father said he didn’t want me pining for her.

Because of the way I now live, in total isolation, and because I returned every one of her letters until they stopped coming, it is likely that I never would have known what happened with Lexis and Frank. Sometimes I think it would have been better not to know. Other times I’m thankful that I do. I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t care that she loved him for a couple of years. I know him. I know her. And I know this is what happened.

Frank’s hands were big, and he was careful to limit their touch to Lexis’s arms and shoulders. Nothing intimate. He was a friend she could count on. He guided her outside the courthouse and down the steps. His dark blue unmarked cruiser was parked half on the sidewalk and half off in the fire lane.

“Come on,” he said, opening the passenger door. “I’ll take you home.”

By the time he hurried around and climbed in, she was sobbing hysterically. Frank leaned over and pulled her to him, hugging her like a sister whose parents had died, patting her back, speaking softly.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “It’ll all be okay.”

“It can’t,” she said, her voice a shattered moan.

“I know,” he said, “but it will.”

Twice people put their faces up to the window and Frank glared at them until they went away. When she finally cried herself out, he let her go and started the engine.