“Sure,” he said with a grin. “Why not?”

“So you really wanted to come back to the falls today?” She was looking at him skeptically, like she was trying to read him but not sure what she’d found.

He grabbed her hand. “Come on,” he said, helping her out of the van. “Aren’t there some times you have to say yes?”

Chapter Six

Julia could hear the falls long before she could see them. A roaring, pulsing hiss that swelled like the ocean but without the pause between waves. It was so loud it seemed alive, an animal threading its way out of the jungle to devour them whole. There was nothing for them to do but walk into its grasp, mesmerized by the power it held.

They started off in a dense green forest, deafened by the cicadas chirping in the thick, humid air. The path followed along a snaking river, and they could hear the noise swelling up ahead but still had no sense of what was to come. The current below was swift but beside them the water ran flat and calm. The landscape held onto its secrets until the last possible moment, when suddenly the path opened up and the river dropped away.

Coming upon the break in the stream, it looked like a vortex had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, a hole in the water where everything that once seemed certain plummeted away. They were on top of the world, looking down on the waterfall as it dropped over the edge.

Julia stepped back, feeling the rush to her head.

“Whoa there,” Blake exhaled, steadying her with his palm on her back. “I didn’t think to ask—are you afraid of heights?”

Julia shook her head. “I never thought so. I just—” She looked up at him, searching for the words, but all she could say was, “Wow.”

“I know,” he agreed, and it was nice to know there was no need to try to put into words what both of them were thinking.

“Doesn’t it make you want to jump?” she blurted out suddenly.

“What?” Blake turned to her in alarm.

“Not like that,” she clarified. “It’s just… If you could fall and fall forever, and never land.” If you could feel the thrill of release, the water and wind, the never-ending weightlessness as every last responsibility disappeared.

She would never do it, of course. She wasn’t a daredevil—she barely even rode her bike fast. But to stand there with her feet firmly on land and think about the possibilities made her mind spin.

“All that freedom,” Blake said almost to himself as he looked out over the falls, and Julia knew that somewhere inside him, he understood what she meant. “It certainly is tempting.”

She couldn’t help it. She slipped her hand in his and squeezed his fingers tight. If she’d ever said that to Danny, he would have freaked, thinking she was being morbid or depressed or any of the “bad” states they were forever keeping an eye out for in Liz.

But Blake was different. He could travel and dream and imagine other things. Julia wasn’t a writer—she dealt with the elegance of numbers and the way they flowed according to a series of rules, not unlike each drop of water on its path toward the sea. But there was a poetry to the numbers that she could get lost in, when she was able to let herself go. She imagined Blake felt the same about words.

Julia was conscious of not wanting to broadcast some kind of “togetherness” when they weren’t a couple at all, but the beauty and surprise had made her reach for him without thinking. She felt a buzzing inside her that had nothing to do with the current rushing past or the thrill of gravity when he squeezed her hand and didn’t let go.

She could have spent hours standing in that one spot, but there was so much more to see and the rest of the group was moving ahead. They kept walking as the vortex opened into a mouth and the mouth yawned into a canyon.

Below was nothing but blinding, obliterating spray, a thick blanket of white streaked with an enormous rainbow arcing across the falls. It hovered in the mist as the water surged over the edge of the canyon and battered the rocks below. Blake wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in front of him as a group of Japanese tourists shuffled past.

“Devil’s Throat,” he said in her ear, nibbling her own throat playfully. He was close but still had to shout to be heard over the deafening roar.

“What a view.” She was completely captivated by the sight.

“I’ll say,” he sighed, but he wasn’t looking at the falls. He’d taken the chance to rest his chin on her shoulder, trying to sneak a peek down her dress. She wriggled playfully out of his grasp and he laughed, catching up to where she was walking down the path to get close to the edge.

“You’ve already been here,” she said, and suddenly she felt disappointed that she was the only one of them experiencing something so incredible for the first time. She’d thought the same thing last night, that this was all old news to him. It wasn’t special for him anymore. She was embarrassed about what she’d said about falling. Now he’d think she was twisted or weird.

But he surprised her by shaking his head. “I don’t think this is the kind of place you could ever get tired of.” And looking out at the view, it was true. She didn’t think it was possible to take it all in, no matter how many times you came. “Besides,” he added, “I was here on a morning when the rest of them slept in. The company is better this time.”

She couldn’t help smiling as she slid her hand in his again. Maybe there was something to the view, or to her—or both—that was worth a second look. Maybe she could let the day happen without worrying about where it went.

The whole stretch of the river had two hundred and seventy-five separate waterfalls, and she could see the smaller cascades cutting through the endless green. When she closed her eyes and felt the spray in the air as it hung in the muggy December heat, heard the drum beat of the falls pounding relentlessly in her ears, she tried to imagine the landscape without any people around, just water rushing through time. When she looked down at all the falls from their perch at the top of the tallest, widest part, the water seemed timeless, almost solid. A whole mass constantly churning.

But if she squinted and focused and let her eyes shift, she could almost make out the individual drops in flight. She’d follow one as it hurtled down until she could no longer see it anymore, and then start back up at the top. There was green moss growing on the shiny rock edges, constantly battered by the water. Its whole purpose was to take a beating, to lend color to the impressive sight.

“Doesn’t it make you feel small?” Blake asked, breaking the silence as they gazed at the surf.

Julia nodded, smiling to herself. It was exactly what she’d been thinking, too. Small and insignificant, but also desperately, wondrously alive.

It was hard to remember that they were still in the world. Streams of tourists buzzed around them, the rise and fall of voices and snap of cameras and phones adding its own cacophony to the sound of the surge. Blake lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

“Should we catch up to them?” Julia asked. Blake looked ahead to where Chris and Jamie were taking pictures against a railing overlooking the edge of the falls. Jamie waved for them to come over and Blake sighed.

“I guess so,” he said, and they weaved their way through the crowds until they rejoined everyone else, busy taking photographs and marveling at the sights. Lukas, laden with camera bags, kept switching lenses as he tried to capture the perfect shot.

“So you guys want to walk around?” Jamie was asking as they walked up.

“I want to get on that river,” Chris said.

“Your wish is my command,” Lukas declared as he produced a brochure from his back pocket.