I nodded. “I think this is exactly what I need.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” His smile widened with excitement.

Thirty minutes later, after a brief training session, we were all geared up and waiting for the plane to arrive to pick our group of two dozen people up.

“Ready?” He gave me a reassuring smile as he made his final checks on the straps to my gear.

I took a deep inhale of breath and nodded. I gave him a confident smile but felt myself freak out on the inside.

He leaned down and gently held my face. “It’ll be fun. Trust me.” He smiled. “Since I’m an experienced skydiver, I’ll be jumping solo, and I’ll make sure to be by your side on the jump down.”

“You promise?” I looked at him nervously.

“If I break my promise,” he paused and grinned, “then you can have your way with me once we land.”

I laughed and playfully slapped his chest.

Just then, Carlos, my tandem instructor, came over. “Ready?” He asked as he gave me a thumbs up.

“Not really,” I admitted as I gave him a weak smile.

“Carlos, take care of my girl here.” Ethan gave Carlos a friendly punch on the arm.

I kept my face emotionless, but my heart skipped a beat when I heard Ethan call me his girl.

“You got it bro.” Then Carlos turned to me. “When we get to five thousand feet from the ground, I will signal to you to pull the cord to release the parachute.”

“What if I forget?” I looked at him in a state of panic.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I’ll pull it for you if you don’t. Plus Ethan here will save you if anything happens.”

The two laughed.

I frowned but felt slightly better as I looked at Ethan. “How many times have you done this?”

“I’ve lost count,” he admitted with a grin. “I’m one of the instructors here on some weekends for fun.”

Just then the plane arrived and I felt my heart’s pounding go into overdrive. Carlos secured my harness onto the straps of his gear and gave me another thumbs up. I returned the thumbs up, but didn’t feel as confident. We piled into the small plane with about a dozen other student/instructor tandem pairings. Within minutes we were ascending up in the air, and I felt my nerves take over.

Ethan sat across the row from me and he reached over to grab my shaky hand. Our eyes met, and the calm in his eyes relaxed me a little.

“Happy birthday, Liv! Don’t worry. I’ll be beside you the entire time. Take a leap of faith.” He chuckled, “pun intended.”

I glared at him for making such a joke at a time like this.

He laughed. “Seriously though, have fun. This is for you, Liv.” He squeezed my hand.

“I know you’ve probably been worrying a lot lately about your past and getting back your memories. You need to remind yourself to relax and let go. Don’t waste your time worrying, and enjoy living in the present. Life is waiting.”

I smiled back, grateful for his encouraging words. He was right. I needed to stop wasting my time worrying about the past and the future. Those weren’t things I could control. I needed to live in the present and enjoy everything life had to offer.

Just then, a crew member at the front of the plane informed us that we’ve reached our height of 13,500 feet from the ground as he slid open the door to the plane.

I felt a gush of wind hit my face as I stared in horror at the opened door with wide eyes.

“We’re up first,” Carlos reminded me as we were the pair at the front of the two rows of divers. I felt a sense of dread and excitement wash over me as Carlos got up from our seat, pulling me up with him.

“Oh God.” I exhaled sharply. My legs felt weak as we walked the few steps to the door that let out to the open sky.

“Liv.” I turned back to meet Ethan’s encouraging gaze. “Remember to just let go and live in the moment.” He smiled. “I’ll find you guys in the air on the way down.”

I gave a small nod as I turned back to the doorway and looked out to the 13,500 feet of emptiness between my feet and the distant ground below. What did I get myself into? I thought to myself as I froze at the sight of the world before my eyes.

“Okay, on three, we jump,” I heard Carlos’s voice behind me.

I nodded as I forced my eyes to stay open, remembering how much that had helped on the roller coaster when I was young. I crossed my arms and held it against my chest like I had learned during the training session.

“One…two….three!”

I held my breath as we leaped out of the plane. But the second my feet left the platform, I began to scream my lungs out.

I had expected an intense lurch in my stomach much like the feeling of going down on a roller coaster but with more force.

But to my surprise, that unpleasant feeling wasn’t there. Instead, I felt a powerful surge of adrenaline that I’d never felt before course through me as strong gusts of wind blew against my face and body as we free fell toward the ground.

Just then I saw Ethan several yards away in the sky. Like me and Carlos, he was in a horizontal position as if he was lying on his stomach with his hands and feet above the ground. I moved my hands against the strong wind to wave at him. The moment he spotted me, I watched in amazement as he propelled himself gracefully toward me as if he was flying across the sky.

I tried to speak but the torpedo wind filled my opened mouth, like a high-powered hair dryer was blowing in front of it. Then I remembered that Ethan told me we wouldn’t be able to hear anything during the free fall because we were falling at such a high speed.

Ethan smiled as he gave me two thumbs up.

I returned the two thumbs up and felt giddiness replace the nervousness I had just felt. My heart raced against my chest, and I knew that it had nothing to do with the fact that I was plummeting to the ground at 120 miles an hour, and everything to do with Ethan.

Suddenly, Ethan reached forward and grabbed my arms and I found myself spinning in a circle with him in the sky. Then he pulled me closer to him and before I knew it was happening, our lips met in a passionate kiss that shook me to my core and sent another rush of adrenaline to crash through me. His lips were soft yet hard, gentle yet demanding, as they eagerly devoured mine. My head buzzed with excitement as my body tingled in anticipation for more.

Just then, Carlos reminded us of his presence when he moved his arm in between us and pointed at the pressure gauge strapped around his wrist. I stared at Carlos’s hand and then at Ethan in confusion. He smiled before letting go of my arms. I watched with wide eyes as he pulled his parachute and was shot up to standing position as Carlos and I continued to fall.

It wasn’t until Carlos pulled our parachute that I realized what he was trying to signal me to do. We were pulled up to standing position and began to float the rest of the way down to the ground.

“Did you have fun?” Carlos asked, now that we could finally hear each other.

“That was incredible,” I yelled in a rush.

“You did great! And it looks like Ethan thought the same thing.” I could hear the amusement in his words.

I laughed and thought about our kiss. While it’d been completely unexpected, I realized that it was exactly what I’d wanted—what I’d needed today.

As my thoughts delved deeper into the memory of that kiss, another flashback broke through my consciousness.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he guided me up a grassy hill.

“It’s my special place that I like to go when I want to feel happy.”

My arm still throbbed in pain from earlier tonight and I thought about my father’s outburst. It was happening more and more frequently now. “I can’t be out for too long. They don’t know I snuck out of the house. My mom might check to see if I finished all my homework before bed.”

“Don’t worry. I just wanted to show you something. It’ll make you smile.”