“You won’t fall. What if you climb first and I follow? That way I can catch you or at least fall with you and break your fall,” he suggested heroically. Dammit, he had that smile on his face again. The one that made me smile. The one that would have made me agree to anything. Even falling to my death.
So I climbed the ladder with Ryder right behind me. “You know, I’m quite enjoying this view,” he called out to me. I looked down to see him staring up at me with a giant grin on his face.
Whoa, big mistake! I realised how high we were and entirely forgot that Ryder was checking me out as I climbed. All I could see was the forty thousand-foot drop to my death. I hugged myself to the ladder and couldn’t move. I froze as the world started spinning, threatening to throw me off the ladder. My breathing shallowed out again, and I gasped for air.
“Damn, Bailey.” I heard Ryder’s voice, but he sounded muffled, like he was far away. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that I was on the ground. On the stable, even ground. But I couldn’t. I could feel the wind whipping around me, making me shiver and tremble from fear and cold. My eyes were burning from the unshed tears that were trying to spill out. I was going to die just shy of my eighteenth birthday.
The wind suddenly stopped, and I felt warm. I felt protected. Sheltered. I felt safe. I slowly opened my eyes and gasped. I saw Ryder’s hands reach out and wrap themselves around mine on the ladder. The world stopped spinning when I realised his body was pressed against mine, shielding me from the wind. He was taller than me, so his feet were on the rung below mine, allowing him to wrap his body protectively around me and for us both to fit in the same small space.
“I’m sorry, Bailey. I shouldn’t have brought you up here,” he whispered in my ear.
“It’s okay…I just need to breathe.” I panted, trying to catch my breath. “And not look down.”
Making me gasp, Ryder released one of his hands from the rung we were holding. “Ryder, no! Are you crazy?” I all but shouted at him. I hugged myself to the ladder a little tighter.
“Shh…it’s okay,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist. That was it. He just held me until I stopped panicking and until I could breathe again. As my heart slowed down and my breaths were a little more even, Ryder asked, “Do you think you can climb the rest of the way? We’re so close to the top.”
I licked my parched lips, looked up, and realised we were only about ten feet from the top. “I think so.”
“I’ll be right here with you. Climb with me.” He unwrapped his arm from my waist and placed it back over my hand. I was gripping onto the ladder so tightly my knuckles were white.
“Okay,” I said and let him make the first move. He grasped my right hand in his and lifted it to the rung above. I felt his knee nudge the back of my leg telling me to raise it. I carefully lifted my right leg to the next highest rung, and he did the same. He moved my left hand next and followed with his left leg, always keeping his feet on the level below mine. It was slow going, but we made it to the top in a few minutes.
I quickly shuffled back so I was pressed against the water tank as far from the edge as possible. Ryder moved to sit beside me. He didn’t say anything. He just grabbed my hand and held it in his. We sat there for the longest time not talking, and it wasn’t uncomfortable. I found that throughout our time together, I could sit with Ryder for hours and not talk. We didn’t need to speak all the time. We were comfortable doing whatever with each other. We would quite often just sit in the bookstore and read side by side. It was like that now.
“I’m sorry, Bailey. I just—” He started to apologise. He looked so tense and angry with himself.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have looked down, that’s all. I’m okay now. Thank you for helping me.” I smiled at him, and he seemed to relax instantly, closing his eyes and resting his head back against the tank. “How did you know?”
“How did I know what?” He pulled his eyebrows together in confusion and turned his face to look at me. He was so close our lips almost touched.
“How did you know how to calm me down by…by…” By what, Bailey? Was I going to saying by touching me?
“By touching you?” Nope, I didn’t need to. He did it for me. I cringed and nodded. It sounded so weird and inappropriate. “I don’t know. I just kinda remembered trying to comfort you today whenever things got too much for you. It seemed to work then, so I just hoped it worked this time. And it did, right?”
“Yes, it did.” I nodded, and he smiled. He began tracing patterns on the palm of my hand.
“So are you okay after the bookstore and seeing him?”
“Yeah, I think so. I just wish he would back off and leave me alone. I don’t know what he’s trying to accomplish.”
“He’s a tosser.”
“He is, isn’t he?” I laughed as I finally admitted out loud that Chace was, in fact, a wanker. I didn’t know what I saw in him, and I didn’t know why I still loved him. But I did. Now that I could see how much of an awful person he was, I’d hopefully be able to get over him quickly. Hopefully.
Ryder laughed as well. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. “Yes, he is. I’ve been saying it for years.”
“It’s pretty up here,” I whispered a few minutes later, looking up at the stars in the sky and at the moon casting a silvery glow over the field below.
“It’s my favourite place to go,” Ryder said into my hair. “It’s peaceful. I can come here to be alone and to get away from it all. I come and sit here for hours sometimes after work.”
And that’s what we did. We sat up on that water tower for hours staring at the stars and talking occasionally. Being up there wrapped in Ryder’s arms made it easy to forget I was high from the ground. It was easy to forget Chace and Christina. It was easy to forget the world.
“Ryder?”
“Mmm?” he mumbled quietly.
“Did you actually meet my mum today?” I asked, suddenly curious and a little worried about what I would say to her when I got home.
“Nope.”
“Then how did you know where to find me?”
“I was just driving down the street and saw his car at the bookshop. Knew it couldn’t have been good, so I stopped to check on you.” He tightened his arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer.
“Thank you.”
“Stop thanking me, Bailey. I’m not doing anything special.”
“But you are. You’re helping me.” More than I thought he even knew. More than I understood. Being around Ryder was simple.
“Just being a friend.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Ten