The desert is particularly gorgeous today. The sky is so blue that the mountains look like they’ve been painted against it. I’m glad for the open space of the Mojave. I think I’d be overwhelmed in the bustling city with its colors and crowds and . . . glass.
My dad is in a good mood, or at least he looks like he is. When we walk in, he’s prepping two full loads of jumpers?—?a good sign for business, but my parents exchange a glance that is a question about me and my follow-up visit with Dr. Collier. Even though I haven’t wigged out in front of them in almost a week, he probably wants confirmation that the meds are permanently dousing the crazy in me.
Whether Dr. Collier realizes it or not, the way he speaks of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder has burdened me with a sense of hopelessness. The statistics don’t support my notion of “getting over this someday.” According to him, most people with schizophrenia never recover or live normally. I wondered why I even needed the medication when he said it often doesn’t help with problems like craving isolation, feeling numb, or having no interest in life in general. What’s the point, then?
My mom is talking to my dad about how we’re busier because word has gotten out that we’re being considered for the X Games. People want in on that action. The energy of the drop zone is a living thing, eddying around the bodies of the jumpers, infusing the air with an electric charge. I feel more alive. My blood pumps faster. This could be my medication.
Someone taps my shoulder. I startle.
Dom breaks into a chuckle. “I’m sorry, Ry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He’s wearing his jumpsuit and has a camera affixed to the top of his helmet. His dimples flash as he grins. He has a full-wattage smile.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry I’ve been cold to you.” My admission also startles me. Seeing him standing here, with cute dimples and sweet eyes, makes me feel warmth, and that’s another novel sensation after days of feeling numb and disoriented. Scared.
Dom looks into me so deeply, I swear he can see every secret under my skin. I don’t know if anyone has ever looked at me so penetratingly. But then I realize: He has. He’s also trying not to say anything about my shaved hair, but his eyes can’t help but flick to the top of my head. “I want to talk more with you, but I have to go up and film a jump,” he says, regret in his rich voice. “Paco broke his ankle on a jump, and Kelsey’s sick, so we’re way short on camera crew. We need to get you back in the air. I’m worried we won’t have someone to film the big-way. So can I talk to you when I land?”
“Okay.”
I don’t know what else to say, because there is too much to say. He was my other best friend. More than that . . . my first love. I don’t know what we are now. I don’t want to carelessly hurt him the way I’ve hurt Joe and my mother.
“We can talk later,” I promise, and watch his brown eyes light up with hope. He sweeps in and kisses my cheek, then darts out toward an airplane waiting on the tarmac with its engine droning like a million bees.
My father clears his throat. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he says, pulling me outside through the wide-open hangar doors. He leads me onto the tarmac, where rows of parked planes wait to fly. People are gathered around one old plane in particular. It’s enormous?—?gleaming polished metal with four engines and bubbles of glass on the nose and underbelly. A painted pinup girl smiles over her shoulder at us from the nose. “It’s a B-17,” he says through a wide grin.
He looks like a little boy on Christmas. I feel the most genuine smile erupt on my face. It pulls tight at my wound.
“How many girls do you know who get to ride in a real-live World War Two bomber?”
My smile fades. “Ride?” I ask, trying not to sound apprehensive. “We get to go up in it?”
“You’ve been doing better, right? Besides, I’ll be going up too. It’ll be the ride of your life, kiddo. I’ve booked you a special seat.” My dad leads me to the side of the plane, where stairs are propped against it, and gives me a leg up. He climbs in behind me. I feel like we’ve crawled into the belly of a metal whale. Exposed bulkheads dotted with rivets wrap around us as we scuttle through the plane on a wooden platform.
I look out the waist gunner’s window and try to imagine what it must’ve been like for the crew during the war. My father introduces me to the two pilots and directs me toward the nose of the plane. “It’s the nose turret,” he explains. “This is where the gunner would sit and shoot at planes approaching from the front or crossing the path of the bomber. Sit down.”
I saddle myself in the metal seat, and he buckles me in. “I think it’d be scary being so exposed,” I say.
“Well,” he says, climbing out of the turret, “you’re gonna find out.”