“I’m twenty-seven, Jamie. Twenty-seven and stuck. I need something bigger than baby steps.”
He nodded because, whether she knew it or not, she was talking about both of them. Jamie thought he’d moved on these past ten years. He’d dated plenty, and a couple of times he came really close to falling in love. But close wasn’t a step in the right direction. He hadn’t moved forward at all. Only sideways. And now his path intersected with hers again.
“Bigger than baby steps.” He echoed her words and slid the Dramamine into his pocket. “If things get ugly up there, just remember that I’m with you. I will never let you fall.”
Brynn took in a long breath, then let it out, slow and controlled. He knew she was preparing herself for the giant leap she was about to take.
“I know,” she said, her voice soft with recognition. “I know.”
Then she bounced onto her toes, spun his baseball hat around, and tugged the bill down over his eyes. There was something intimate as well as silly about the gesture, but it meant she was standing close enough for him to catch her scent. Among the dewy grass and earthy aroma of wet, fallen leaves, there it was. A mixture of coconut from her hair and the eucalyptus body wash he knew she loved. He loved it, too. No celebrity scent to cover what didn’t need covering. Just her, Brynn, his Sleepy Jean.
But she was wide awake and ready to take on the world, and he let the sweet smell of her wake up his senses, too.
He held out his hand, and she laced her fingers through his. This was nothing new for them, but for Jamie it felt like more than habit. It was a beginning.
He took the first step, and Brynn followed suit.
Forward, he thought. And they moved toward the Arch.
…
“Maybe you were right.”
Brynn whispered the words to Jamie as she leaned back against the wall of their…pod? Compartment? Coffin? Oh God. She was going to be buried with Jamie, a young mother, and the woman’s small child when the bottom dropped out of this monstrosity and they plummeted to the earth.
“You’re okay, B.”
Jamie’s voice was calm but far from soothing. He squeezed her hand, and if she wasn’t sure she only had minutes left to live, Brynn would have been mortified by her sweaty palms. But what was a little sweat between friends when she was ready to head toward the light?
“We’re almost at the top,” he said, his voice smooth and soft, though Brynn could swear she detected a smile. She wouldn’t know, though. She stared straight ahead at the tiny, white elevator-like doors illuminated in an eerie, sterile white light. She ignored Jamie in her periphery as she held her body rigid against the back of her chair in the…was it a cubicle? What the hell was this thing called?
“When the capsule gets to the top, in about seven more minutes, we can get out and go to the observation deck.”
“Capsule!” she said, her volume far and away too much for the cramped space.
“Mommy, why is da wady wif da big eyes so loud?”
This got Brynn’s attention, and she let her gaze fall on the fair-haired preschooler seated on her equally fair-haired mother’s lap.
The woman smiled apologetically at Jamie, and he shrugged. Kids, they seemed to say without the words, and Brynn was not amused.
Her eyes did feel a little dry now that she thought of it, but she didn’t have enough elbow room to fish her contact solution out of her bag and, clammy hands or not, she was not letting go of her death grip on Jamie’s hand. The little girl would just have to spend the next seven minutes with Brynn in wide-eyed revelation that she was, in fact, in a capsule.
“I can’t do it,” Brynn said. “I can’t get out. Give me the pills. I’ll take one or seven, and we’ll call it a day. You can drag me to the truck and get us back on the road. I don’t even need to eat.”
Jamie narrowed his eyes at her.
“I need to eat,” he argued.
“So eat! Who’s stopping you from eating? I’ll be asleep.”
He sighed. “You can do it. You already are doing it.”
She wanted to argue with him, to tell him that the only thing she was doing was exactly what he predicted she would do—freaking out.
“I’m not afwaid,” the young girl said. “I was, but I’m not anymore.”
Brynn sighed, and her shoulders relaxed at the sound of the little girl’s voice.
“You’re not?” she asked as she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she waited for the sage wisdom of the three-or four-year-old girl in front of her.
The girl shook her head.
“Mommy said I’m always safe when I’m wif her, and I believe Mommy. She said it’s ’cause I…what’s da word, Mommy?”
“Trust,” the woman said, and the girl beamed.
“Twust! It’s ’cause I twust Mommy.”
Brynn craned her neck to look at Jamie, who was so close she had to lean away just to see his face next to hers.
“Smart girl,” he said, and now Brynn not only heard it but saw his smile. He wasn’t making fun of her or teasing her, just smiling.