The thermometer on the dashboard said the temperature was just shy of sixty degrees while the sky above remained stubbornly overcast. A typical spring-ish day for late March, though admittedly not the best day to go jumping in an icy river. Not to mention that I didn't have the wet-suit with me this time.

A small, still-rational sliver of my brain said I could wait and come back on a warmer day. But I didn't know if I would truly ever get the chance again. Coming out here, doing this, had been a spur of the moment decision; one fueled by exhaustion, desperation, and a courage I might not be able to find again. Besides, a stunt like this could result in an almost instantaneous removal from school by my parents and a possible commitment to a psych ward. At the very least, I would not be allowed free range of motion for a very long time.

And I wasn't crazy; it was just something I needed to do.

I took the alternative route to the Ridge so as not to pass the site of the accident. I was nowhere near ready for that, and I was afraid the site of that place might unhinge me completely.

Instead, I took a rarely-used, narrow forest road that double-backed on itself, folded up like an accordion. As the miles disappeared under the tires and I got closer to my goal, I tried to think of anything but how cold the river would be and how much trouble I would find on the other side.

It was dark under the trees as I finally parked at the end of the road deep in the woods, making it look as though dusk was approaching though my watch said it was only half-past one.

The Ridge was a popular hiking place in the summer with several miles of steep trails leading up Poco Mountain. It was more of glorified hill than a mountain, a goosebump on the skin of the surrounding land, but one that offered sweeping views of the valley below. Needle Rock was off the beaten path near the base, a spur of rock that looked as though a giant hand had cut it away from the hillside with a rusty butter knife. Difficult to find, dangerous to climb to, and an even more dangerous jump, it attracted daredevils of a different kind.

It was illegal to jump from and more than a few people had been arrested, but even more people had died. Now, at the end of March, the car lot was deserted and I would have bet a year's worth of wine there wasn't a single soul in the direction of Needle Rock.

Leaving Vanessa's phone and keys tucked away in the glove compartment, I set off on the blue-marked trail, trying to remember what Danny had said about the turn-off.

The ground underfoot was soft, muddy from the rain of the last three days. My boots slipped a bit in the muck and water-slicked dead leaves. Around me it smelled of earth and wet wood, the kind of scent that comes with the birth of a new spring fighting off winter's grip and winning. Trees still shivered, leafless in the wind, though in a few short weeks they would sport the downy fuzz of new buds. A few birds back early from migration twittered my intrusion as I went.

The trail was easy to follow with clearly-marked trees at regular intervals, though I soon had a stitch in my side from the steep incline and I was tired from concentrating on where to put my feet. After about a mile, I spotted what I was looking for: a lumpy pile of moss-covered boulders on my left, five yards from a hollowed out tree. It was between these two landmarks that Danny had told me to look for the turn to get to Needle Rock.

Threading my way through the trunks, I spotted the faintest outline of a narrow footpath through the bare, scraggly bushes. Hoping I was right, I struck out in the direction it lead with a new vigor. Several times I mis-stepped and had to find my way back to the path, shoving through wild, overgrown brush whose bare branches tugged at my legs like skeletal hands.

It would be easy to find me with the destruction of twigs and muddy footprints I had left in my wake. Once or twice I even though I heard my name from far off, but I dismissed it as the wind. Besides, I was too far gone for anyone to catch me now.

Eventually, the sound of rushing water came from up ahead and my ears took over navigation from my eyes. I emerged from the trees on a bare outcropping of rock, a thick mass of leaden clouds still overhead. In front of me towered Needle Rock, gray, jagged and doubly uninviting in the day's gray pallor.

Peebles and shale crunched under my boots as I walked towards it in a kind of stupor, as though a magnetic force was drawing me closer. I looked to my left, trying to will Danny into existence.

He would have been standing right on the edge, feet a little more than shoulder width apart, gazing up at the crooked tower of rock with a mocking grin on his face. The wind would have ruffled his hair, tugging at his long-sleeve t-shirt from where the wetsuit would just be peeking over the collar. He would glance over at me, laugh at the daunted expression on my face, and say "Ready?"

"No," I whispered.

I turned back to the rock. There was a gap of about three feet between the ledge I stood on and the narrow lip that ran around the spur. Not a big jump, but made harder when the ledge you had to land on was only as wide as a loaf of bread. Below, the river parted to accommodate the rock's presence, swirling white around its base. The water was moving faster than I had anticipated, choppy and angry as it flowed downhill.

"Don't think about it, Dash," said Danny from my left. "The more you think, the more time you give fear to catch you."

So I backed up a few paces, swallowed hard, and ran. The time I spent airborne was over before I could register it. But it was hard to miss the impact of my body against the rock. I slammed into it with the force of an MMA fighter, knocking the wind from my lungs and scraping my jaw as I scrabbled for purchase on the narrow edge.

Skin stinging in the cool wind, I tried not to look over my shoulder at the rushing water below. A misstep and a fall from this side would mean certain death as I pin-balled from one rock face to the other on the way down to even more rocks that thrusted through the water like broken teeth.

I used my right foot to feel the way around the narrow edge, cringing at the sound of loose stones and pebbles hissing through the air as they were knocked loose. A gust of wind nearly upset my balance and I gasped, flattening against the cliff so closely my nose was squashed. Ghostly words of encouragement filled my ears.

"Just a little farther, Dash."

It was at this point in our ludicrous adventure that I would've told Danny where he could shove his words and berate him yet again for talking me into this.

"You can't talk someone into doing something," Danny would scoff. "In the end, the decision is always theirs."

And I was sticking to this one. Even with my heart lodged in my throat and allowing me only shallow breaths, even with my shaky legs threatening to give out, I was doing this. For the both of us.

I moved inches at a time, clinging to the rock with all the strength my fingertips would allow, until finally, the ledge widened and I could turn to press my back against it instead. There was just enough room for two people if they stood very close together. I imagined Danny next to me, the warmth of his body heat comforting in the face of imminent peril, the fingers of my left hand overlapping his as they splayed against the mossy rock.

Around my feet, scraggly little weeds poked through cracks in the ground and, for a second, I was caught by the site, wondering what it was about nature, what it took, to grow life in a place it should not exist.

I looked a little further out to the rushing water, as gray as everything else around me. My heart had slipped back into my chest and was pounding loud enough to rival the roaring filling my ears.

"You can do this, Dash." I wasn't sure if it was Danny's voice or my own. But suddenly, whatever presence of his that my exhausted mind had imagined into existence was gone. I was instantly and completely alone. It was abruptly much colder on the cliff edge.

I very nearly began laughing out loud, the stress and anxiety and breakdowns of the last few weeks, hell the last year, rising on a tide of uncontrollable feeling in my throat to be expelled in unchecked, hysterical laughter. I held it in. That put me too close to the realm of crazy and unstable of which I was determined to be neither. Instead, I took deep lungfuls of forest air laced with the tang of the river as my body tried to process my fear; at the absurdity of finding myself standing, almost paralyzed, on a windy outcropping in the middle of nowhere, trying to convince myself to jumpy forty feet into freezing water. But it was too late to turn around, not after I had made it this far. Not when I was so very close.

"You can do this, Dash." And this time, it was definitely my voice. I moved to the edge of the cliff so my toes were hanging over.

I stood there for a minute, watching the gray-blue water churning below me, and I realized I had been wrong before. This is what Danny must have felt. Perhaps even what Mia felt as well. Spine-gripping fear in knowing that once you made the decision to jump, once you upset that careful balance, you could not take it back; mixed with a heady sense of exhilaration in the belief that, for one second, you could be invincible.

Mia knew she was going to die.

Danny accepted the possibility.

And I was stuck somewhere in between.

The wind tugged at my hair, whipping it across my face to sting my eyes. Clouds swirled in a gray-green mess above me and the air smelled of rain. It was uncannily like my nightmares.

I took a deep breath, wondering if it would be my last.

There's not much to say about death that hasn't already been said. But if there was one thing I learned from Danny, it was that people who have lived do not fear dying.

And I jumped.

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I won't bother you with my usual blather---thoughts? :)