“I know you wouldn’t,” I say and I mean it. Whether he’ll admit it or not, he saved me, not just from the drugs but from myself. I place my hand in his, trusting him, and we inch toward the edge. “We’ll be wet for the wedding,” I say. “What if Ella gets mad?”
He rolls his eyes. “I doubt Ella’s going to get mad at you for being soaking wet at her wedding. In fact, she’ll probably love you for doing something as dangerous as cliff jumping.”
He’s right. She probably will, so I nod and clutch on to his hand. Neither of us counts off, yet somehow we manage to jump at the same time, like we’re in tune with each other’s thoughts. When we land, he still has my hand and we swim to the top together. We burst through the surface and I gasp for air, looking back up at the cliff.
“God, I can’t believe I just did that,” I say, raising my hands above my head, my body dripping with water. I feel so liberated.
“Feels good to be bad.” He grins and winks at me. Water drips down his hair and his face, pooling on his eyelashes. He moves his arms, paddling to keep himself afloat as waves lull against the rocks.
“It kind of does.” I swim after him, then float just in front of him when he stops moving.
He smiles at me. “So what’s next on your bad-girl list? We have you out of those stuffy clothes, you cut your hair, and we’ve got you looking for a job.”
I consider what he said as the water laps against my body. “How about a road trip?”
His expression is blank as he stares at me, the water hitting against his back. “You think you can handle that?”
I shrug. “If you think you can handle being with me like that.”
He’s emotionless for only a moment, but then lets a grin emerge from his lips. “I can handle that and more.” He grabs my waist and drags me to him, crashing our lips together as powerfully as the waves hitting the sand.
I kiss him back, only pulling away for a moment to whisper, “Okay, then, it’s a deal.”
I return my lips to his and kiss him while the sun lowers in the sky, casting rays of pink and orange across the sky. The moment is perfect, even to a girl who never really believed in perfection, but who kind of does now. Ethan is perfection in a strange sort of way, if I really look at it, because he’s real with me and I love him. He’s not artificial and not what I’m supposed to have. In fact, if my mother were here, she’d tell me a thousand reasons why he’s wrong for me, from the fact that he had tattoos to the fact that he’s poor. He’s the opposite of everything I was, but not what I am now, and that’s all that matters.
He’s what I want. What I need. He’s the only guy who’s ever made me worthy of love. He changed me in the best way possible and showed me that it was okay to love someone. That not everyone out there will break and crush my heart. And the best part of all, the thing that I will forever love him for, is that he showed me that I was worth loving.
After we finish kissing, we swim to the shore and then hike back up to the path that leads to the cliff area we jumped from. I’m so happy at the moment, I can’t stop smiling, until we get up there, then all my happiness diminishes.
The minister is gone and Micha is sitting there by himself on a rock with his phone in his hand. His shoulders are hunched over and his head is hung low.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, rushing over to him.
He raises his head up and it looks like he’s about to cry. “I can’t get ahold of Ella. I don’t think she’s coming.”
“Of course she is,” I say, wringing the water out of the bottom of my dress. “She’s probably just running late.”
He shakes his head. “That still doesn’t explain why she won’t answer her phone. And she was acting weird this morning, too.”
I bite down on my bottom lip because I noticed Ella’s weirdness, too. I turn to Ethan and stick out my hand. “Give me your phone.”
His forehead creases as he walks backward and scoops up his phone off the ground. “Why? What are you going to do?”
I take the phone from him and smile. “I’m going to get ahold of Ella and get her down there, so these two can finally get where they should have been a long time ago.”
He smiles and then leans in to give me a deep, passionate kiss that warms me from head to toe and it fills me with the determination that Ella and Micha are going to work out, just like Ethan and I hopefully will. Because he makes me happy and loves me, like Micha makes Ella happy and loves her, and really when it all comes down to it, happiness and love are what’s most important and what makes life worth living.