[A/N: I don't know where this came from. But bear with me. Oh, and I have an IM, "Elle of Endefall." I know some people IMed me and I didn't reply, but that's because I was away and my away message wasn't working. But, if you do me a favor and IM me again (please!) I will be happy to converse.
The symbolism in this piece is pretty standard and easy to pick out. I'd love it if you explained it to me in a review. ^__^ Here goes.]
When Amy was thirteen, she went to an amusement park with Kayla, Paige, and her mother. At first she was angry that her mother had attended with them, but in the end, she was glad it had been her instead of her father. Dr. Abbott's reply to her proposal would have undoubtedly been, "Absolutely not," but Rose was more lenient.
She spent most of the day moping around because her mother was with them and she had wanted to go by herself. From a distance they watched a tall tower, the structure of life and death and fear that played with its guests and their alarm. Paige said, "I dare one of you to do that."
"Bungee jumping?" Kayla laughed, waved her hand in a know-it-all fashion, and replied, "No way. I'm not risking that. Maybe Amy will."
Paige snorted. "Amy? Yeah right." When the blonde shot her a glare, Paige said quickly, "Sorry, Ames, but it's just . . . it's you."
Amy's scowl became fiercer. "What does that mean, 'It's you?' You think that I'm not the kind of person to bungee jump?"
Paige shifted uncomfortably. "Well . . . right."
Amy became visibly angrier. Without a word, she raced off in her mother's direction, fuming.
"Wait, Amy!" Kayla called, running after her. "You don't have to--"
Paige interrupted, "You don't have to prove anything to us, Am--"
She found her mother at a hot dog stand, buying lunch. Rose turned around and asked placidly, "What is it, dear?"
The girl took a deep breath, and began, "Mom. . . ."
***
The reason that Rose consented to her daughter's request was probably the fact that taking a risk like bungee jumping was so unlike Amy. In truth, Amy was the type of person much more willing to stay on the ground.
She was filled with distress and uneasiness as she neared her destination, although she passed a haughty wave to Kayla and Paige. A moment of reflecting, and then she fell.
Down, down, down.
It was a strange feeling, falling. She was filled with a sudden rush, a lurch in her stomach, because it was close to flying. Because she had beaten the laws of nature. But it was also frightening. Because every moment she was afraid of getting hurt.
***
She said something, although she hardly knew what she was saying, about Ephram being a miracle. Then he leaned over, and she, a little hesitantly, copied the motion, and pressed his lips against hers. For one moment, she could only feel the rush, the exhilaration. When the reason crept into her mind, the fear of getting hurt, she pulled away, headed up the stairs, and muttered an excuse.
She began to realize what had just happened. Ephram had kissed her. Immediately, she felt disloyal to her comatose lover, helpless and defenseless in some hospital bed in Denver.
She tried not to acknowledge that she had kissed back. She told herself that she didn't know what she was doing, that it had all happened so fast and it wasn't her fault. She tried not to see.
But mostly, she tried not to see that she had enjoyed it.
She joined her classmates in the main room, immediately approaching Kayla and Paige and asking, "Are the busses here yet?"
Kayla shook her head. "No." She started speaking rapidly about someone who liked someone else, but Amy's attention drifted to a screaming group of girls in one corner. There was a spider on the wall that was threatening them, apparently. One of the boys hit it with a shoe, soft enough not to kill it, hard enough so that it would die when it hit the ground.
And it fell.
And Amy wondered if it was happy in the moments before its death, happy to be flying and free, or if it was afraid of dying.
She ran to the door, with Kayla calling after her, "Hey! Amy! What's the matter?" Amy waited there for a few minutes, and then the busses arrived. She ran outside and boarded one.
She sat there on the bus alone, waiting for her classmates to join her, just thinking.
She decided she liked falling. She liked the risk, the excitement. She had liked it from the day she had gone bungee jumping.
She just wished she wasn't so afraid.
***
Amy pressed the "end" button on her cell phone and looked at her friends bewilderedly. "He woke up!" The happiness in her own voice startled her.
In front of her, she heard Wendell say, "Dude, did you hear that?" Ephram only put on his headphones and blasted heavy metal, tuning out the world.
Amy realized that she had to get back on the safety of the ground now.
But staring at Ephram's angry, disappointed face, she also realized that she would not be able to fall whenever she wanted. Someday Ephram would leave.
And she would be stuck in security, never to fall again.
--Fin--