Jump

A Story by Iris Moon

Rae takes a leap

Special people call me Rae: my step grandma, my sister and my friends. I'm not really into the double name anyway: Rae-Lynn. Why couldn’t my parents just decide on one of them? I just turned sixteen three weeks ago. I went home that weekend and celebrated with my parents and my sister. I asked for an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Oreo flavored. Instead I got a frilly cake that cost 75 bucks. It was vanilla with raspberry filling. It tasted too sweet. I didn't ask for anything specific for my birthday and my parents didn't ask what I wanted. I opened two cardigans from Barneys in baby blue and soft pink. A Tiffany diamond heart necklace. An 'elegant' as my mom called it, lavender dress from Bloomingdales, along with some cream colored flats to wear with it. The best present I got was a book from my sister, Vanessa. I had mentioned it to her a couple of weeks before. That was the only thing I would use. The rest I would donate to my friend, Anna. Anna, my friend at boarding school wears my clothes until I have to borrow them back when I visit home.

What I really had wanted for my birthday was to take my driver's test. I don't even have a permit. My parents won't let me drive, there fore I have to let my friends at school teach me how. It's going pretty well. "Rae Lynn do you like your necklace? It's a real diamond." My mom asked me. Of course it's a real diamond, but she has to remind me. I nodded, smiling the smile I wear for her. I glanced at my sister who winked. She knows how I feel. She is twenty. She went to a community college right out of high school. My parents had wanted her to go to Harvard, but it would have to do. She went for a semester and then dropped out. My parents were furious. She lived with her friend in a tiny apartment, working as a waitress at a simple diner. Nothing fancy. She loved it though. My parents begged her to go back to school and then after begging did nothing, they demanded. Finally they stopped talking to her for months. They didn't invite her to any holidays so I had to meet her after school to see her. When she turned 19 she went back to a community college again and has been taking two to three classes at a time, still working at the diner. My parents began to talk to her when she went back to school. It was still community college, but they kept their mouths shut. They sent her money to pay for her school and rent, but she sent it back. I told her she should take it anyway and use it for something that would make our mom rage.

They send me money too, for food, clothes, etc and I use it to get the clothes I like that they will never see. I don’t absolutely hate my parents, I just despise their ways of thinking. It’s all they know I guess, my grandparents are exactly like them. I do have a step grandma though, Rosy. She's my favorite grandparent. Sad isn’t it? Not even blood. She is a free spirit and even helped my uptight grandpa become less uptight. Rosy used to take Vanessa and I thrift store shopping and hot dog hunting. We rode the subways, something my parents never let us do. She encouraged us to talk to homeless people. She cautioned us to be careful, but a simple hello would do. She said to never look away and act like they weren't there. They were people too. She took us to eat all the junk food my parents wouldn't let us eat. Fast food places, hot dog stands, cheap pizzerias. Then we always got candy. When we spent the night Rosy let us watch whatever we wanted all night long. We were allowed to wear our pajamas all day long. Vanessa has taught me a lot too, basically everything I am missing by having my parents for parents. If I didn't have Vanessa I would probably go crazy or worse, be a mini version of my mother. She has been much more rebellious than me, so I know what not to do, like how to keep what I do wrong in my parent's eyes hidden. Vanessa got all that out for the both of us though. I don't feel the need to smoke pot all the time or drink every weekend. She doesn't do that now, but she was a rebel when she was my age. When she was fifteen she got her bellybutton pierced by a guy her and her friends flirted with often after school and then she flaunted it around the very next day wearing a sports bra. My parents grounded her, screamed at her, but they couldn't physically pull the ring out themselves. They tried to take away all of her free time, but she was an expert at sneaking out, so that was made up during nighttime.

My dad is more quiet than my mom. He doesn’t criticize my hair. He doesn’t pick out expensive clothes for me. If he ever defends me he gets ugly eyes from my mom and a talk later. When I was twelve my dad and I went shopping for Christmas presents.
We went past a pet shop and I asked if we could go in. My mom didn't allow us to have pets. We looked around and I pet the white and grey bunnies that were huddled against the walls of their glass cage. I hated seeing all the animals in their tiny cages, trapped. It looked so claustrophobic. I found a cage with three puppies, two beagles and a black pug. The black pug just sat there looking through the glass. The beagles played, occasionally bumping into the pug who ignored them and kept staring. I tapped on the glass and the pug scratched at it, its' ears perking up and a little yelp coming out of its' mouth. I begged my dad if I could just hold it. I think he knew where this would go. "No, sweetie, because then you'll just want to take it home."

"No I wont I promise!" I lied. He finally agreed and when I opened my arms to hold the pug, the store clerk told me it was a boy. I giggled when he licked my nose. It left a streak of wet but I didn’t care. After a couple of minutes my dad said it was time to go. I ignored him. He waited a couple more minutes. "Come on, we have to find more gifts for your sister." I looked up at him, my eyes spoke for my mouth. His eyes got wide. "No," he said sternly.

"Please, dad I’ll take such good care of him! You had a dog when you were my age." He said no again and I just kept making valid points for a twelve year old.

"Your mom would kill me." He said. After I pleaded with my eyes some more he stood there, sighing. He sighed three times. I could see the retreat in his eyes. “THANK YOU!" I shouted.

"I didn’t even say yes." He said, but we had a mutual understanding. He bought the pug which I named Sparrow after my favorite Johnny Depp character. We went home and my mom took one long look at the black fuzz in my arms and stomped around the house shouting, "Ron!!!" He was hiding in the garage and I didn’t let her know that. When she finally found him I could hear their voices, well actually just hers’. She decided to
let me have Sparrow, but I had to do everything and he was going to be sleeping in the garage. I snuck him in at night though when my parents fell asleep. One morning I didn’t wake up in time to put him back in the garage and I felt my heart drop. Sparrow wasn’t in my bed though. I ran with a sick feeling in my gut and finally found him in the garage. My dad sat at the table drinking his coffee. He glanced up at me and smiled mischievously. That is my favorite memory of my dad. Of course when I was shipped to boarding school my mom gave Sparrow to Rosy to take care of while I was gone. My mother is like the witch, Glinda in the Wizard of Oz. You think she's this perfectly sweet and honest woman, glamorous and poised out to help everyone. And then you read Wicked and you find out how she really is, which is not any of those things.

…When I get back to school after my weekend visit I go to my room I share with Anna and take out my goodies. "Here, my parents got you some cool stuff." Anna gets off her bed she was laying on. "Sweet cheeks, thanks alot, it's not even Christmas." She tries on the heart necklace, moving her dyed platinum locks out of the way. "This real?" I nod. "You're the best friend ever. I love your rich parents." Her curved brown eyes squint even more when she laughs. I smile back. Anna's parents died when she was only nine, so she lived with her grandparents who were 'middle class' as she called them. They were both from Japan and moved to America together when they were eighteen. She got all of her parents money, but her grandparents were only able to follow the will that went with the money, using it for specific purposes, like school. Anna is a wild girl. She gets away with alot. Her grandparents are pretty oblivious. She reminds me of Vanessa in some ways. I grab a pair of jeans and a black tank top and go in the bathroom. I look at myself in the mirror. My kinky auburn curls are braded back. My dad is to blame for my curly hair, but my mom never complains about his hair. My mom gets annoyed when I just let it down, I have too much volume she says. She has had me get it professionally straightened since I was eleven but lately with being at boarding school she hasn’t had as many chances to do it. I make up excuses when she makes an appointment, every time I come home. "Too much homework. I’ll fail if I don’t do this now." She didn’t make an appointment this last weekend trip, probably sparing me since it was my birthday. That was nice of her. I like to wear it out, crazy though. Probably because it bugs her so much. I take it out. It's getting pretty long, way past my shoulders. I pick a white fuzzy off of my eyelash. My eyes look tired. The skin is puffed up underneath them. I never sleep well when I'm home. I look down at the lavender birthday dress my mom insisted I wore back to school. It's simple, but sophisticated. It looks like something the royal Prince William's wife, Kate would wear. I pull it off and put on my preference of clothes.

…I'm so excited for the weekend I can hardly wait. I had told my parents I was going on a weekend excursion with the school, to a college prep seminar. That is an actual event happening this weekend with my school, but I'm not really going of course.
The great thing about my relationship between my parents and I is that they don't question me too much. They aren't suspicious of me doing anything bad, so they believe me when I tell them something like this. In fact they had been informed about it earlier and encouraged me to go. Instead I'm going camping with Anna, our friend Juliet and four boys from our neighboring boy’s boarding school. Job, Liam, Johnny and Leo. We met the four one weekend when we were in the nearby shopping mall. They came up to us at Starbucks and asked if we had any extra straws. Anna called dibs on Liam a long time ago, but it was okay with me. Liam is definitely her type. Wild, tall, loud, perfect muscles. He has eyes that are solid, sky blue and raven black hair that makes his eyes stand out even more. He is a little cocky, something I don’t care much for, but for some reason Anna does. I think she likes the competition too. Leo and Job are loud like Liam, but just not as much. They are really all good looking, but Johnny is the only one that stands out to me. He’s short compared to his friends, but still taller than me. He has dark brown hair that he lets grow just above his eyes and over his ears. The borderline length the school gives them. His big chocolate brown eyes have an genuinely sweetness to them that I cannot ignore. He isn't too loud or too quiet either. He is in between, and he's funny. He has an authentic sense of humor and can make everyone's shoulders relax in awkward situations. His parents are rich, but he doesn't have a snob gene in him. I'm not so sure his parents do either. The way he talks about them makes it seem like they are very much like him. Genuine, funny, real. I met his mother once. She is a small woman, with the same gentle brown eyes, but with a curled blond bob. She had laughed at our uniforms. "You look like those Japanese cartoon characters."

"Like anime?" Johnny asked and I laughed. Juliet has her eye on him too, but I know it isn't the same kind of crush I have. She likes everyone. She flirts with all four of them, Liam especially, when Anna's eyes and ears are somewhere else. She openly talks about her crushes on Johnny and Liam to me, as well as everyone else she has her eyes on. I don't tell anyone about my crush. Anna knows though, I think. She teases me about him when no one else is around. Juliet, she’s a little superficial. The classic tall blonde which she dyes lighter, because it is actually a little more dirty blonde than blonde blonde. Light blue eyes and perfect pink lips. She’s tall and toned, she goes tanning every week and works out every day. She wears every brand of clothing and accessories my mother ever gets me, so I end up giving her some of my clothes too. She wears a lot of makeup and her nails are always done. She flirts with every guy that is 'good enough' for her. I like her though, surprisingly. The first day I was here I tripped over a kink in the floor on the way to the bathroom. I was going to shower and only had a towel on, which slipped off of course. I was lying naked on the floor, while at least four other girls stood there and laughed. I stood up fast, my face red, red, red. Juliet had appeared quickly from behind the laughing girls and put my towel in front of me. I wrapped it around me, thanking her in a stumble of letters. "Don't worry about them, they're just jealous of your hot bod. They don't go to the gym too often, they eat snowballs every night instead. Can‘t you tell?" She said as we walked past them. They stopped laughing and gave us hideous witch glares. They were just as skinny as Juliet, but her comment still shut them up.

We had to take two cars to the woods and so I didn't get to see Johnny until we arrived. Well I guess I did get to see him a little when Anna and Liam drove next to each other racing and giving each other the bird, the only sign language Anna knew, she
had once said to me. I had laughed. I hadn't ever thought of it, but it was the only “sign language” I knew too. Anna had turned on a hip hop station and I changed it to a station that played 70s and 80s songs. "You and your old music!" Anna laughed.

"Hey these are real musicians. Real music is becoming extinct,” I said back.

I know my parents would like Johnny's family status, but they wouldn't like all of his family’s principles. My mom occasionally forces her friend Brandy's son, Chris over to our house. Chris is a year older than me and a perfect match for me as my mom
always says. He is not a perfect match for me. He's attractive in a Ralph Lauren model kind of way. He has blonde hair that he keeps cut short and spiked. Green eyes. He wears polos with the collars popped up and brand name jeans. Barf. His cologne is always too strong. He is cocky and has a full list of his future plans that he likes to tell me every time I see him. He plays tennis and golf and he takes a new girl out on his parent's boat every chance they are not home. He has slept with a classroom of girls. He keeps it classy. When our families get together he is a perfect gentleman. He’s a pretty talented actor. When we’re alone he has tried talking to me about his college plans or his boat or his won game in tennis last week. I sit there sleeping, with my eyes open. He often had tried putting his arm around me, or the moving the hair behind the ear move. I
always dodge them though, then ask him to tell me more about his golfing techniques.
Once he tried to hold my hand, and I told him I had a skin disease that could definitely spread. He hasn’t tried his moves in awhile. His mom was actually the one that gave my mom the idea of boarding school. Brandy sent Chris somewhere that my mom found o be too far, so she sent me here. I guess some good things came out of my little friendship with Chris. I wouldn't have met Anna or Juliet otherwise. Or Johnny.

The three of us girls share a tent that the boys set up for us. The four boys split tents in twos. We decide to go swimming in the lake nearby. There are cliffs all around and the boys decide they want to cliff dive. The idea scares me a little. I've never jumped off of anything very high. I ignore my nervousness. I wear a purple tank top and jean shorts over my bikini. Anna and Juliet wear only their string bikinis. I'll take my tank top off when we swim, but not when we jump. I don't want to risk anything falling out. We walk uphill, the grassy dirt crunching under our flip flops. Trees cover everything around us. I like the green enclosure. It feels like we are so far away from everything and everyone. Anna and Liam are in the very front leading us. Anna playfully pushes Liam and he shuffles her blonde hair. She shrieks and jumps away from him, but gets close again a second later. Job and Leo walk behind them. I'm walking with Juliet and Johnny. Juliet is in the middle of us talking animatedly about a scary movie her and I snuck into the other night. Johnny laughs, "Sounds like a good movie." Anna turns around and sees us. She yells, "Juliet come here, tell Liam about what we did last night." Juliet's face lights up. She trots around Leo and Job to the side of Liam and starts talking. Anna gives me a mischievous grin which I look away from and hope Johnny missed. Johnny starts talking to me, "So are you scared?"
"Scared for what?"
"Jumping."
"Oh..no." I say quickly.
He laughs, "Have you ever done this?"
"No…" I say after a moment. I am a little nervous, but I don't want to admit that to him.
"I'll jump with you." He offers, a hint of shyness in his voice. I get embarrassed when other people do, so I feel my cheeks immediately get hot and I look away and laugh, "Sure then I won't have to die alone."
He laughs and I breathe, letting my face return to normal temperature before I look at him again. "Did you have fun on your birthday?" He asks before I can think of anything to say. He had called me on my birthday and left me a message. It was a recording of a weird video we had found awhile back and laughed obnoxiously at. Then he said, "Happy Birthday Rae, have a fantastic day." It was my favorite part of my birthday.

"It was alright, my parents didn't get the ice cream cake." He laughed. He knew my parents pretty well from my descriptions.
"We'll have to stop by a Dairy Queen on the way back and get it."
"Okay."
"What kind?"
"Oreo."
"Mm that sounds good."
I laugh at him and he returns it with a smile. I look away before my face can reveal me again. When we get to the cliffs I feel my stomach clench up. "Maybe we should see how deep the water is first."
"Too late for that!" Job says and makes a whooping noise.
"I'll go back down, I don't mind." I say.
"No way, you're not getting out of this!" Anna shouts and grabs me around the waist.
"I'll jump, I just think we should make sure it's safe.."
They all laugh and Johnny chuckles. "Looks deep enough to me." Liam says.
I give up. "Whose going first?" Leo asks grinning. Liam volunteers of course. Juliet and Anna both say they will jump with him. I watch as they grab hands, Anna in the middle and my palms began to tear up. They start counting and I say, "Are you sure.." but they bound off on three and I rush up to the edge with my heart falling down my stomach. I see as they all hold hands, feet out under them, the girls screaming in pure adrenaline joy. They hit the surface and seconds later come up. Everything happened very fast. I breathe out and close my eyes for a second, relieved. "That was awesome!" Liam shouts.

"My top totally fell off!!" Juliet shouts as she swims a little ways away from the other two to fix it. Leo and Job go next because I refuse to go. "We'll go last." Johnny confirms when Leo starts to tease me for being a “chicken egg.” Leo and Job stand a few feet apart and Johnny counts for them. I watch again as they jump. They land in the water and break surface and then it's already our turn. I’m ready to turn around and pretend to get sick or pass out, anything to get out of jumping. I think of a time when my mom told me about a group of college kids who died cliff diving. My mom asked who would do such an outrageous thing anyway. “There’s nothing fun about throwing yourself off a rock!” She had said. I wonder if she had a point now. But then I think of all the expensive clothes, jewelry, makeup, shoes, cars, and expensive food at outrageous restaurants that she makes our family go to all the time. I think of Chris bragging about his dad's boat and tennis matches. His stinking cologne and popped up collars. I think of my parents disowning Vanessa. I think of the snobs at my school, the girls that just stood there and laughed when I fell and lay there naked, the raspberry cake that was too sweet, the lavender Kate dress, my mom making me braid my hair back and then I see myself, with professionally straightened hair and my diamond Tiffany necklace on telling my own daughter that I don’t know why anyone would jump off a rock or do anything adventurous, crazy, exhilarating. And I don’t like it. So I step forward and I’m not as afraid anymore. I know that I need to do this. Johnny turns toward me. "Ready?" He asks laughing a little.
"Yes," I say and we walk toward the edge. I stand there breathing deep and fast and a moment later he holds his hand out. I look at it and wipe my hand off before giving it to him. "You really are scared! Don’t be. You’ll be running back up here to do it again in a minute." He says gently but with his sweet smile. His eyes look right into my own. I smile back, “I’m not that scared.” We look down and he starts to count. “One..two..” My heart is pounding, but I already know I’m going to jump. He looks at me one more time, smiling, his eyes reassuring me. "Three!" He shouts and we jump. The air hits my feet and every other part of me, but it feels good. I feel free and I scream, but I'm not screaming out of fear. I'm about to fly into the water. I'm doing something my mom would kill me for. I would be missing this moment if I ever listened to her and I feel sad for her, that she is the one missing moments like this. I feel the wet touch my toes, then cover my legs, chest and head. Johnny and I break apart and then swim back up. He pops up a second after I do and is laughing, and looking at me. "That wasn't so bad was it?" He shouts.
"No, it was incredible."

© 2019 Iris Moon

Author's Note

Ignore the bad grammar.. I wrote this when I was 19..;)

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SweetNutmeg

I really enjoyed this and thought, Oh boy, what happens next? But it s a lone story. So I guess I'll just have to imagine the rest myself. Thank you for posting this. It was a lot of fun.