Bridge Jumping

I started messing around with this tonight. I think it's slightly based off Anna and Joe.... I can't wait to go swimming this summer.

Headlights threw their bodies’ shadows onto the pavement. Their bare skin was exposed to the harsh yellow light and each others’ eyes as thet stripped down to their skivvies on the shoulder. It was a forty foot drop from the bridge but in the dark when you looked down it seemed to just go on .

“So what do you think?” He rubbed his hands together and jumped up and down in place. “I don’t know if it looks deep enough.”

“Ok, fuck it I’m going.”

Her skin contracted into goose bumps when the terry cloth left her body and the night air whispered around it. She climbed the railing, self conscious of her body on display. She balanced, pushed one shin against the rail and curled her big toe around the top bar for support. She didn’t process the space between the water and her feet, instead she was aware of the water’s blackish purple hue and the motion of the waves beneath. She placed one foot in the air and tensed the other against the rail. As she pushed off she caught his eye . She was going down. The blood rushed through her veins as the lines of his face echoed in her head; she was falling. Before she registered anything else her body hit water hard and it was all over. Dark water was above and below her. Her body bobbed to the surface and air hit her lungs. She pushed the blanket of hair from her eyes. “Wooh!” Her voice cut through the humid night air and reverberated in her head as the waves rhythmically pushed her body, pressing it in one direction then the other. She righted herself in the water and looked up at him. He stood at the edge looking down .

“Wait a sec.” He climbed the rail and, without a pause, let go and turned over in to the water’s surface like someone turns over in bed.

“Fu…” his body’s side hit the lake hard.

“Shit. Are you ok?” Her voice came out in choppy breaths as she swam to his side.

Breathing quick shallow breaths, adjusted himself into the new environment and rubbed his arm. “Dear God.”

“Are you ok?”

“…Yeah”
“You hit hard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone hit that hard before.”

“Yeah? We’ll, if you’re going to do it.” His face pinched in pain as he attempted to swim in the direction of the bank.

On the gritty bank the two of them wrapped themselves in the yellow towels, and sat under the bridge. Light from the moon reflected off the water and illuminated the contours of their faces as they sat in obvious silence and picked at their sand incrusted feet.

She started. “So, what were you going to say before?”

“Nothing”, he said hopefully and went back to playing with the bit of wire he found tangled in the water. “This is a wire-bending jig. I can‘t believe someone just left it here”

She didn’t comment.

“These pegs can be moved, see? Then you bend the wire around them anyway you want. There are all kinds of curves and angles. I could make you a braclet. Want a bracelet?”

She leaned back a laid her fingers across her eyes, cooling them. “Sorry you got hurt. You’re going to be sore tomarrow.”

“I‘m fine. Hey, I got it. A nose ring. Want a nose ring?”

When she opened her eyes she found a curve of wire nearly touching her nose, giving off a gray smell, sharp at one end. She batted it away. “Why are you trying to distract me?

He looked surprised “Well, I just,,,I don’t know.” He started measuring out wire.

“How can you play around with little bits and pieces of wire like you’re completely at ease right now.”

“I‘m not-”

“Yesterday, my housemates warned me.”, she said. “They told me straight out you would hurt me.”

“Oh, did they?” He looked at her and went back to bending wire.

“Why are you acting this way”

“I’m not acting anyway” He adjusted a peg on the jig and turned a right angle.

“I’m sorry.”, She said finally.

“That’s alright.”

“Come on.” She started to stand up.

“I should’ve known.”, he told her. “I didn’t believe you’d come away with me in the first place.”

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m already getting pulled. My friends don’t like me with you. I don’t like that.”

“I don’t want to pull on you.”

“But then they’re the only ones pulling, and they’ll win”

“Is that the only way you go anywhere? Being pulled?”

She was silent.

“Alright”, he said. “I’d like you to be with me. It’s important. It’s more important than doing what they say.”

But she went on watching his face.

“Well how am I suppose to do this”, he asked her throwing up his hands. I don’t feel comfortable saying things straight out.”

“You say things straight out.”

“No”, said he mock-solemly. “ I shy. I not talk so good but I give swell presents.”

Then he handed her his wire. A stick figure wearing her triangular towel, looking so straight backed and light hearted that even a tribesman in darkest Africa could tell that someone cared for her.