At Last by Ella Stone Read Free Book Online

Streep. It was so outrageous, yet made such instant, inscrutable sense. Susan turned back to the sky and watched as the paraglider dipped for an instant, and then rose back up, even higher than it had been before.
    “It’s beautiful,” she murmured, more to herself than to Kevin. She wanted to know what it was like up there, flying through the air, the entire world stretching out below her.
    “And so dangerous,” he said. “I mentioned the risking our lives part, right?”
    Susan groaned and shook her head. “Yeah, you mentioned that.”

Chapter 4
     
     
     
    SUSAN FELT PEACEFUL, if not a little amused, as the guys running the paragliding outfit strapped her into a harness and lashed her to Kevin so her shoulders were firm against his chest. She marveled at how the thick pull line seemed to make sounds like it was made out of metal, which comforted her quite a bit.
    But she flashed back to the first thing the two paragliding guys had her and Kevin do: read and sign a release form. She hadn’t done more than glance at it before she signed. Mark would’ve had a fit, but he didn’t have a say anymore. In truth, she was sure that if she’d read the release, she would’ve balked and not signed.
    That alone would’ve ended Kevin’s crazy up-up-in-the-air idea. But right then, it felt like her idea too. That was until the speedboat started to pick up velocity, and the guy not steering gave the metal links that connected them to the lead line, and the line to the boat, one last check. That’s when panic struck.
    Susan could feel herself start to hyperventilate. She knew she was about to scream, begging for them to stop the boat, to let her go. And just at that exact second the guy hit a button, releasing the extra line holding them down, that also released the parachute strapped to Kevin’s back.
    With an abrupt leave-your-stomach-at-the-door jolt they were forty feet in the air. Someone was screaming like they were being murdered. It took a moment before Susan realized it was her. She slammed her eyelids shut, squeezing as hard as she could. She couldn’t take it, the way getting ripped from the boat and up into the air made her feel so defenseless. Without the thinnest sense of control. Susan thought she was going to die, which horrified and comforted her. The horror was probably just some knee-jerk reaction to impending death. Some genetically imprinted warning device that said, don’t do this, stupid!
    The part of Susan that was comforted was the one that didn’t want to go on any more. That didn’t want to keep remembering how it felt getting stood up at the church. That didn’t want to go back and have to explain to her co-workers what happened--to see their open pity. Or face her mother, God forbid. That part was happy to be forty freaking feet in the air with the only thing keeping her from certain death, a well-used parachute.
    That part was sure that this was the end, and it breathed a great sigh of relief. The whole nightmare would be over soon.
    Susan felt the heat and pressure from Kevin’s arms, wrapped firmly around her where her belly met her rib cage. She felt his chest heaving and his heart thudding against her back and realized she had a death grip of her own on Kevin’s forearms.
    “Are we dead yet?” she screamed.
    “Nah.” Kevin’s voice was in her ear, yet his words seemed to streak away with the pounding wind. “But if you open your eyes--”
    How did he know she had her eyes shut?
    “You’ll see that it looks like heaven.”
    Her whole body trembled, stiff and tight, bracing for impact. She had a hard time registering what he’d said.
    “Really...it looks like...heaven?”
    “Close enough. So are you gonna look or what?” Kevin snapped.
    It was the first mean thing he’d said since he’d been back--the old, fun Kevin, who told her how it was, and it automatically made Susan start to relax. She opened her eyes slowly, apprehensive until the dazzling blue of the ocean