He pulled Logan in front him and fastened the harness. Logan blinked repeatedly, a sign of his nervousness.
“Dude you aren’t gay are you?” Logan asked, squirming when Derek touched his waist while adjusting the harness.
Derek froze and then scowled. “Even if I was I wouldn’t be interested in you.”
We all burst out laughing. “LOL direct insult.” Alan guffawed. “Even guys are not interested in you Logan, forget about girls and start hunting for a pig.”
“Says the guy who couldn’t even get a junior girl.” Logan scoffed. “Anyways we’ll land on the drop zone right?” He asked, deliberately changing the topic.
I saw Derek roll his eyes behind the eye mask. “I am a pro dude.”
And then they jumped. I heard Logan scream but Ron stopped us from peeping out. After two minutes he made sure mine and Bryan’s harness was well connected.
“Ready?” Ace whispered in my ears.
I gulped, peeking down. No! “I am scared of falling.”
“I’ll catch you.” His hands pressed on my shoulders reassuringly.
I turned to face him, staring right into those dark chocolaty eyes. “If you don’t?”
He gave a shy smile. “I’ll fall with you.”
Somehow I felt we weren’t talking about falling outside the drop zone anymore. We were talking about something much more tense. Little did he know I had already fallen in that sense.
“Jump and land on the drop zone, you’ll find Derek and Logan there.” Ron said, moving behind to give us space to jump.
I clutched the front of my harness tightly and closed my eyes.
“One . . . two.” Ace started, inching closer to the door. “Jump.” He shouted and we both jumped at the same time.
My first reaction was to scream at the top of my lungs which only resulted in me swallowing the air.
“Open your eyes Joanna. The view is awesome.” Bryan shouted through the wind.
Reluctantly I opened my eyes and didn’t regret it, and with the height we were at, the land, the buildings, mountains, clouds, tiny trees everything looked so beautiful. I never knew the world was so enchanting; we all are too engrossed in our personal problems to notice the surrounding.
We all live in the world we created for ourselves where our eyesight doesn’t go beyond our own head.
Shamelessly I drooled over the exquisite forgotten world. I was glad I got a chance to admire the splendor and realize how beautiful the world actually is.
Half way down he pulled the strap and our pace slowed down because of the parachute. I saw Logan and Derek below us with their blue and yellow parachute. Instinctively I looked up to see the color of our parachute – black and red.
“Didn’t they have any other color?” I scowled at him.
“Nah.” He winked back.
“Idiot.” I muttered. “Logan!” I shouted, waving my arm.
“Joanna!”
I turned up to see Brittany waving at us. I grinned and waved back. “Oh this is fun.”
“We should have recorded this.” Brittany said, coming closer to us.
“Yeah.” Logan agreed, looking upwards.
“We do have people who record but no one said anything about it.” Derek said.
“We’ll record it next time.” Ace promised, leaning his face even closer to me.
I grinned in response. Another dive sounded so much fun!
“Woah! What? No more jumping from the sky! I value my life, thank you very much.” Janice exclaimed, her voice coming strangled.
Dylan patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, I’ll be there.”
“Another reason to worry.”
Dylan scowled and loosened his grip on her, instantly cries filled the air.
“You donkey, you monkey, you dumbass. What are you doing? Don’t leave me. Hold me tight.”
Dylan grinned smugly. “With pleasure. Now that was worth recording.”
“Okay guys! Landing.” Derek shouted, going down near to the instructors.
We followed and soon all of us had landed safely.
“I give you a head start. One, two and-”
We looked at the screaming Dylan closely followed by a furious Janice and shook our heads.
Some things never change and sometimes it’s better that way.
¤¤
I gazed at the never ending range of gowns and dresses with amazement as they made my head spin. Red, blue, golden, silver, black, green, every colour dress was put up there, even a multi-coloured one that spread out in a weird fashion, making it look like a rainbow mermaid gown. Awesome. Not.
“Have you decided what you want?” Janice asked, coming from behind me.
I turned to face her. She was wearing a knee length aqua blue dress, it was strapless and stuck to her body like a second skin. She posed with a hand on her hip and turned to show the back which had a huge circle at the center, showing off her powdered back. She looked gorgeous.
“This is perfect!” I stated truthfully.
She grinned happily. “You think Dylan will like it?”
I rolled my eyes. “He will love it Janice.”
Her grin widened. “Are you getting anything?”
I scanned the dresses again and nothing interested me even mildly. “Nope, I’ll skip this time. Nothing of my type.” I had got a fashion top and a grey sweatshirt that was enough for today. I didn’t even have an occasion to buy.
She rolled her eyes and went back to change into her jeans and top. She was getting ready for her first date with Dylan. He had finally got the guts to ask her out a week before and Janice immediately demanded to go shopping, even though she had about fifty dresses in her closet. But she wanted a new dress especially for Dylan. After making me go to five ridiculously costly shops and buying jeans and tops instead of a dress, she finally found this dress. I could already imagine her wedding planner having a hard time.
“I am so excited about this date!” Janice exclaimed, sighing in delight as she took the bag of dress from the cashier.
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“He is so cute and was so nervous when he asked me. He had this whole set up-”
“Janice. I have heard this like fifty thousand times already.” I told irritated.
“You have?” She blinked innocently.
I gave her a flat look. “From the last one week that’s the only thing I am hearing from you. Don’t act like an obsessed girl now. He asked you out, you told yes, you two are going on a date. End.”
She frowned at my harsh words. “I was just sharing my feelings.”
“I know.” I said in a low voice feeling guilty instantly, I sighed. “Sorry, it’s just that Bryan hasn’t met me for two days. It’s like he’s avoiding me and then you just don’t stop talking about Dylan. So I took out my anger on you. I didn’t men it you know. I am glad you are finally going out with Dylan.”
She shrugged bumping her shoulder with mine. “It’s okay, I would have probably done the same if you kept talking non-stop about Bryan. Let’s eat.” She said, going to the counter.
“Yeah.” I muttered, walking behind her.
“Why don’t you text him?”
I blew a breath of exasperated breath. “I want to but I don’t want to come on as a clingy girlfriend. Still I did send a forwarded joke yesterday, no response. Not even a LOL.”
“He’s probably busy with some work, he’ll get back to you. You know that.” Janice consoled, patting my arm.
I sighed silently, not letting her know how much his absence was affecting me. We had stuck by the hips since we started dating three weeks back and his sudden disappearance was upsetting me way more than it should. He could have at least told and then gone. It was like deja vu. I had never thought I’d become so obsessed.
I had typed a text and deleted it over a hundred times. Pathetic.
“Wait here I need to pee.” She suddenly said, pulling me towards the girl’s toilet. I stopped her. “Uh you go. I’ll order something.”
She scowled but handed her bag and ran off.
I rubbed my forehead as I walked to MacDonald’s, wondering why Bryan was behaving the way he is. I looked around for a place to sit but my eyes froze on a particular figure.
Long black hair, hazel eyes, high cheek bones, pink lips, sleuth figure, dressed in skinny black jeans and cream fashion top. She looked gorgeous.
Anastasia.