The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(77)

The guys glance at each other.

“It is stupid,” Liam finally says, “but if anyone could pull it off, he could.”

Panic tightens my chest, but the rest of the crowd shrugs in reluctant agreement, and when Luke emerges, there’s a weird combination of anxiety and excitement in the air. They all do things someone else has suggested is ill-advised, and Luke is a far better surfer than any of them. He surfed Mavericks, after all. Telling him he can’t make this is like telling an Olympic athlete he can’t break a record—none of them feel qualified to say what he can or cannot do.

“Wish me luck,” he says before taking one last look at me and disappearing downstairs.

My stomach drops to my feet.

We gather on the deck, and a minute later we see him walking out to the beach with his best board, the one he used to win at La Jolla—yellow, white, and black striped—like he thinks it will make him invulnerable. It won’t. That fucking board could snap in half the second he hits the water if he lands wrong.

“This is crazy,” Libby says firmly. “He probably won’t even survive the jump. Make him wait until tomorrow. The weather will be better, and he can surf then.”

“The weather’s not going to be better tomorrow,” says Beck.

“That’s not the point!” I cry. “Make him stop!”

Don’t they see he’s acting like someone with nothing left to lose?

“Juliet, even if we wanted to stop him, we couldn’t,” says Beck. There’s sympathy in his gaze, sympathy that wasn’t there when he addressed Libby just a moment ago. It’s almost as if he knows exactly what’s going on here.

It’s Mavericks all over again but worse this time. Luke isn’t doing something he knows other people have succeeded at. He has no clue what could happen. And I didn’t try to stop him at Mavericks, but I still remember those moments when I thought he was gone. I still remember how deeply I regretted not trying to talk him out of it.

“No,” I say, dropping Danny’s hand and taking off at a run.

Danny shouts at me to stop, but I ignore him, running down the stairs and chasing Luke across the sand.

I know we’ve got an audience and I just don’t care. Nothing matters to me as much as convincing him to stop.

The gravel slides under foot as I scramble up the cliff behind him. He’s halfway there by the time

I catch him.

He glances over his shoulder at me, his face stern. “Go back, Juliet.”

“I’m begging you.” I gasp for air from running out here and climbing. “Don’t do this.”

Something flickers in his eyes. I’m not sure if it’s pity or concern, and I don’t care as long as it means he’s listening to what I’m saying.

It disappears as fast as it arrived, and his eyes grow cold again…it’s how he steels himself against me.

“The difference between us is that you’re scared of death and I’m not.” He turns to start climbing again. “If I was, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.”

He easily scrambles up the last rocks to reach the top only using one hand, while I struggle to follow.

“There is a world of difference,” I huff, “between a calculated risk and what you are doing right now. This isn’t a calculated risk. This is suicide.”

He reaches down to pull me up over the last big rock, and for a moment we’re standing close, his hand still on my arm, but then he releases me as if by force, walking forward to the cliff’s edge. I look down. Far, far below us the water churns, charcoal gray and ominous. He’ll have to jump ridiculously far to make it, and the odds of it happening, without him either getting hit by the board or breaking it in the process are slim to none.

He walks back to me. His face is too serious, too determined, for me to hope he’s changed his mind.

“I haven’t loved many things in this world,” he says, “but I loved you from the minute I saw you, and whether it’s today or seventy years from now, I’ll love you with my dying breath.”

And then, without hesitating or calculating, he runs toward the edge of the cliff.

I want to scream but the sound is locked in my throat. I want to run to the edge to see if he made it, but my limbs won’t work. I’ll love you with my dying breath. I didn’t even get a chance to say it back.

I’m frozen, too terrified to look. If he’s gone, if he’s badly hurt, I don’t know how I’ll even…

A cheer erupts from the people on Harrison’s deck. I walk to the edge, my legs shaking like a new foal’s, and I sink to my knees when I get there, unable to stand even a moment longer.

He’s paddling toward the break, and though he’s survived the jump there are still no guarantees. I clutch my stomach, worried I’m going to be sick.

The break is farther than it first appeared. By the time Luke reaches it, half the house is down on the beach, watching, shouting encouragement he can’t possibly hear. Rocks and gravel slip underfoot behind me, and then Danny comes up to one side and Libby to the other.

We watch in strained silence while he lets several moderate waves pass, his gaze focused on the horizon.

“What’s he doing?” Grady asks from behind us. “Those look like decent waves to me.”

I roll my eyes.