Three Amazing Things About You (29 page)

It might have worked out a bit better if she hadn’t then gone on to share the news of the promise with Lena. On the one hand, it had been closure for their mother. On the other, it had effectively given Lena a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rest of her life.

‘I’m going to bed. Good night.’ Tired and resigned, Zander left his sister in the living room; there was no point arguing with her any more. Oh, but it was an endless circle of frustration, being responsible for someone older than yourself.

At this rate, he’d still be stuck with her when he was eighty.

The wind was blasting Tasha’s face and she was tumbling through the air. The parachute should have opened by now, but it was still tightly packed into the bag on her back and the toggle to release it had vanished. Having fumbled frantically to find it without success, she gave up and began to flap her arms instead . . . maybe if she flapped them fast enough she could save herself . . . except now the ground was rushing up towards her. Oh God, too late, she was going to crash—

Tasha gulped, gasped and woke up, shuddering with relief because she was at home in bed, not splattered somewhere in a field. God, the
relief
. Still alive, not dead. Although the way her poor overwrought heart was currently crashing around inside her ribcage, it might not hold out too much longer.

Next to her, Rory slept peacefully on, his breathing slow and even. Amazingly, she hadn’t woken him up with all her arm-flapping and thrashing about.

Ugh, though. Was there anything worse in the world than that horrific sensation of falling from a great height? No, there wasn’t. Her stomach was still knotted at the memory of it, her breathing ragged, her palms tingling and damp with adrenalin-fuelled sweat.

OK, just close your eyes and relax. Stop thinking about it. Go back to sleep
.

Ten minutes later, since that clearly wasn’t going to happen, Tasha slid out of bed and headed for the kitchen. She boiled the kettle, made herself a mug of tea and sat down in the living room with her laptop.

It was four in the morning on Thursday. Three days from now, the skydive would be over. With a bit of luck, the parachute would open and she wouldn’t die. Hopefully too, once the hideous experience was behind her, tonight’s recurring dream would stop and she’d be able to sleep like a normal person once more.

‘There you are.’ Ruffling her bed-head hair, Rory joined her on the sofa. ‘I woke up and you were gone. Thought you’d run off with another man.’

‘He’s picking me up in an hour.’ Tasha rested her bare legs across his lap and watched his hand massage her left knee.

‘Did you have the dream again?’

‘No.’ She shook her head, felt him give her knee a gentle squeeze. ‘Maybe.’ Rory knew about the dreams; last time she’d been flapping her arms so hard she’d whacked him round the head.

‘You don’t have to do it, you know. You can cancel.’

‘Not going to happen.’

‘You’re terrified.’

This was true. When she’d first said she’d do the jump, she’d been so sure she wouldn’t be scared. But that was before Joe had said jokingly, ‘Whatever you do, don’t Google skydiving accidents.’

Because Googling skydiving accidents
really
hadn’t helped.

The recurring dream – except it wasn’t a dream, it was a nightmare – had started that same night.

‘I can feel your heart racing from here,’ Rory said now. ‘Seriously, you don’t have to put yourself through this. You’re allowed to change your mind.’

Tasha shifted the angle of the laptop so he could see the screen showing her fund-raising page. Since setting it up, the donations had kept rolling in, thanks to Joe and Rory shamelessly tapping up their friends and colleagues in the City.

‘It’s up to eight and a half thousand pounds. I’m not backing out.’

‘Is that what’s bothering you?’ Rory drew her against him so her head was resting on his shoulder. ‘Seriously, don’t even think about it. If you tell everyone the skydive’s cancelled and offer them their money back, I guarantee not one person will accept it.’

Oh God, it was so tempting. The details of the top Google searches were by now pretty much tattooed on Tasha’s brain. One man had died when his harness became detached during descent . . . a skydiver had plummeted to her death after her chute failed to open . . . a student and instructor had
both
died during a tandem jump as a result of equipment malfunction . . .

She shook her head. It was no good; she’d said she’d jump out of a plane, and she was going to do it if it killed her.

Although fingers crossed, it wouldn’t.

She straightened up, closed the laptop and met Rory’s hazel-flecked green eyes. ‘Hey, we’re doing it. No way am I backing out.’

The deep roar of the engines reverberated in Tasha’s ears as the plane soared into the air. Sunlight streamed in through the dusty windows and she had to close her eyes for a moment. It was finally going to happen. When they reached twelve thousand feet, the door would be opened and people would start throwing themselves out through it.

Everything felt the same as it had done before, except this time it wasn’t a dream.

Her eyes were still closed when she felt Rory’s fingers entwine with hers, and the warmth of his breath in her ear.

‘Still time to change your mind.’

Tasha opened her eyes and smiled; he was doing the jump for the sheer thrill of it, because he wanted to. It simply didn’t occur to him that he could die. She squeezed his fingers and said, ‘Still doing it.’

‘It wouldn’t make any difference to me. You know that, don’t you? I love you whether you jump or not.’

‘I love you too.’ They were both wearing plastic goggles; it wasn’t the most romantic of kisses, what with the sides of the goggles clashing together, but just for a second it made Tasha feel better.

‘Look happy,’ said one of the instructors, holding up a camera. ‘Today’s the big day!’

Tasha hoped it didn’t turn out to be the day she vomited with fear all over her borrowed blue jumpsuit.

Up and up they went, on their way to twelve thousand feet. Which hadn’t actually sounded too bad until someone else remarked cheerily, ‘Can you believe it? We’re two miles up in the air!’

Two whole
miles
. Ridiculous. Oh God, and now her scalp was starting to prickle with fear . . .

‘OK, let’s get ready now.’ Her designated instructor, the one to whom she would be attached for the tandem jump, moved towards her. His name was Graham, and he looked like a jolly farmer. Tasha let him double-check the safety harness she was already wearing, then fasten her to his front.

‘Remember what you have to do?’ said Graham.

They’d watched a video and he’d given her all the necessary instructions on the ground. Tasha nodded; she’d never paid so much attention to anything before in her life. A few feet away, Rory’s instructor was clipping and fastening himself to Rory, who grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

See? Not a care in the world
.

Then someone shouted, ‘Open the door,’ and two people beside the cargo hatch raised it. Without a moment’s hesitation, they dived through and vanished from view.

Now the tandem jumpers made their way towards it, walking awkwardly in their tethered pairs, and sitting down as they approached the gaping hole. One woman began to hyperventilate and scream that she couldn’t do it, and her instructor moved her out of the queue.

Which didn’t help.

Then it was Rory’s turn, and he just had time to flash her a smile before his instructor scooted him forward and tipped him out of the plane.

‘OK?’ Graham rested a hand on Tasha’s shoulder.

‘I’m good.’ Her teeth were chatting uncontrollably. Right now, Rory was tumbling through the air. What if the parachute got tangled and didn’t open?

What if mine doesn’t?

They’d reached the hatch. Behind her, Tasha could hear the hyperventilating woman sobbing and saying, ‘I can’t do it, please don’t make me do it.’ Nudging her forward inch by inch, Graham shouted above the noise of the wind, ‘Just relax and cross your arms over your chest.’

Her feet were now dangling down through the hatch, being buffeted sideways by the wind. She felt Graham ease forward, moving her with him. He rocked back, then forward again . . . and then there was no more plane floor to be sitting on. They were tumbling over and over through the air, free-falling. At that point, Tasha knew for sure that her life was over. She was oh so definitely going to die.

Then Graham tapped her smartly on both shoulders, his signal for her to get into the free-fall position. Tasha stretched her body flat and held her arms out wide, arching her back, keeping her head raised and curling her legs up behind her.

Her face was battered by the wind, her hair was tied back but the ends still slapped her cheeks. They were falling, she knew, at 120mph. This was going to carry on for at least the next forty seconds. Since she wasn’t going to die for another few minutes, she looked down and saw green grass, hayfields, trees and buildings below. And above and all around her, mesmerising in its vastness, there was clear blue sky.

She didn’t even realise it had happened. One minute the anxiety and terror had been all-encompassing; the next minute it had evaporated. They were hurtling through the air together and it felt like the most magical and amazing thing in the world. She was flying. Well, not quite. But the fear was gone.

Then at five thousand feet Graham pulled the ripcord and deployed the parachute. There was a tugging sensation on the harness gripping Tasha’s body, and plummeting gave way to gently floating down to earth.

Oh wow, this was incredible. Gazing around, she took in the cars bouncing sunlight off their windscreens, the teeny-tiny people below, the birds flying through the space between up here and down there. And that was the field they’d be landing in; she could see the big white cross laid out on the ground to guide them towards it.

There seemed to be something written on the cross, Tasha saw as she swayed and floated through the warm air. Graham’s arm came into view and he pointed over her shoulder.

‘Can you make out what it says?’

She shook her head; presumably it would be something along the lines of: ‘Please land here, and if you can manage not to break your legs we’d be grateful.’

Thirty seconds later, when they were that much closer, the blurry black letters became recognisable words, and she saw that they said:

Behind the plastic goggles, Tasha’s eyes filled with tears.

Oh wow. Just . . . wow.

Ninety seconds later, the ground came up to meet them and it was time to land. Pulling up her legs and scooting along practically in Graham’s lap, Tasha made it without so much as a bump. They’d managed a textbook landing, the white parachute billowing behind them.

‘Well?’ said Graham, unclipping her and helping her out of the harness.

‘It was amazing. Thank you so much. I loved it.’

‘Good.’ He beamed at her, his jolly farmer’s cheeks glowing. ‘Although I was actually wondering how you felt about the message on the landing cross.’

He’d known about it all along, had been in on the surprise. Tasha removed her plastic goggles and said, ‘Exciting, isn’t it? Someone wants to marry me!’ Her eyes danced. ‘Now we just have to find out who it is.’

Then she turned, because there was Rory waiting at the perimeter of the landing area with Joe and Carmel. And her heart gave a squeeze of love, because he truly made her life complete.

As she reached them, Joe indicated his raised phone. ‘I’m videoing this, by the way, for posterity. So keep it clean if you can.’

Tasha shivered as Rory reached out and took hold of her left hand. His gaze unwavering, he said, ‘I’m going to do this properly,’ and dropped to one knee.

‘Oh my God,’ Carmel exclaimed, ‘this is SO romantic.’

‘Don’t interrupt.’ Joe gave her a nudge.

‘I love you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone,’ said Rory.

‘Thanks,’ said Joe. ‘It’s because I’m such a great guy.’

‘
You
shut up,’ said Carmel. ‘Come on, just let him get on and do it.’

‘Tash, you’ve changed my life. I’m so glad I saw you digging around in that rubbish bin on Christmas Eve. If you hadn’t thrown away your credit card, we’d never have met.’ Rory shook his head. ‘And that just doesn’t bear thinking about. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. So would you make me the happiest man in the world and be my wife?’

Tasha broke into a slow, unstoppable smile. ‘Oh yes please. Yes, yes, yes.’ She sank to her knees so that she could throw her arms around him. ‘Absolutely yes!’

Between kisses, as assorted bystanders whooped and applauded, Rory said, ‘And just so you know, I’m not doing this because you jumped out of the plane. It was always going to happen anyway.’ He unzipped the top pocket of his blue jumpsuit and took out a small jewellery box tied with white ribbon. When Tasha saw the colour of the box – that distinctive shade of duck-egg blue – her mouth went dry.

Then he opened the lid and she started to laugh, because inside was a ring-shaped Haribo sweet nestled on the bed of white satin.