Page 5 of Leave Before I Love You
“What?!” Avery shakes her head frantically, tears streaking down her face. “No, no, no—do something!”
I check Mario’s pulse one last time. Nothing. No second chances. No miracles. Just a dead man at the controls and a plane in free fall.
“Avery, get ready to jump!” I yell harshly, pulling Mario to the side to try to get control of the plane, but the lift is totally gone, and with my very limited—nonexistent—experience operating an aircraft, I’m afraid this fall is unrecoverable.
The world narrows to one brutal, terrifying fact—I have seconds to get us out or we die here too.
I move as quickly and efficiently as possible to get back to Avery. It’s not easy, given the angle of the plane and the smooth surface I have to climb, but somehow, I do it.
Avery is the definition of terrified, her eyes as wide as her face and her chest heaving with each shaky pant of air. She’s in shock, clearly, and when her gaze refuses to meet mine, I grab her face between my hands and force her to look at me.
“Avery,” I bark. “We have to jump. Right now.”
She shakes her head wildly, gripping my wrists like they’re her only lifeline. “Ican’t!Henry, I can’t! What if—what if—”
I cut her off, my voice steady and firm. “Youcan.I’m going to get you out of this, but you have to listen to me. Right now.”
She nods frantically, tears dripping off her chin. “O-okay. Okay.”
I yank us toward the jump door, fighting the sharp incline of the plane. Avery’s body is shaking so hard it’s making it harder, but I don’t let go.
She’s wide-eyed and scared, and I don’t blame her, but with the rate we’re headed for the ocean, I don’t have time to coddle her about it. I’m rough and jerky as I maneuver her body in front of mine and secure us together, and she cries audibly while I’m doing it.
Compartmentalizing, I ignore the fact that we’re very much leaving Mario to a certain death—though I’m pretty sure he’s well and truly gone already—and turn a blind eye to how understandably upset Avery is as she screams and cries into the noise around us.
I wrench the door open with a roar, adrenaline giving me the strength I need. The wind rips through the cabin and makes Avery scream louder.
I pull her flush against me, my arm like iron around her waist. One last squeeze to her thigh, and we’re gone.
The free fall is immediate and brutal, and the jagged edge of rapidly approaching air steals the breath from Avery’s screams for a short moment in time.
The yellow plane plummets from the sky just a short distance to our south, and I use our aerodynamics to gain as much space between us and it as possible. The quickly approaching ground below is a frighteningly vast view of ocean and desolation, as I know for a fact that we haven’t been flying long enough to be anywhere near our jump point, but I focus on taking on one problem before considering another, and I time the opening of our chute to when I know we’re completely clear of getting hung up with the plane or anything else.
Our bodies jerk to a hard stop in the air, our momentum cutoff by the beautiful security of our parachute opening like it’s supposed to, and I take the first deep breath I have in a full five minutes.
My heart races, and my mind mirrors it as I try to figure out a plan for how to land us somewhere survivable in the next five or so minutes of our canopy ride.
There’s no way we’re making it all the way to the only land in sight—a lone island what I’d guess is a mile east of us—but I think if I concentrate, I can get us close enough to land in the water current that’s headed that way just shy of it. It’ll be another fucking nightmare to disengage us in the water while Avery’s panicking, but it’s the safest, best option, knowing we can float our way there somewhere in the neighborhood of ten minutes.
If I try to hold off our landing until we get closer, we’ll end up on the side of the island where the current is leaving, and I don’t think either of us is a strong enough swimmer to fight our way upstream for the amount of time it would take to reach land.
“Avery,” I call, realizing only at the weird mix of our voices that she’s screaming again, and try to get her attention. Explaining the plan ahead of time is going to be my best bet at keeping her from panicking when we hit the water. “Avery, listen!” I snap. It’s meant to be a slap, a shock—a catalyst to make the screaming stop, if only briefly. “I need you to listen to me.”
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she repeats over and over and over, the trauma of the nose dive, the pilot’s unresponsive body, and the sudden and very necessary jump making her manic. Changing tactics, I try to calm my voice while still being loud enough to be heard in the open-air environment, knowing I need to do everything I can to soothe her so she’s ready to fight when I need her to.
“Avery. Honey. Take a breath. I need you to breathe for me, and then I need you to listen because the next ninety seconds are extremely important, okay? Can you do that for me?”
“I…I…I can’t believe I’m going to die a virgin!” she sputters, the words harsher than normal as she tries to catch her breath.
“Aver—what?” My comprehension is slowed by the impending events and by the sudden switch to complete, cohesive sentences rather than screeches. She keeps going, though, which allows my brain to catch up.
“All these years of slutting it up, and I could never find it in me to take it all the way, and now I’m doing todie. Perish.Expire!Be eaten alive by sharks instead of a muscular, suave hero with a dimpled cheek and freakishly large thighs! I can’t believe it! I can’t!”
It’s big news. Cataclysmic, even.Avery Banks is a virgin?
Maybe if we weren’t plummeting toward the surface of the earth without an ideal location for landing, it’d be at the forefront of my mind. But we are, and I really,reallyneed Avery to focus right now like she’s never focused before.
“Avery, I need you to concentrate!” I yell, returning to my initial discourse since the soothing tones clearly haven’t worked. “We can talk about all this baggage later because Ipromise, I’m going to keep us alive. Do you hear me?”
