Page 55 of Pierce Me

“Nice to meet you,” Eden says at the same time. Her voice is calm. Lower than it used to be four years ago. Adult.

I nod in her general direction, still not looking up. Someone kill me now.

“I’m ready!” Lou announces. “Let’s go. Hold on to those for me, honey, would you?” She hands her other shoe to Eden.

Eden takes it.

I am having an out of body experience.

We start walking again and, in a few minutes, the white waters loom before us. We stand on the rocks and feel the spray of the ice-cold water on our skin. I’m numb, just numb.

I can’t think of a single line of poetry.

Nothing. My brain is empty.

Lou’s friends come up to us, phones bared like weapons, and at first, the drivers and the bodyguards stay a few yards behind, letting us enjoy the beauty of nature in privacy. ‘Enjoy’. Ha. This is torture.

“Doesn’t the water look amazing?” one of Lou’s friends exclaims in a breathy voice.

I turn around to answer, only to see that she’s talking to her phone, snap-chatting. I snort. You can bring people to a tenement of beauty, but you can’t force them to appreciate it. I glance at one of my guards, who discreetly steps up and grabs all of their phones. The only one left with hers is Lou. I’ll let her have it right now, and ask her politely for it later on.

Light filters down upon us and makes the waters shimmer golden-green. Even with Eden’s presence distracting me, I know what I see. This is paradise. The lagoon sparkling translucently beneath our feet, just over the cliff, looks like an inviting pool. Utterly still. My skin is aching for a dive, but I know it’s too early in the year; the water will be freezing. It flows down from the majestic mountains, over the waterfall, and it will be the same temperature as freshly-melted snow. That’s why it looks so clear and fresh. I can almost smell the ice on the stray droplets landing on my shirt.

I lean my head back and take a deep breath.

“The nightingales won’t let me sleep in Platres.”

Finally, the poets are here. I can hear their words in my head.

Words like these must have been written in a place like this, teeming of beauty and solitude (although Platres is in Cyprus.We’ll have to go there next, I decide.) And just like that, everything around me disappears.

I’m in the zone. The birds are singing up a storm, their melody eating up the silence. Now I get what the poet meant: the nightingales won’t let him sleep not because of the noise, but because he wants to stay awake forever, listening to them, never missing even a single note. I feel the same way.

And then, the symphony is interrupted by a shriek:

“Let’s jump in!”

“Don’t be an idiot,” I mutter under my breath, just as Lou slips her hand from her friend’s, and turns her head back to yell to her friends.

“Let’s do it!”

“Lou, no,” I say, as her friend, the one who shrieked, starts climbing up towards us on the earthen steps, her sneakers sinking in the dirt, her tiny skirt barely allowing her legs to move enough to climb up. “You’re neither dressed nor trained for a jump like that.”

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Lou laughs at me, tossing her curls behind her shoulder. “We’ll walk down to that ledge and jump from there. It will be super safe. And if I’m in trouble, you’ll jump in to rescue me, won’t you?”

“I will definitely not be jumping in to rescue anyone,” I mutter, beyond annoyed with her right now.

I get that she can’t appreciate this place as it deserves, but why did she have to go all childish on me right this second and interrupt what I can only describe as a religious experience?

“Aw,” she frowns, “don’t be like that, babe.” She tries to cling to my arm, but I shake her off. “Just think of the video, it will go viral.” She hands her phone to one of my guards, Jose, who looks at me. I look away.

I just hate it when she treats people like her servants.

Jose takes the phone.

“Make sure it’s good,” Lou snaps at him over her shoulder.

I make an ‘eighty-six it’ gesture at Jose, and he winks at me. I know there will be no video of whatever happens here today. At least, that’s a relief. Now all that’s left is to get these girls back into the boat, and hopefully out of my life. Let’s hope it’s quick.

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