the cold, metal floor, paralysed with fear, wasn’t part of the plan. And she hated herself for it. She reached out her arms and tried to shuffle across the floor on her bottom, but despite her best efforts her body refused to comply.
‘I have to do this,’ she choked out, desperately willing herself to move.
She was letting people down. She was letting herself down. She felt exposed, vulnerable, worthless.
Her head snapped around at the movement in her peripheral vision to see Kaspar edging his way through the plane. As if he knew exactly what was going on. As if the last fifteen years were falling away and they were once again the teenagers they’d been when she’d last seen him. As if he was still every inch the superhero he’d always been to her, even when she’d been nothing more than the annoying kid sister.
She should be more shocked. Shouldn’t she?
He couldn’t be coming to her aid. He wasn’t that boy any more.
So what was hammering in her chest harder than the vibration of the aircraft engines? Had he recognised her after all?
‘Everything okay?’ he yelled. Concerned but with no trace of recognition.
Archie stared helplessly, attempting to shake off the irrational hurt that needled her. Why would he recognise her? It had been fifteen years and she’d liked to think she no longer looked quite like the gangly kid she’d been when he’d last seen her. It wasn’t even as though her name would mean much to him, even if he could hear it over the roar of the engines. Archie was a name she’d only settled on in her later teens, and she doubted he’d ever even realised her name was Archana. Like her family, he’d only ever called her ‘Little Ant’, in reference to the ant farm she’d had as a kid, and the way she’d been so proud of her undaunted, determined little pet colony.
He moved closer, his mouth nearer to her ear so that she imagined she could even feel his breath.
‘You want to jump?’
‘I have to jump, but...’ she choked out quietly, not sure whether he could read her lips.
He nodded curtly in response, before turning to her instructor.
‘She can come with me. I was doing a tandem jump but my guy didn’t even make it onto the plane.’
So Kaspar was an instructor here? Of course he was. What did the press call him? Playboy...surgeon...adrenalin junkie.
Articles waxed lyrical about his trekking in the Amazon, skiing down avalanche-prone mountains, or diving off hundred-foot-high cliffs into sparkling tropical waters. Being a skydiving instructor on his weekends off would be a cake walk to someone like Kaspar.
‘You need to change harness.’
‘Sorry?’
She didn’t mean to flinch as his hand brushed her shoulder. It was instinctive. Consuming.
Now that her instructor had closed the door for the plane to ascend another six thousand feet or so, it was possible to hear each other without having to shout so loudly over the engines or the wind.
‘The tandem’s easier than the static line, and I’ll run you through the basics, but you’ll need to change harness.’
And then Kaspar was addressing her, for the first time in fifteen years. She stared at him intently, as though willing up some spark of recognition, even if it was only to realise she was the kid sister who’d bugged him and Robbie. The one who had tried to get her brother to let her in when Robbie had far rather push her out. The one who had taught her little words in Persian, and chastised Robbie when he’d taught her swear words.
She gazed and, for a moment, she thought he stared back. Holding eye contact that fraction longer than necessary. It was as though the very blood was stilling in her veins, her body hanging for a split second. Everything seemed to tilt, to change colour.
But then he looked away, searching for the right harness, and she realised that moment had only existed in her own head. She could only watch in silence as Kaspar busied himself with the kit, slipping them both into the adult equivalent of a forward-facing baby carrier then sitting, with her perched on his lap, like the other tandem jumpers left in the plane.
It felt surreal. Nothing about this moment remotely resembled the hundreds of naïve fantasies she’d nurtured—for longer than she cared to admit—about how a conversation with him would go if she ever saw him again.
She’d envisaged beautiful clothes, perfect hair and make-up, and her sexiest smile. She’d imagined making Kaspar gasp at what he’d failed to see, right under his nose, all those years ago. She’d dreamed about making him chase her, just a little, before inevitably giving in to some all-consuming desire. Her innocent, wholly unrequited teenage crush finally blossoming into some movie-perfect moment.
She had not imagined being in an aircraft in the most unflattering, unshapely skydiving suit, which bunched around the crotch thanks to her heavy harness, and, to cap it all off, too frightened to even make her jump.
Well, she’d be damned if she was going to bottle this one, too. She had to make this jump. From ten thousand feet. With Kaspar.
She absolutely was not thinking about how close they were going to be, strapped together in a harness, her back pressed against his front.
Her blood was absolutely not racing away in her body, leaving her feeling decidedly light-headed and clammy.
She was going to concentrate on the jump and be grateful for the second chance. She had to do this well.
For charity.
For her father.
For herself.
And not because Kaspar was going to be with her for every single spine-tingling nanosecond of it. Truly.
Abruptly, everything faded to a blur, from Kaspar sorting out her gear to going through rigorous checks that would ordinarily have been completed on the ground. And then they were ready. Waiting. Her back glued to his chest.
Somehow that inability to face him lent her confidence.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked suddenly, surprising even herself.
Kaspar frowned.
‘Sorry?’
Despite the relative quiet of the plane now the hatch door was closed, one still had to speak loudly and clearly to be heard and her murmur hadn’t been nearly loud enough.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she repeated, grateful that no one else would stand a chance of hearing.
‘Why am I doing this?’ Kaspar repeated slowly, as if checking he’d heard right.
But she knew that cadence. Realised it meant he was choosing his words carefully. It felt like a tiny victory. She still knew him. Or a part of him anyway.
‘Like a lot of people up here today, I’m doing it in memory of someone.’
‘Who?’ The question was out before
