Page 90 of Give & Take

Raphael

I’m going to have to buy Mike a beer.

I didn’t use my brain when jumping from my window. I saw Lana, tugging on the sliding door while a giant mountain lion grew more and more distressed only twenty feet away, its teeth bared.

Somewhere inside of me I knew the cat wasn’t raging, that it was just terrified by this strange turn of events.

All I knew is one moment I had my noise-cancelling headphones on as I moved into a fevered seventh hour of flow-state on this dissertation, the next I got up to stretch and grab something for lunch, pulling off the headset, and I heard screaming.

I’ve never moved so fucking fast.

But here I am, arcing through the air, knowing it’s moderately likely I’m going to break my ankles. I did spend a few years doing Capoeira, where I learned to land jumps, but that was from considerably lower heights. That would still be preferable to spending this little lunch breakbeinglunch.

But by some miraculous twist of fate—or maybe bad eyesight from staring at my screen in a darkened room all night—I go too hard. Totally unlike me, of course. I overshoot the cat and land on the second still-inflated turret behind it. I roll onto the pool-slash-bouncy-castle portion of the thing—like a full-on quadruple somersault—and land with a giant splash in the pool section of the thing. I only just remember to hold my breath in time.

When I’m right-side up again, I blink from my back, looking at my arms and legs. Miraculously I appear to be completely unharmed. Wet, jittery with adrenaline, and possibly about to be eaten, but as yet unharmed.

Then I remember Lana, the whole reason I jumped down here.

“Lana!” I holler.

There’s a snarl behind me.

“Raph!” Lana calls. She’s on the deck, a chair poised over her head, ready to run.

“Stay there!” I holler. I leap to my feet, but the moment I’m up, my foot slides. I do a belly flop in the water. I reemerge from the water to see the giant cat’ struggling, its muscles rippling. It’s still got a claw stuck in the deflated turret.

I’m no longer thinking rationally. I don’t think I was from the get-go. I take a giant leap, jumping in the air once more.

I hit the deflated turret headfirst, keep sliding, and hit something else with my shoulder.

Something hard and writhing. There’s another yowl, this one uncomfortably close.

Then, a hissing sound.

“I’m going to die,” I say out loud as I roll onto my back, preparing for the worst. When it doesn’t come, I tip my chin up so I can look back, upside down, at the cougar.

It’s not there.

Somewhere in the trees there’s a flash of rust, followed by a shaking of branches.

“Raph!” Lana cries.

I tip my chin back down to see her running over. Her eyes are wild. She’s still holding the lawn chair over her head.

“Don’t hurt me,” I plead.

She registers the chair. Then she tosses it aside and sinks down next to me.

“The lion?” I ask.

“Gone,” she says, panting.

I let out the biggest breath in my whole damn life, sagging into the surprising comfort of the now rapidly deflating castle. “Holy shit,” I say.

Lana’s got her hand on my forehead, then cupping my jaw, her eyebrows slanted in concern. “Are you hurt?”

I have to think about it. She pats me all over, and I can’t help grinning, following the path of her hand.

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