Page 62 of Silver Linings
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“Mom is goingto kill me if I let you do this,” I plead with Maddox.
My baby brother is the textbook definition of daredevil, but those of us closest to him know he’s just an idiot. A reckless, fearless, brave idiot. It’s equal parts concerning and inspiring.
“What’s that saying, H? Better to ask for forgiveness than permission?” He’s standing at the cliff’s edge, peering down into the waters below with a sort of manic excitement.
“You’re an imbecile,” Laurel calls out around a wheeze as she bends at the waist, camera dangling from her neck as she tries to catch her breath. We’ve been hiking this trail for the last couple of hours when we came upon the rocky bluff we’re standing at now.
Maddox is dancing with barely contained glee, Laurel is drinking water from her canteen, and I, the eldest, am trying to figure out a way to get my youngest sibling to not listen to his inner chaos demon and step away from that crumbling ledge.
“You can tell your spinning brain to rest, big brother. I’m gonna take a dip in that pool.” He points at the navy blue sparkling water at least a hundred feet below us.
“How do you plan on getting back up, Maddie?” Laurel angles her camera toward the trees behind us.
“There’s a path from the shore that eventually links back into this trail. I can meet you at the fork.” His tone suggests it should be obvious, even though none of us have ever done this hike before.
I look at Laurel, pleading for backup, but she just shrugs as if to say, just let him do it.
Traitor.
I shake my head and look up to the sky, as if willing God to give me strength.
“There’s no way I can talk you out of this?”
Maddox walks over to me and places his hands on each side of my face. “You gotta learn to live a little, brother. You never have fun anymore. You go to work for Dad—which I know you hate—and then you come home. Wash, rinse, repeat. Your idea of a night out is going to the gym instead of coming out with us, or going on a date. You came home after college because of some fucked up deal Dad manipulated you in to, and we could all see it wasn’t what you wanted. But you’ve stayed all these years, shrunk into this version of yourself that isn’t you.”
“Maddie–” Laurel starts as Maddox finally takes his hands off my face and settles them on his hips.
“No, Laur, someone needs to say it.” He refocuses on me, and my mouth has gone bone dry as I listen to my baby brother gently scold me. “You have been everythinghehas expected you to be foryears. When are you going to be everythingyouwant to be?”
He’s staring at me with misplaced hope in his eyes.
“It’s fine, Bub. It’s not a bad life.”
The light in his eyes dims with disappointment, and I hate myself for putting it there, for giving my favorite person in the world a reason to be despondent, even for a moment. Becausethat’s all it takes before he’s back to smiling, ready to dive off the side of a mountain.
“Alright, fam, bring my backpack to the fork, will ya?” he says right before taking a running leap off the craggy rock face, arms spread wide like a hawk.
The sound of his exuberant howls reverberate off the mountainside before I hear this body crashing into the water below.
Laurel and I are waiting for him to resurface and shout so we know he’s made it up, but the canyon leading down into the water is eerily quiet.
A fear colder than a glacier torpedoes through my entire body as I force my feet to carry me over to the edge. I look down but don’t see my brother anywhere. A paralyzing terror seizes my body as we start to call his name, praying he’s playing a prank on us or that he’ll surface and be totally fine. That I’ll be able to see him smile and tell him I’ll start to live for me again, if he would just show us he’s okay, my own version of a desperate bargain people make in churches and chapels.
When we finally spot him, he’s floating upright and unconscious towards the shore. I kick into action as I grab Laurel and start to sprint down the mountain faster than I’ve ever run in my life, yelling out to my brother floating lifeless in a lake.
“MADDOX!”
“WE’RE COMING!”
“STAY WITH?—”
“Wake up! Hendrix, please wake up!”
I startle awake to the feeling of cold sweat drenching my body, soft hands gently pushing hair off of my forehead. I want to lean into that touch, never leave the feeling of warmth it’s bringing to my frozen body.
I look over and see Silver sitting next to me on her heels, worry lining her gaze.
