still. // nh

three

"I'm here on Maya Bay, and... I'll cliff jump with you."

He seemed surprised by my answer, as if he really didn't expect me to give in, or at least give in that quickly. But now that I've said it, I somehow knew there wasn't any way he would let me back out. And some small, determined part of me no longer wanted to back out, wanted to instead prove wrong whatever assumption he had of me. I was all the way here, thousands of miles from LA on Maya Bay, I was going to cliff jump.

"Well, then, in that case you should definitely take your bag off," Niall laughed, his eyes bouncing down to where my hands were still clasping the strap of my backpack.

I furrowed my eyebrows slightly. "But, um, where do I put it?"

"Just leave it up here, and then we'll hike back up to get it," He said is so casually, as if everything that possibly mattered to me, all of my closest possessions in the world, wasn't tucked into the bag against my back. Something in my face must have changed, as he quickly added, "Nobody will touch it, people come up here to see this view and to cliff jump. But if you're really worried about it, we can stash it in a bush so it's out of sight."

I nodded slowly, biting my lip as I removed my backpack and carefully placed it underneath a leafy green shrub a few steps away. My hands were shaking slightly as I concealed the gray material as best as I could, although I couldn't tell if it was from the very soon reality of being suspended in the air, having my bag not within hands reach for the first time since I arrived, or something completely different.

Niall was watching me expectantly as I stood back up, his eyebrows raised and an easy smile on his face. "So? Are you ready to fly, Chelsea?"

"Yeah, I'm just... I'm sorry, I'm just a little nervous. I've never done anything like this before," I masked the trepidation in my voice with a laugh, but I'm sure Niall easily saw through it.

"Hey, don't apologize. There's no judgement, you don't have to prove anything to me," he said, taking a step closer to me. "But honestly, unless I'm mistaken, it seems like you came all the way out to Maya Bay on your own from somewhere in America, and that took a much bigger leap of faith than this will, I promise you."

I let out a deep breath, shaking the nerves out of my hands. A slight breeze brushed the air between us as we stepped just a few inches away from the edge of the cliff.

"I'd say we can wait until you're ready, but that might be hours from now and there's only so much sunlight in the day," the teasing quality of his voice was so natural, and I still find it quite hard to comprehend that he was really a celebrity, I was really about to jump off of a cliff with a worldwide celebrity. "So, we'll go on my count, but we'll jump together, easy as that, and then we're down to the water. The only tip I've learned is to keep your body straight, and start swimming back to the surface almost before you even hit the water, that's how fast it goes. You... do know how to swim, right?"

I nodded, my heart too lodged into my throat to answer verbally. Of course I knew how to swim, living minutes from the beach put me on a surfboard long before I ever got on a bike. It was the in-between the jumping and the swimming that terrified me.

"Okay, good. That's it, then, Chelsea," he reached for my hand, his palm so incredibly warm in my own despite the callouses that littered the surface. I'm sure he could feel my heartbeat pounding in my fingertips, but he said nothing of it, giving them a gentle squeeze. "You can do it, I know you can."

"Count of three, then?" I asked, my voice wavering in the wind.

A slow smirk spread on his face as he nodded, something sparkling in the blue of his eyes. "Sure, count of three. Here we go."