Hate Is A Strong Word

30.

"Tina, you know you don't have to do this." I turn back.

"Sebastian, with all due respect, go fuck yourself." He raises his hands and his sticks nearly fall off the cableway. Adam, who's been praying for ten minutes, and Hamilton sit behind me and Juli on the chairlift with the same terrified expression. Our beloved gym teacher, who's about to get a heart attack soon. A bet is a bet, and since tomorrow is the last full day and we're leaving back home the day after lunch, it has to happen now.

Today we will end our skiing two hours early, because the guys, led by Sebastian, have prepared a very varied program for the evening, which is still secret. So we'll end today's day on the slopes with a spectacular jump off the chairlift for me and Julia. Let's kill ourselves at the end rather than the beginning. It wasn't so bad after all, mom and Sabine were right.

"You really don't have to do this, girls."

"Are you present?" Says the redhead sitting next to me, holding my hand.

"Yes!" He exclaims. As if we never taught him anything.

"You're not." The classroom teacher and Swift are standing under the cableway, also with the cook slash nurse and a couple of our classmates. The rest of them sit in front of us.

"Tina." This one's really driving me crazy today. If I want to jump off the chairlift into almost a meter of snow, that's bad, but he can beat on the ice and bump into the mantle every day, and then walk around with bruises on his body.

"Sebastian, shut the fuck up!" Julia shouts at him. We better be down in the snow, because I'm not going to listen to this for long. I'm gonna jump down, and what if I kill myself? I'll kill myself. We only live once, and everybody's had the urge to jump off a chairlift at some point. All day I've been listening to the idiotic bullshit of Hamilton, who is terrified that my father will sue him if something happens to me, which is highly unlikely.

I'm face to face with my other bad part, at least for this ski trip. I am amazed that Julia can still function normally, as can the rest of this expedition, including the teachers, because they are, excuse me, fucked up every single night. And the cook drinks with them. If his aunt owned this cabin, at least one of us wouldn't have to jump into the cold, white snow.

"Come on, my babe." She says in my direction, we move more towards the edge and my hand grips hers. Am I scared? Yeah. Pretty much. So I'm fucking jump into the snow off the chairlift with my classmates, teachers watching and the cook holding a first aid kit. It'll help us if we break our backs. We look at each other, blink, and then we fall.

We let go, we both scream, and it feels pretty good. I love that feeling of free-falling. Like when you jump down a swinging swing, or jumping on a trampoline and bouncing so hard that you go flying for a few hundredths of a second. I like the idea of skydiving, but I'm too much of a pussy for that.

The whole fall didn't took a while because we weren't falling down from 30 meters, just a few, I don't know how many, but not a lot. I landed in a sort of half-sitting position, a little on my back and a little on my butt, but I'm okay. I feel okay, so I'm sure there will be some bruising, probably no broken bones. I sit down and there are about fifteen people standing over me and Juli, their eyes studying us.

In the distance I see the rest of the class leaning over the backs of the cableway seats, trying to figure out if we're alive or not. I'm pretty freaked out myself, because if my mom knew I jumped off the cable, and voluntarily at that, she'd be out on the spot.

"Juli? Justine?" Sabine says gently, tilting her head to the left. I look next to me, where a laughing Juli is sitting.

"And again!" I exclaim. The people who are on the slope with us but don't belong to our school stare as if we've just come out of some kind of treatment. Normally you don't get to see two students jumping off a chairlift with teachers watching. I'd be amazed myself if I saw two girls literally fall down into the snow.