The afternoon passes in a blur of light. Eden feels more elated than she has in a long time, still riding the after waves of her plummet off the cliff. Anytime she closes her eyes, her skin reignites with the sensation of air rushing around her and her belly returns to a state of permanent back-flipping.
She passes the afternoon by playing sand volleyball with Will, Safiya, and Cal; Natalia teaches Harry how to skip rocks, and Taylor and Holly remain holed up at a deep end of the lake, catching and tossing back fish until the sun winds down. Around dinnertime, Will and Taylor stoke a bonfire for cooking and Eden joins Harry by the lake as he continues skipping rocks.
"Can you show me?" she asks politely, admiring the way the sunset covers his features with a golden film. His dimple appears as he grins and hands her a stack of flat, rounded rocks.
"These should be good for you, Natalia helped me choose them."
"Okay, how do I hold it?"
Harry picks one of her rocks and places the rest to the side before moving her hands. "Your index finger goes here, on the edge of the rock. Your thumb goes on one side and your pointer finger holds it on the opposite side, like this."
"This rock feels really small," she says, barely feeling the weight of it in her palm.
"The smaller your hands are, the smaller your rock should be," he muses. "And you have tiny, adorable hands."
"Hey," she pouts. "Don't patronize my hands!"
He grins, lips pulled together in a smile as he turns her by the shoulders to face the calm water. "Feet go shoulder-width apart. Make sure you turn a little sideways so your non-dominant side is facing the water."
She shifts her hips so her left side is angled toward the water and holds up her rock. "Now what?"
"Now you throw," he says. "Bend your arm all the way back and snap your wrist forward as you throw, and do it as fast as you can, kind of like pitching an underhand softball. The faster the better."
She follows his instructions, snapping her arm forward and slinging the rock out onto the water with all the force she can muster.
It hits the surface of the water and sinks immediately with a deep sploosh.
"Ugh," she cries. "Give me another one."
She tosses four more rocks out into the water, only managing to skip one of them once before it also sinks to the bottom of the lake.
"I suck at this," she groans.
"You just learned," Harry chuckles. He throws another rock, sending it sailing out and skipping twice before sinking.
"Look at you, you're a natural," she says, punching him in the arm good-naturedly.
He side-eyes her and shakes his head. "Is skipping rocks on your list? What's the significance?"
She pauses, struck by a memory of her late grandfather attempting to teach her how to skip rocks when she was ten or eleven. They'd gone to the lake and spent the day together, fishing and swimming and relaxing outside. He'd skipped rocks while she piddled about on the shore, picking up colored stones, and offered to teach her after noticing her interest.
"Um, no, it isn't," she answers after a moment, unaware of Harry watching her curiously.
"Where'd you go just now?" he asks, turning over the last rock in his hands. She stares at it, mesmerized by the rhythmic action.
"My granddad used to take me to the lake when I was a kid," she replies, sounding far off and dazed. "The last time he took me, he tried to show me how to skip rocks but I could never get the hang of it. The next year he caught pneumonia at the beginning of spring and was gone by summer."
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the brave ones // h.s.
Fanfiction"the brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
