The Lone-Dancer's Feat

Chapter 9

Pic on the side is of Christian and Lucia :)

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Chapter 9

Lucia's POV 

“This is it baby, here we go,” my mother said over the roar of the engine of the airplane, her blue eyes looking larger under the goggles she wore and it made me giggle.

“I can’t wait!” I shouted back at her before I double checked that my chute was in the back-pack strung to my body.

The plane rattled but it didn’t faze me – I’d done this too many times for anything to scare me now.

Mum suddenly grabbed my hand just as I nodded to the instructor that we were ready for them to open the door.

“I love you baby, more than anything in the world,” She said, her eyes sparkling behind the screens of the goggles. “And your sisters too, you know that right?”

I nodded, my smile disappearing at the seriousness of her tone. “Of course I do, and I love you too. What’s wrong? Do you not want to jump or something?”

She closed her eyes, and when they opened they were full of nothing but steely determination.

“I do. There’s no other option.”

I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but the door was opened and the instructor gestured for us to go.

“Ready?” I shouted to her once we stepped to the edge of the plane, not looking down at the land below us as was custom.

She nodded and, clutching hands, we jumped out and into the atmosphere.

As our hands got separated from the force of the air, I barely saw her mouth the words ‘I’m sorry’.

It wasn’t until I pulled the string on my parachute and began to descend gently and safely that I saw the body of my mother continue to plummet further and further down…her chute never opening…

There was nothing I could do to stop it.

My eyes snapped open, my breath coming out in gasps like it always did when I had that nightmare, the true life experience imprinted inside my brain to replay over and over though I tried to rid myself of it.

My mind had blocked the image of the splattered remains of her, that I had been forced to see as I had landed, but I wish it had spared me this torment as well. 

She had commit suicide using the adrenaline trip we did every month, not considering the repercussions of her choice of method or even her plan in general.

My father hadn’t had to ban me from parachuting, because I was no longer in sane mind when I entered a moving plane, my mind always replaying the events over and over until I was nothing but a quivering mess or had blacked out only to have to go through the moment again, reliving the horror of it all and only awake when it was over.

I closed my eyes and shook my head to clear the images, my breath beginning to slow down now that I felt warmth suddenly descend on my cheeks in the form of a hand that wiped away the ice-cold tears that were only just colder than the rest of my body.

“Oh, thank God you’re awake. I don’t think I’ve ever been as panicked as I was when you blacked out,” A deep voice finally dragged me out of my pit of grief, and I realised I was curled up against Christian’s chest and was perched on his lap.