Over the Wall: A Collection of Short Stories (NaNoWriMo 2014)

Day 25: First Date

Note: Like Day 5 I used the Dare Machine and I'll dedicate this chapter to whomever can guess what I got from the Dare Machine :)

As she waited, she began to sweat. She couldn’t believe that she let Roger convince her to do this. I mean, it was a great idea for a first date. If she wasn’t so scared of heights.

God it was so windy up here. It was probably because they were so high up, she thought.

She knew it wasn’t exactly that high, when she had been on the ground it had felt very low, but up here it was different. When you were about to bungee jump to the surface of a lake it felt like much higher. Especially since she had just lost her wallet. Her day was already bad enough she didn’t need to die as well.

It’s not too late to chicken out, she thought. I could say “sorry Roger, I can’t do this” and go back down and maybe get some cake from that birthday party. The mom seemed nice, she’d take pity on the grown woman who was afraid of heights.

But she didn’t do that. She was too worried about seeming like a wimp in front of Roger, who was cute and funny. She cursed herself for being so illogical, risking her life because her date was cute and funny, but she still couldn’t tell him she couldn’t do it. She also couldn’t actually do it.

Roger climbed the stairs and stood beside her. He had a wide grin and his brown hair looked good in the wind. Unlike her hair, which was black and did not like the wind very much even if it was in a ponytail.

He was just so cute. He was getting himself strapped in and put his helmet on while she stood, shivering, next to him. She was just ready to get this over with.

As he got strapped in Roger explained what was about to happen.

“So once I’m strapped in,” He said as he put his helmet on, “we’re both going to go to the little gates over there,” He pointed, “and when we get the signal, we’ll jump.”

“Okay...” She said, her worry probably showing.

“And after we jump,” He paused as he and the worker messed with one of his clips, “we’ll be in free fall to the surface of the water, graze it, and be immediately pulled back up by the bungees.”

“Is it safe?”

“Of course it’s safe. Do you think we’d be doing this if it wasn’t completely safe? Tell her it’s completely safe.” He said to the worker who was helping him.

“It’s completely safe.” The worker said, who was not the most honest of characters. But it was fairly safe, no one had died doing it. Even if you jumped from the platform and hit the water you would only be slightly hurt.

She thought about why she had come on this date to begin with. She had almost nothing in common with Roger, other than that they both had a good amount of money to their name. Him for inventing a cure for freckles and her for inventing a social networking site, Kzap (pronounced zap, the K is silent).

Kzap was a social networking site that connected dog lovers with cat lovers. The “zap” in the name referred to the “zap” of connection between two properly-connected people. And, the connection that existed when their dogs and cats were introduced. She believed wholeheartedly in it and it had paid off.

Was this, a date with another well off person, a good enough reason to risk her life? She hadn’t quite decided. Not that he was giving her time to decide.

“Lois?” Roger said, snapping her out of her reverie.

“Yes?” She said, pretending to have paid attention to him the whole time. Had he been speaking? Oh god, he hadn’t said she didn’t have to do this did he? That would be just like the universe, making her miss something like that.