Mirrors |NH|

Chapter Forty One

The next Tuesday, everyone showed up with a bathing suit on underneath their clothes.  "Alright, everyone, to the pool!" Charlie said, rather enthusiastically. 

Everyone followed her down into the basement where the pool was.  Edie and Niall hadn't set one foot into the space before so they were kind of impressed at the size of the pool that had been beneath them all this time and a little scared because it looked like something out of a horror movie.  There were a couple of diving boards and even a platform.

"Alright, which set of partners shall go first?" Charlie asked.

"I think Niall and Edie should go first since they never have before," the always happy girl replied.  Neither had ever bothered to learn her name.

Edie looked at Niall and he looked back at her.  "Um, okay," they both said.

"Actually, how about someone else go first to show them what we've done in the past and how this is a trust exercise," Charlie suggested, probably sensing their hesitation.

So Edie and Niall watched as two girls climbed the steps of the platform diving board and walked out.

"Now, you jump in together, but how you do it, is up to you," Charlie said.  "You can hold hands, or arms around waist, or do what the two of them are doing.  I recommend gradually moving up."

They were looking up as the two girls embraced each other in a hug and started to tilt their bodies off the board, landing head first into the water.

"Good god," Edie said, "That looked more like they were about to bungee jump than dive.  That's, umm, a good amount of trust right there."

"You work your way up to that," Charlie said.

Edie looked at Niall who was still looking at the platform.  "Ready?" she asked.

"No."

"I don't think we get a choice in this," she whispered to him.

"I know."

They both slowly placed their things on a chair.  Neither took their shirts off though they did have on their swimsuits.  They made their way over to the steps and Niall let her climb up first.

"Make sure you get a good look at my ass on your way up," she jokingly said. 

"Huh?  What?  I wasn't looking at your ass," he said, a little fluster rising to his cheeks.

She looked down at him, his eyes trying not to look where she had jokingly told him to look.  She smiled down at him and continued climbing the steps.  Once there, they inched their way to the edge and peered down.

"Probably shouldn't have done that," Niall mumbled.

"It'll be okay, just stay upright.  No belly flops."

"So how do you want to do this?" He asked her.

She heard a hint of nervousness in his voice.  She had noticed recently that there were times that he froze up next to her or when she gave him a hug or kiss on the cheek.  And he always got a little flustered and stuttered when that happened.  She found it odd and oddly adorable.

"Uhh, hold hands, I guess?  I don't know if we're ready for the theatrics."

"Okay, hands it is."

Edie reached out for his hand.  There had gradually become a sort of comfort whenever she held his hand that she couldn't quite pinpoint as to why.  They inched their way closer to the edge. 

"Have you seen 'The Handmaid's Tale'?" Edie randomly asked, as they peered over the edge again.

"The what?"

"It's a book.  A great one.  You should really pick one up some time.  But anyway, they have made a series out of it.  It's really good, actually.  But, anyway, in the second season there's a scene in which two lovers were sentenced to death.  They had weights chained to them and they were pushed into a pool from a platform.  Much like the one we are standing on."

"What the fuck?" Niall said, looking over at her.

"Yeah, what the fuck is right."

"What kind of fucking shit are you watching?"

"Anything but golf."  She glanced over at him with a smirk on her face.

"Why would you bring that up right now?  And don't think I didn't see that smirk on your face.  But I'll get back to you on that later.  What the fuck?" 

"I don't know.  This just reminded me of it, I guess.  You know, without the dying part."

"But we are about to jump in?!  Are you trying to scare me?"

"No, I don't know.  I'm sorry.  I'm weird, I know." She looked at him and then looked down.  "The girl recited a passage from Corinthians but she left out a part about how love is not proud.  She was forbidden to love the man she loved and they tried to escape, got caught and were sentenced to death.  Instead of renouncing their sins, she quoted this passage.  But she left out that one little part.  I like to think she purposely did it as a subtle way of saying she didn't regret her choice.  It was brave of her."

She could see Niall staring at her out of the corner of her eye.  She didn't know why she had just told him that part.  It had nothing to do with what they were doing.

"Umm, okay?"

She shook her head, "Sorry, I don't know why I just decided to wax poetic at this moment."

"It's okay.  Odd.  A little scary.  But okay."

Niall reached back for her hand and the two of them looked back down at the water below them.  "On three?" Edie asked.

"You jump, I jump."

"One...."

"Two..."

"Three."

Holding on to each other's hand tightly, they jumped.  Remaining as straight as they could before landing in the water.  Once she hit the water, Edie's hand let go of Niall's.  She opened her eyes and found him swimming towards her, his eyes open as well.  He grabbed her hand and as they made their way back up to the surface, he jokingly shook his finger at her for letting go.

The rest of the meeting was spent with everyone else jumping and then all of them just relaxing, in or out of the pool.  It was nice to just relax and not have to talk.  Edie had forgotten how much she used to love taking a risk.  She had done this for a living before all of this started.  She kept going back to the platform and diving off of it.  Niall refused to go again.  At the end of the night, as everyone else was leaving, Edie grabbed Niall's hand and eyeballed that she didn't want to leave just yet.

"Wait," she whispered.  After everyone was gone, she placed her things back down.  "I'm not done."

She winked at him, grabbed him, and pushed him back into the pool.