Jessica Sorensen: The Temptation of Lila and Ethan

He rolls his eyes. “I doubt Ella’s going to get mad at you for being soaking wet at her wedding. In fact, she’ll probably love you for doing something as dangerous as cliff jumping.”

He’s right. She probably will, so I nod and clutch on to his hand. Neither of us counts off, yet somehow we manage to jump at the same time, like we’re in tune with each other’s thoughts. When we land, he still has my hand and we swim to the top together. We burst through the surface and I gasp for air, looking back up at the cliff.

“God, I can’t believe I just did that,” I say, raising my hands above my head, my body dripping with water. I feel so liberated.

“Feels good to be bad.” He grins and winks at me. Water drips down his hair and his face, pooling on his eyelashes. He moves his arms, paddling to keep himself afloat as waves lull against the rocks.

“It kind of does.” I swim after him, then float just in front of him when he stops moving.

He smiles at me. “So what’s next on your bad-girl list? We have you out of those stuffy clothes, you cut your hair, and we’ve got you looking for a job.”

I consider what he said as the water laps against my body. “How about a road trip?”

His expression is blank as he stares at me, the water hitting against his back. “You think you can handle that?”

I shrug. “If you think you can handle being with me like that.”

He’s emotionless for only a moment, but then lets a grin emerge from his lips. “I can handle that and more.” He grabs my waist and drags me to him, crashing our lips together as powerfully as the waves hitting the sand.

I kiss him back, only pulling away for a moment to whisper, “Okay, then, it’s a deal.”

I return my lips to his and kiss him while the sun lowers in the sky, casting rays of pink and orange across the sky. The moment is perfect, even to a girl who never really believed in perfection, but who kind of does now. Ethan is perfection in a strange sort of way, if I really look at it, because he’s real with me and I love him. He’s not artificial and not what I’m supposed to have. In fact, if my mother were here, she’d tell me a thousand reasons why he’s wrong for me, from the fact that he had tattoos to the fact that he’s poor. He’s the opposite of everything I was, but not what I am now, and that’s all that matters.

He’s what I want. What I need. He’s the only guy who’s ever made me worthy of love. He changed me in the best way possible and showed me that it was okay to love someone. That not everyone out there will break and crush my heart. And the best part of all, the thing that I will forever love him for, is that he showed me that I was worth loving.

After we finish kissing, we swim to the shore and then hike back up to the path that leads to the cliff area we jumped from. I’m so happy at the moment, I can’t stop smiling, until we get up there, then all my happiness diminishes.

The minister is gone and Micha is sitting there by himself on a rock with his phone in his hand. His shoulders are hunched over and his head is hung low.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, rushing over to him.

He raises his head up and it looks like he’s about to cry. “I can’t get ahold of Ella. I don’t think she’s coming.”

“Of course she is,” I say, wringing the water out of the bottom of my dress. “She’s probably just running late.”

He shakes his head. “That still doesn’t explain why she won’t answer her phone. And she was acting weird this morning, too.”

I bite down on my bottom lip because I noticed Ella’s weirdness, too. I turn to Ethan and stick out my hand. “Give me your phone.”

His forehead creases as he walks backward and scoops up his phone off the ground. “Why? What are you going to do?”

I take the phone from him and smile. “I’m going to get ahold of Ella and get her down there, so these two can finally get where they should have been a long time ago.”

He smiles and then leans in to give me a deep, passionate kiss that warms me from head to toe and it fills me with the determination that Ella and Micha are going to work out, just like Ethan and I hopefully will. Because he makes me happy and loves me, like Micha makes Ella happy and loves her, and really when it all comes down to it, happiness and love are what’s most important and what makes life worth living.

Micha

I’m trying not to think of all the messed up reasons why Ella wouldn’t show up to our wedding, but it’s fucking hard. After everything we’ve been through, she didn’t even call or leave me a note. My thoughts keep drifting back to the day after we kissed on the bridge and afterward how she told me that she loved me. I’d gone over to her house the next morning, ready to talk about it—talk about us—hoping she hadn’t changed her mind overnight and after she’d sobered up.

When I climbed up that tree and ducked into her room, all I found was an empty bed. She was gone and that was worse than just dealing with an Ella in denial over her feelings for me. I knew she loved me even if she wouldn’t admit it, and I could handle that if it meant she was still in my life. But having her gone, missing from my life, having no idea where she was, was like losing my arm—or my heart. And right now, I feel like I’m verging toward that place again.

The cab driver is moving at the pace of a snail down the road that leads to Ella’s and my secluded neighborhood and it’s driving me crazy. He actually looked at Lila, Ethan, and me like we were the ones who were insane when we’d hopped into the cab and I told him to drive as fast as possible and to not worry about the speed limit.

“Can’t you drive any faster at all?” I ask, thrumming my fingers on top of my legs. “We’re barely moving.”

He shoots me a dirty look through the rearview mirror. “I’m driving the speed limit.”

“You say that like it’s okay,” I say, leaning forward toward the plastic window dividing the front of the cab from the back.

“Micha, relax.” Lila touches my arm, trying to calm me down. Her blonde hair and red dress is damp from Ethan and her jumping off a cliff into the ocean. They were having fun while we waited for Ella to show up. We all should be having fun. But now I’m being stood up.

Stood up. Shit .

I slam my hand against the plastic, losing my cool, something I rarely do, but all I keeping thinking about is that she ran. Again. “I swear to God, you need to press down on that gas pedal or else—”

“Micha,” Lila hisses, her blue eyes firm on me as she grabs my arm and jerks it away from the plastic window. “That’s not helping.”

I rake my fingers through my hair and then unbutton the top button of my shirt because it’s suffocating me. Lila hits redial on her phone, trying to call Ella for the hundredth time, but it goes straight to her voicemail. Ethan’s hardly said anything, however I know what he’s thinking—that I should have expected this. But that’s the thing he doesn’t get. Yes, Ella does this kind of stuff a lot but it’s because she’s either scared or confused or hating herself. It’s what she’s done since we were kids. I know this, just like I know that no matter what we’ll end up together.

Finally, after an eternity, the cab pulls up in front of my house. I don’t even bother waiting for it to come to a complete stop before I shove open the door. I toss a few bills through the slot in the window and stumble over my boots as I step out onto the curb. Ethan shouts at me to settle down, but I shrug him off and jog across the lawn, stomping over the flowers tracing the path to the front door.