EMILY DICKINSON
Well, if it isn’t one of my favorite volunteers,” a park ranger says to Chatham as we approach the front desk.
“I’m one of your only volunteers, George.” Chatham offers his hand to the man behind the counter.
“We haven’t seen you enough lately.”
“I’ve been volunteering at Potter’s House since you guys finished the renovations here.”
“Of course you have. Well, with all the hours you put in here last year, you’ve more than earned a free ticket for you and your lady friend.” George hands over two complimentary tickets, winking in my direction. “And I think you know enough of the history and safety regulations to guide your own tour.”
My ears perk up at the words safety regulations.
“I’ve always wanted to be a tour guide.” Chatham grabs my hand. “You’re going to love this, Emilie.” His smile lights up the visitor’s center.
George’s face turns serious as he levels his gaze on Chatham. “Your dad made another generous donation. Please tell him again how much we appreciate his support.”
Chatham tugs on my hand, stepping toward the door. “Yeah, I will,” he mutters without enthusiasm.
George says we’re lucky to have the place practically to ourselves, but I don’t feel as lucky as I did last night with Ayla. In fact, the deserted atmosphere seems like another bad omen, if you ask me. The Outer Banks lighthouses generally draw substantial crowds even in the fall. It’s odd there are no tourists around. Do they know something about the weather that Chatham and I missed?
“This is awesome,” Chatham whispers, placing a warm hand on my back as we cross the threshold into the tiny lighthouse foyer. He’s back to his cheerful self. “It’s like we’ve stepped back to nineteen hundred and we’re the keepers.”
“Except I’m pretty sure keepers weren’t teenage girls who were terrified of heights,” I mumble, turning to face him at the base of the two hundred and fourteen rickety steps leading up to the light. I’ve researched every detail about the lighthouse, down to the three hundred and forty prisms of the Fresnel lens lamp. It probably wasn’t one of my wiser decisions, considering I now know all the tower’s features, from the swaying spiral stairs to the dim interior lighting. The paragraph about the multimillion-dollar renovation to firm up the unstable structure and replace the rusted-out stairs didn’t do much to calm my fears.
He places a gentle finger underneath my chin, tilting my face toward his. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “I’m a little afraid of heights.” I almost laugh at the understatement. It’s like saying a great white shark is just a little fish or a Komodo dragon is only a little lizard.
He loops an arm around my waist, pulling me in for a side hug. “Me too.”
“You don’t look scared.” Somehow, I forget the suffocating fear when I look into the placid waters of his eyes.
“That’s because I know what’s at the top is worth the climb. And because my dad has zero patience for fear or hesitation.” He tweaks my nose, nudging me toward the first step.
When Dad used to pinch my nose, I hated the way it made me feel like a child. When Chatham does it, my heart softens. “Okay, but if I die, you have to live with the guilt.”
He chuckles as I mount the spiral staircase. I’m half listening to his history lesson as I climb. One detail I overlooked in my research is the fact that the metalwork on the steps is comprised of an intricate woven pattern, which is really pretty but also really transparent—as in you can see through the swaying stairs to the black-and-white-checkered floor below.
While Chatham talks about the granite-block foundation, I focus on counting steps. We’re somewhere around sixty-seven when my legs start shaking. At seventy-three, I stop, interrupting him mid-sentence. “I . . . I can’t do this.” I turn to face him.
His hand falls from the rail to his side as he studies my face.
My legs quake like Granny Day’s Orange Delight Jell-O Salad. “I think I need to sit down.”
“Okay.” He reaches for my hand. “You’ll feel better after you rest for a minute.”
I kind of doubt that.
I carefully lower myself to the iron step. Chatham follows my lead, stretching his long legs out in front of him. The spiral staircase stops swaying.
Now that we’re seated, I’m frozen in place. The thought of descending is almost as horrifying as the remainder of the climb. I’m sitting eye level with an ancient-looking screw bolted to the wall. The thing looks original. I can’t stand the thought of what might happen if one of those screws comes loose. “I don’t think I can do it.”
“No big deal.” He jiggles my knee. “We’ll just—” He’s interrupted by the ringing of footsteps on metal and muffled voices.
The stairs swing a fraction of an inch. I swallow the fear rising in my throat.
When a little girl with chocolate-brown ringlets rounds the bend in the staircase and spies me seated on the steps, her brow creases. She turns back to her dad and the ranger guiding their tiny tour. “What’s wrong with that girl, Daddy?”
The ranger’s eyes widen when he spots us seated on the black iron steps. “What’s going on here?” he asks, ignoring the little girl’s question and examining my face.
“Just taking a little rest.” Chatham smiles, and the lines around the guide’s tight mouth relax a little. Recognition lights in the ranger’s eyes.
“Hey, Big C, do y’all need help?”
Everybody here knows Chatham—just like school, where teachers, student athletes, and band kids all call him by name.
“How’s your dad?” The guy seems to have forgotten me.
“Great.” The short tone’s returned to Chatham’s voice. It seems to go hand in hand with any mention of his father. “We’ve got this under control.” He looks away from the ranger, nodding at me as if his enthusiasm will somehow fix my problems.
The guy can’t seem to take a hint. “I can call someone for you.”
“No, really, we’re fine.” Chatham’s jaw twitches, like the day Ms. Ringgold returned his failing quiz. Except for that day in English class, I’ve never seen this curt side of Chatham.
Now the girl moves in, descending the few steps separating us and plopping down beside me. “Don’t be scared.”
Is my fear that obvious? I tighten my death grip on the step under my sweating butt cheeks, praying that the little cherub will quit wiggling and that these well-meaning people will just leave us alone.
“You have to go up.” She glances back over her shoulder to her father. “Right, Daddy?”
“It is beautiful, but . . .” His voice trails off.
The girl laughs. She can’t be a day over seven, and she’s laughing at me. “There’s nothing to be scared of. That’s what Daddy said.”
When Chatham chuckles, I shoot him the best evil glare I can muster, careful not to move my head too fast and risk sliding off my seat.
“I’m not—” My voice cracks. I swallow again. But my mouth’s bone dry, and my tongue’s swollen like a waterlogged sponge. “—scared.”
The little girl’s eyes narrow, like she’s totally on to me.
“I’m fine—really. See?” When I release my hold on the metal step, my upper body lists to the side.
“Uh, yeah.” She looks toward her father for guidance. He offers his hand, and she stands to take it. They move to squeeze by us, followed by Mr. Overly Eager Ranger Dude. I hold my breath when they pass, as if their movement may send me plummeting to the checkered tiles below.
“Well, enjoy the view, then.” The ranger grins at Chatham. The three of them leave without a backward glance.
When I peek at Chatham, a mischievous smile breaks on his face.
“What?” I cross my arms.
“Nothing.” He presses his lips together in a straight line, but the indentation popping in his left cheek is a dead giveaway that he’s trying not to grin. “I’m just glad to hear you’re not scared, that’s all.”
“I’m not scared.” Huffing, I force myself to my feet. The step under my foot sways, and I grab the handrail to steady myself. Curse Chatham for being so cute. Curse Mom for forgetting my anniversary. Curse my pride.
I’m climbing this lighthouse if it’s the last thing I do. And it might very well be the last thing I do. But at least if I’m pushing up daisies at the Motel Deep Six, I won’t have to worry about seizing anymore.
I heave one leg up to what I’m calling the seventy-fourth step and occupy my brain with simple mathematics. Seventy-one steps is about one-third of the way. If I can get to one hundred and eight, I’ll be past the halfway mark, and then it will all be downhill.
Actually, it’ll be all straight up. My math is better than my analogies.
I focus on placing one foot in front of the other, avoiding the views out the occasional peep windows. The last thing I need is a visual reminder of the heights we’re reaching. Dragging my white-knuckled hand along the rail, I pray I’m not leaving behind a trail of moisture and that Chatham can’t see my legs shaking beneath my jeans.
“Almost there,” he chirps, obviously unfazed by the height. There’s definitely a disconnect between my definition of “afraid of heights” and his definition of “afraid of heights.” In any case, I ignore his optimistic outlook. A little over halfway is not almost there.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down, I remind myself. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right, I chant to myself, so focused on not looking down I forget to not look up either. When my chin tilts up and back past the ninety-degree mark to survey the remaining distance, the close walls swim before my eyes.
I pause. Not good. Black spots whirl across my vision, and Chatham bumps me from behind. My heart skips a beat as my chest constricts. “Oh, my gosh! You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He looks away, his smile wavering.
I really, really want to sit down, but I can’t even do that because my knees are locked like steel traps. To top it off, I’ve lost track of the number of steps again. I suck down a lungful of marshy air, willing my knees to unlock. Miracle of miracles, they do, and I hoist a leg up to the next woven tread.
“Hey,” Chatham whispers, careful not to scare me a second time. “I can see the top.”
I resume counting but have to start over because of all the interruptions. One. Two. Three. Four. I drag myself upward with the clumsy gait of a zombie. I will not be fooled into looking up again. If that dizzy vertigo feeling hits a second time, they’ll have to call in emergency personnel to get me out of here.
At twenty-seven, I estimate that with all my stops and starts and miscalculations, we must be at least three-quarters of the way to the top. I’m rechecking my addition when all of a sudden the dim interior brightens. I lift my eyes a fraction of an inch. We’re nine steps from the top landing.
A sudden rush of air escapes my lungs. My spine straightens. If someone didn’t know me, they’d never guess how terrified I was. They’d see this normal-looking girl in trendy clothes with a cute boy at her side, climbing a lighthouse.
I pause on the landing opening up to the lantern. Outside the watch room is a narrow balcony with these wimpy iron spindles that look like something off one of the colonial homes we toured on vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia. I’d expect a lighthouse built to withstand hurricanes to have something a little more substantial separating me from the one-hundred-and-sixty-five-foot plummet of death.
“You did it,” Chatham whispers, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind and resting his chin on my shoulder.
It’s really hard to breathe with nothing but Ayla’s shirt and his white button-down separating us. “I told you I wasn’t scared.” My voice shakes a little too much to convince even myself. How can I possibly be expected to think with him pressed against my back?
“Right.” He laughs, his soft breath tickling my ear. “I forgot.”
I don’t dare move.
“And since you’re not afraid, we’re going to check out the balcony.” He nudges me gently across the threshold.
Hormones must have hijacked my better judgment, because I step out onto the gallery. If this was an essay, Ms. Ringgold would ding me for the cliché, but I can’t help it: the view literally takes my breath away.
Looking out over the pine trees and the marshland to the Atlantic Ocean beyond, I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio on the prow of the Titanic shouting, “I’m the king of the world!”
“It never gets old,” Chatham whispers, sensing my awe at the raw beauty of the land and water surrounding us and my need to devour the scenery with all of my five senses.
“How could it?” I murmur, drinking in the scene. This place is a maritime garden of Eden. It’s a place for new beginnings where anything is possible, a place to take a leap of faith—the place where I should tell Chatham about my epilepsy. I can almost feel a miniature cartoonish Ayla perched on my left shoulder chanting, Tell him, tell him, tell him. But I don’t. There’s still plenty of time on the way down or on the ride home. Right now, I just want to enjoy the moment.
When Chatham laces his fingers through mine, I don’t freak out. For once in my life, I don’t worry about sweaty palms or chewed fingernails. I just relax and enjoy being on top of the world with the most wonderful boy in the history of the universe.
“And look what you’ve accomplished.” He gestures with his free hand to the horizon. “You conquered your fears.”
“Yes.” I meet his direct gaze. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“Emily Dickinson would be proud of you.” He squeezes my hand.
“How’s that?” I follow his gaze out to sea.
“Remember that quote we annotated? The one about fortune befriending the bold?”
I smile, nodding. “Yeah.”
“She was right. You know? If you hadn’t been brave enough to climb this lighthouse, we wouldn’t have been fortunate enough to be up here together.”
He slips his free hand behind my neck, pulling me toward him. Before I have time to worry about being awkward or not knowing what to do, he’s leaning in for a kiss.
On the lips.
My lips.
Instead of being clumsy like I imagined it might be, I realize it’s a lot like breathing or blinking or any other involuntary process. Or maybe it’s just that Chatham’s mouth is warm and he tastes like oranges and the beach. Whatever it is, my lips part instinctively as I melt into his chest. My heart bangs against my ribs, and it has nothing to do with my fear of heights and everything to do with the boy in front of me.
I remember something else Emily Dickinson said, about how she knew it was poetry when she felt physically as if the top of her head were taken off. And I totally get it, but it’s not poetry that’s blowing the top of my head off.
It’s Chatham York. It’s like I’m a balloon, and Chatham’s the oxygen. The more I hang around him, the more I stretch and grow.
Please, God, please, I pray for the first time in a really long time. Let this balloon last.