Gravity

by Fiona McKay

Meric Tuna

and me and Tom are racing-not-racing up to the ridge, the wind chasing us up the rock face, tearing our breath, stealing all sound except air, wet and ragged, in and out of our lungs, and I’m always fastest on the cross-country team but today Tom nudges ahead, his fringe scissoring across his forehead, and I want this win, need it, but today the gradient, as Mr. O’Connor, our geography teacher would call it, is too much for me, for my shaking legs — Tom reaches the top first — and then we sit side by side on the narrow rock looking out over the drop, sheer and terrifying, just enough space for us to sit too close, my body electric with the fear and the nearness, the crackle where our shorts-clad thighs make contact, and Tom comes out with it, ‘What is wrong with your ma, anyway?’, and in the wind that’s roaring around my ears, inside my head, I have no breath but he waits, both of us staring out over the drop, and will I tell him or not, his eyes so blue and deep as the drop below us, and then I tell him, and he keeps his balance, claps me on the shoulder, says nothing, nothing to say, and I feel lighter, clear, flying, but next morning, waiting outside the classroom door for the bell to ring, I hear Tom inside, laughter, his and other voices, words I can’t make out, and I’m standing, my fingers clammy against this fake wood, my breath moist and spreading fog in circles against the frosted window panel, then louder I hear him say ‘And they’re going to have to cut them off!’, more laughter, rippling out in an arc — sound is a wave, Miss Ryan the science teacher says — and I’m not waiting for it to drown me; I’m gone, out the school gates, and the wind is inside me, flying me up the mountain-side, and with no effort I’m there, standing alone on the ridge and the drop is opening up below me and I don’t need to jump, just lean in and let the wind fold me into its arms and

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Fiona McKay is the author of The Top Road, AdHoc Fiction (2023), and Drawn and Quartered, Alien Buddha Press (2023). SmokeLong Quarterly Emerging Writer Fellow 2023. Writes with Writers’HQ. Words in Bath Flash, Janus Literary, Lost Balloon, Gone Lawn, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, The Forge and others. She lives in Dublin, Ireland with her husband and daughter.