“Are you sure this is safe?” I asked.

“100 %,” said Stephen. “C’mon Luisa, you know how safe skydiving has been made.” Stephen was right. I knew just as well as he did how safe the skydiving was.

“I know, I know. But it can’t hurt to be safe.”

Silence followed, the only thing to be heard was the quiet and gentle hum of the engine. I don’t know how long we sat there in the silence. Maybe it was a few minutes or half of an hour. The more silence there was, the more the hum seemed to be mesmerizing me. The soft vibrations from the engine didn’t help. I must have almost fallen asleep when Stephen had called for me.

“Yeah,” I yawned as I tried to regain my senses.

“We’re almost there.” That had woken me up. I had felt my fear of heights really kick in.

“Remind me, why am I doing this?” I asked half jokingly.

“Because I wanted you to come with me, for you to be able to say that you did this at least once in your life.”

“Yeah, well, whatever.”

Stephen, ignoring my lack of interest, then asked, “So are you ready?

No, I was not ready. I would have never been ready. I felt my heart rate increase and my breathing speed up. I looked at Stephen’s face. He was so hopeful. His face was almost pleading. I made my decision. “Well… I guess I am. I wouldn’t want the money you spent on me to go to waste.”

“Oh, this is great! You will never regret this.” Continuing, Stephen then asked “Did you triple check your harness?”

“Yep. Now how will I know when to pull for the parachute?”

“When your altimeter says about 3,000 feet.” Stephen replied. “That or after I pull mine.”

At that point I had calmed down somewhat. But I still could not have been ready to jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet above earth surface. Or falling towards the ground at more than 100 miles per hour. I still had so many irrational fears. What if my parachute did not open? What if Stephen’s parachute did not open? Both could not have happened. So many little fears.

“We’ll both jump on three.” Stephen told me.
“One.”
I grabbed his hand.

“Two.”

Silence once again. It seemed like forever, waiting for the ‘three’. So many thoughts flew through my head, I couldn’t think straight.

“Three.”

I closed my eyes, and lept from the plane.