When the van pulled up to the airstrip, the hefty pilot shuffled his extra jiggle out of the driver's seat and the entire van moved with the weight displacement. Glancing over at Nick, I could sense his unease. His face was lacking color and his eyes were alert. I touched his hand and he looked at me with a forced smile. As the instructor droned on about his brother competing in his first triathlon, I could tell Nick wasn't listening. His one fear is heights and I was forcing him to kick that fear in it's atm-ass-phere.
Looking around the strip, I only saw one plane. It was a single seater, no way was it ours. The moment I denied its purpose was the same moment the pilot opened the door and heaved himself inside.
Oh bugger.
Nick's instructor crawled in after from the other side. Nick followed him and I wondered how anyone else would be able to get inside. As I held the door up in the air, feeling its force pushing down on me, my instructor climbed inside and I followed suit.
The insides of the airplane had been completely stripped, except for the pilot's seat. The ground, the walls: All that was left was the aluminum framing. We were smashed in; Nick's back pressed against his instructor's chest, my foot in Nick's lap, my armpit on his instructor's ear (after a race... I'm sure he loved that smell) and my instructor's legs under mine. It was what some may refer to as a "tight squeeze".
I reached across Nick's instructor to grab my boyfriend's hand. He looked out at the ocean of Pismo Beach then tweaked his neck backward like an owl to look at me and give me a nervous smile. "You got this," I urged and giggled, half out of nervousness that I might be the cause of my boyfriend's death, half out of trying to comfort him.
The pilot suddenly dropped the plane toward the earth and our stomach's followed Newton's Law Of Motion while our body's followed the principles of gravity. He twisted right and tilted left as far as he could without turning the airplane on its head. I felt like I was in the first scene of 007: Spectre.
"The jump will be twenty times worse than that," someone said. That someone may have been me. Probably not going to win the award for Most Comforting Girlfriend of 2015.
As we gained altitude, I felt the tap on my shoulder. It was time. I placed my hand on the ceiling so as not to bump my head when I shifted my bodyweight onto my toes and came into a very low crouch. The instructor strapped into my harness then we eased our way to the open door and I sat on the ledge, feet hanging from the plane. I felt the wind resistance threatening to pull me out of the plane, but my instructor, despite her size, had a lot of strength. She kept me seated on the edge then I felt her rock me back and forth three times before we dove forward, head first toward the earth. We didn't stop tilting though; I saw the plane three separate times as I somersaulted through the sky. When we finally straightened out, I could feel my cheeks lifting upward toward the sun as my body left them behind.
We soared through the sky, performed tricks, waved to Nick as he did the same. The background was golf courses, dehydrated fields and ocean as far as we could see.
My instructor pointed to the original lot where we parked. It was a third of the size of my high school football field. She labeled it our "landing spot" then let out our parachute. Our college frat friends were back and "Free Falling" was shaking the speakers of their Volvo. As the harness pulled on every inch of my pelvic girdle, I lifted my legs and we landed with a heavy thud on the uneven dirt.
I watched as Nick and his instructor did the same.
"We just jumped out of a plane," he said, as if I had been napping through the entire thing. "I have to call my mom!"
I always love reading about the fun adventures you find for yourself! I wish I was as spontaneous as you!
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