The water flowed below, crashing into the rocks on shore. The lake seemed to be lower than usual this summer. Kyle walked up onto the train tracks above that had been there for years, no longer used for traveling around the lake. They rattled and shook, but it was our only way back. The water below seemed to be whirling and waiting to eat people up as they jumped in. I looked down at the water below, questioning coming down to the bridge in the first place. Kyle offered to jump in first to test the water to make sure that the lake was not too low. He jumped down into the lake below, which enveloped his body. When he broke up out of the water he looked concerned. He climbed up to the top of the bridge and said, “The water is a little too low to jump.” 

The wind started to blow through my hair and my hair blew into my face. I could smell the humidity of the storm rolling in over the clouds. I started to panic. My insides felt as though they were being rung out like a towel. A tear rolled down my cheek and fell down into the large pool of water below. I did not want to be out in the storm. The black clouds started to role in quickly, and there was lightning crashing down around us. Kyle grabbed my hand and assured me that everything was going to be alright. I believed him, because he is like my brother and would never encourage me to do anything that would hurt me. Kyle and I have grown up together since before we were a year old, because our moms are best friends. We learned how to swim, ski, ride dirt bikes, snowmobile, and play ice hockey together.  He told me that if I jumped in a cannonball position that my feet would not hit the bottom. I looked down at my feet imagining them hitting the bottom and how it would feel for them to shatter into thousands of pieces of flesh and bone. 

I tried to talk myself into jumping, I have been waiting to go to this bridge and finally jump for months and I could not just give up, because I probably wouldn’t have a chance like this again. I was having an internal conversation about whether or not I would survive if I jumped. I started to see pictures in my mind of me falling to my death on the many rocks below. I started to have nervous breaths, breathing in and out quickly. I started to see bright colored dots in my vision. Then I felt someone's arms around me holding me close to them. Kyle’s voice was in my ear, “Everything is going to be alright, we are going to be fine.”  I almost forgot about the hole in my foot from the nail on the train strack still had blood dripping out of it. The blood streamed out of my foot onto the bridge and into the water below. I started to cry. Kyle had me sit down. He was continually telling me, “Everything is going to be alright. You don’t have to jump.”

My vision began to clear, I was now able to see my surroundings. The leaves on the trees were faced up, waiting to grasp the water droplets coming from the sky. The rain hit my puffy face and dripped down to my chin, before it rolled off my face. I leaned my head on my hands and waited for just a minute before I looked down to see what my foot looked like. 

The blood on my foot had dried and the hole looked smaller than it did the last time that I looked. My fear had made the injury look worse than it actually was. Kyle had also been putting pressure on my heel to help stop the bleeding. Finally, I talked myself into jumping into the shallow waters below. I took a deep breath and stepped off of the edge. When I surfaced out of the water Kyle was swimming next to me.

 We swam over to where we parked the car. I dragged myself out of the water and put on my flip flops that I had left on the back of the car. I limped over to the passenger side door and lifted up my foot to look at. Kyle opened the door for me and helped me into the car, so I could get into the car easier. He jumped into the driver’s side seat and we drove to my aunt’s house down the road to get my heel taken care of. I kept a straight face, but on the inside I had the biggest smile possible. I could not believe that I finally jumped off that bridge and had overcome the fear that I had of trying new things.