Adrenaline: An Ode to Love and Heartbreak by Sunniva Dee, Clarise Tan Page A

your living room is more dangerous than hopping off a bridge, now?”
    “The radiation can give you cancer—” I begin but get interrupted.
    “Oh no, Cameron—you’re, like, a total… fuck face if you think that.”
    Fuck face? I slam my hands together, laughing out loud. God, I love how absolutely out of her mind she is with English sometimes. Who says that? My funny as shit, brash, overly genuine chick—pal, whatever—is poking her head out again.
    I hand her one of the harnesses I’ve brought. A body harness for her. An ankle harness for me. Really, I don’t expect her to take me up on the offer. I do, however, look forward to her reaction.
    She’ll watch me while I bounce off. I’ll tell her she’s in charge of the rope. That should keep her mind on me instead of her own sorry self.
    “Here, let me put it on for you. You can go first.”
    “Oh shit no. In the entire world of the… uh.” Her mind is roaming for expletives. When I grab her arm to “help” her, she hollers, “Fan i jävla helvetes!” From former prodding, I think it means something to the effect of “Satan in devilish hell,” apparently quite the bomb of an expression in her mother tongue. To me, it’s fucking hilarious.
    “That a no?” I’m trying to remain serious.
    “Oh hell yeah, it’s a no, you freaking… kukhelvetes .”
    “Which means?” This is going to be good.
    “Uh, a… cock hell. Yeah. You’re a cock hell for thinking that I’ll, at any moment of any time, would want to…” Ingela’s lips twist upward. She’s trying so hard to stay vehement over this. Until it sinks in how ridiculous the translation is.
    “Really? I’m a cock hell? You sure you don’t mean I’ve got one hell of a cock? Cuz… we both know I do.” I waggle my eyebrows.
    Within seconds, she surrenders. Cracks up until she’s bent over with a fist clutching the steel railing of the bridge. Her sense of humor is like no other girl I’ve met. If she weren’t a foreigner, she’d be desert people. A backwoodser—a swamp chick. Anything not civilized—or a guy. I fucking love her. She’s probably the only girl who’s never once bored me.
    Damn, that’s heavy.
    Four minutes later, the pre-jump rush is setting in. I’m as giddy as a kid. It’s been a hell of a long time since I jumped like this. I’ve done the Deepsilver Bridge before and loved it, but circumstances have kept my buds and me from bouncing off it all year.
    “You’re a fucking lunatic,” she mumbles, hands on hips as I climb onto the banister. I make a crazy-face, which has Inga rolling her eyes and emitting a piggy-sounding chortle. “Dork.”
    “You ready?” I ask her like she’s the one who needs to prepare for this. The adrenaline’s pulsing through me, nice and strong.
    “Uh-huh, oh yeah. I can do this—I can stand on the bridge all day!” she yells, Ingela-loud.
    “Funny, and I thought you said you weren’t afraid of heights,” I tease. Her mouth moves, like she’s working to come up with a cool retort, but she’s got nothing.
    I shoot into the air. My legs are strapped snugly in the ankle harness, and I’m plunging to what would have been a rough-ass landing on the water if it weren’t for it. I fly off far enough to do a little somersault on the initial fall. I holler out a “Wooh-hooh!” because I’m as fast as I want to be. There’s not even a wingsuit putting the brakes on me.
    The strands of latex in the rope cause me to shoot straight up toward Inga. I make it almost halfway up before I plunge again. “You’re crazy,” she screams, and I respond with a loud nutcase laugh.
    Afterward, she’s sitting with me on the narrow strip of beach.
    “No, Cameron. I knew you did extreme sports, but how fucking loony is this? Took you, like, five minutes to get that rope off your feet, and then you jumped in the ice-cold water and freaking swam to the shore? You could’ve died.”
    “Thermal underwear, darlin’.” I add a Southern twang to