a hundred million

It was Jack who told Eleanor about the cliff, Jack who brought her here for the first time, Jack who helped her climb the steep backside path, palms sweaty, face red. "My dad told me about it," he said when they reached the small plateau. "Guess when he was a little younger than us they used to come out here and jump off."

That day they swam in the ocean, and when they paddled the boat back to the mainland, Eleanor slept, exhausted, with her head on Jack's legs while he worked the oars. It had been, for so long, her favorite memory. She wondered if all of her memories would feel so washed-out now, if new ones would develop poorly, faded by the lingering glimmer of those colors, that voice.

She sat alone on the edge of the cliff now, the housedress pulled up to her thighs, her bare legs dangling in the atmospheric calm. The fog had burned away while she slept, but the day was still cool and sleepy. For a while she sat, scooping up handfuls of rocks and, one by one, tossing them over the edge. She watched them plummet, vanishing against the matte of water below, lost until a splash telegraphed their final location.

In her mind she followed, tied to the slipstream of the pebble, such a small object tugging her along like a kite. She fell exactly as she sat, as though there were some invisible chair beneath her legs. This made her laugh, and the daydream collapsed.

She slept on the cliff as the morning wore into afternoon, and for the second time she didn't dream. When she woke, Jack was stretched out beside her, ankles over the edge, elbows up, arms beneath his head. He didn't look at her when she opened her eyes, but he must have known she was awake, must have sensed it.

He said, without turning his eyes from the sky, "It's going to rain tonight, you know."

Eleanor turned onto her side. "I don't want to go home."

Jack nodded.

"Will you stay here with me?" she asked.

He nodded again.

"How did you know I was here?" she said, her voice thinning as sleep moved in, slowly, patiently.

He shrugged a little, and as Eleanor's eyes fell shut she saw the stain the grass was leaving on his T-shirt. She moved close to him, lay her head in the hollow where his arm met his chest, felt his body shift as he dropped his arm and curled it around her small shoulders.

"I know you love me," Eleanor said, plainly.

She felt Jack nod, and then she slept. It didn't rain that night. But when Eleanor dreamed, she dreamed of falling, one of a hundred million raindrops, and when she struck the sea, she disappeared.