Yeah. I had almost forgotten.
I was snapped out of my trance by the slamming of a car door and the annoyance of someone whistling. The tune floated up to the balcony, crystal clear and pitch perfect.
I leaned over the railing and tried to make out who was approaching the hotel from the car park, but I was too late as the footsteps made their way underneath the balcony.
Curiosity got the better of me. I pushed off the railing to head downstairs to catch a glimpse of who exactly was coming in, but I’d only made it halfway across the landing when I froze. That quaint, familiar creak of the balcony now roared with an unnerving groan, and there was a violent tremor underfoot. My eyes widened and fear spiked through me as I felt the wood underneath give way.
It all happened so fast: one minute I was up on the balcony admiring the breathtaking views of Onslow; the next thing the floor gave way and, with an almighty scream, I grabbed at everything – anything – and was hanging on for dear life. My fingers hooked with white-knuckled intensity onto the base lip of the French doors, the only thing that kept me from completely falling through the cave opening below me that half my body had already fallen through.
I didn’t want to die. I screamed again in shock, legs flailing, clawing at the lip to keep myself from falling farther.
“Matt!” I screamed, “Maaaatttt!”
But it wasn’t Matt’s voice that answered.
“JESUS CHRIST! KEEP STILL!”
I couldn’t look down, I couldn’t bring myself to. I could only guess that the mysterious whistler received a nasty surprise when he’d walked under the balcony. He was probably getting an even bigger surprise, considering my T-shirt was caught on a piece of debris and bunched up to my armpits.
I couldn’t have cared less if I was dangling butt naked at that moment. All I was aware of was the heaviness of my body, the ache in my arms, and the black hole below me that the hotel balcony had crumbled into.
But what I feared the most was the clamminess of my hands as they slowly slipped from the ledge.
“I’M SLIPPING!” I cried out.
“HOLD ON! I’M COMING UP!”
However irrational and ridiculous I could be sometimes, even though I was most likely about to fall to my death, a new panic flashed in my mind. I didn’t want anyone to see the state of my dad’s putrid apartment.
“NO! NO! DON’T COME UP!”
I finally made out Matt’s panicked voice. “Aw, man, I am so getting fired for this.”
Yeah, don’t worry about me, arsehole!
“Probably, mate, but I think that is the least of our problems,” the whistler’s voice snapped.
“YOU’RE GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT! I’VE GOT YOU, LET GO!”
“WHAT?!” Was he for real?
“LET GO! I’VE GOT YOU!”
“… NO!”
“TRUST ME, LET GO!”
I wanted to debate this all day; where the hell was he? He clearly didn’t have me, I wanted to defy the voice that tried to encourage me that I would be okay, but the choice was taken out of my hands as I felt my fingers lose their grip on the French door in a final slip.
I fell. I screamed; my arms grazed along the broken opening, my stomach plummeted; this was it. I would be pulverised by the cement landing; I would break my bones and crack my skull. But as I screamed in absolute terror at my impending fate, my fall was broken by strong, steely arms. I collided with a torso. I fell into him so fast, so violently, I literally heard the air being knocked out of his lungs as we both flew backwards, hitting the ground in a unified “Oomph!”
I clenched my eyes firmly shut, afraid to move as my heart threatened to pound out of my chest. My throat felt raw from screaming, but I didn’t seem to be dead.
I felt a light tap on my shoulder blade and I opened my eyes.
“Are you all right?”
My head was resting on a muscled chest – I could feel the thunderous frantic beat within him that matched my own. I was clenched in a vice-like embrace in the stranger’s arms, who cradled me still, and more alarmingly I was spread-eagled, lying on top of him. I lifted my head and pushed upwards. My panicked eyes met with vivid, baby blue ones that stared at me, narrowed in concern.
They widened in sudden realisation.
“Amy?”
I paused mid-movement, my hands splayed across his chest as I stared down at his face. Once the world had stopped spinning, recognition must have dawned on my own face, too.
“Sean Murphy?” I said, mainly to myself.
I felt his laughter vibrate against my palms splayed out on his chest.
His once rigid body collapsed on the ground. He cupped his face in an exhausted groan. “You just took ten years off my life!”