Free Limits by Liz Reinhardt, Steph Campbell

water and vaccinations. All good stuff. But you have a right to ask for more out of your life and not feel like a bad person for it.”
    “So it’s not just science and math that you’re all brilliant at, is it?” she asks.
    “I guess not.” I sit on the low ledge over a sharp drop and Genevieve backs up a step.
    “Get off of there.” She clutches a hand over her heart.
    “Are you afraid of heights? It’s okay,” I say, jumping onto the ledge to show her. “I grew up balcony hopping across apartments. I’ve got an amazing sense of balance.” I back up a few inches, just enough so I can feel the wind tug and swirl at my back.
    She puts her other hand over her mouth, then rips it away and whisper screams, “Get. Down. Now! Right now!”
    “Genevieve, I’m fine. I swear. See, even if I fell, I know how to bend my knees, arch my back, keep my feet together...I’m trained in physics. I’d probably only break my legs, worst case scenario.” I turn to look down, and it’s a far fall, even for me. And I’m used to heights.
    She’s taking steps back, her head shaking back and forth. “Please,” she asks.
    I jump down and walk to her, about to tease her for worrying, when she shoves me against the chest, hard.
    “What were you thinking?” she demands, backing me up to a wall. “You could have fallen. You could have died . What the hell, Adam? What the hell!”
    I take her shaking hand in mine. “Whoa. Calm down. I was totally safe.”
    “You say that, but you and I both know you weren’t. What if something happened to you?”
    The way she’s shaking, I’m pretty sure she’s going to smack me across the face. And I’ll take it because, though I never meant to do it, I hate that I upset her. “Nothing was going to happen, but I’m sor—”
    She flings herself into my arms and clutches at my shirt, her head buried in my shoulder, her heart thumping so hard, I can feel it against my chest.
    I put my arms around her, holding her close, petting her hair, doing what I can to calm her down.
    “Asshole. You’re an asshole,” she says. “Don’t scare me like that.”
    She’s this upset because she was worried. About me.
    I wonder how much trouble I’d get into if I just laid low and never went back to Israel. If I just let this play out. All I need is a few months, then I could ask her if we could do the long distance thing. Maybe she’d want to come to Israel to study for a while. Maybe we’d move in together.
    Holding her, under the speckled, inky sky, on top of the world, I know I don’t want to let go.
    I also know there’s no real way I can hold on.
    We leave the observatory, but we’re not ready to end the night, so we head down the highway, Genevieve flipping the radio stations, singing along until a song she likes ends, then flipping again to find a new one. I like her clear, strong voice. I like that she kicks her ridiculous heels off and tucks her bare feet under her legs.
    She rolls down the window, and I lose the potent smell of her, but I get to see the way her face looks when she tips her head back, closes her eyes, and breathes the night air deep into her lungs. She lets one hand hang out the window, holds it flat in the rush of air, and watches her fingers jump and pulse in the current. When she shivers, I reach back and grab a hoodie, hand it to her, and watch as she pulls it over her head, the hood so huge, it hides her entire face.
    “My shirt is so freaking uncomfortable,” she says, wrestling with herself in the loose cloth. “Will it be weird if I take it off?”
    “Not weird at all,” I say, forcing the words to come out evenly.
    She twists her arms inside of the hoodie and pulls the little green-ribboned shirt out the bottom, sighing heavily as she drops it on the floor. Her entire body looks different all of a sudden. She curves and stretches like she’s just been untied from ropes.
    “You can turn right here,” she says, pointing to a place off the highway I’ve