I am balanced on the bridge, teetering over the edge. Below my feet a seething sea swirls and rushes past, forced narrow under the bridge. I am an eagle at the top of a tall tree. I jump. I’m falling in a tumbling spin. Smash. The icy water engulfs me. It floods my ears my head my brain. I float silently to the sparkling surface. The roar deafens me as I gasp and rasp for breath. I grapple for the bank, grabbing at grass until I can haul myself out of the river.
‘How was it?’ a voice bellows.
I turn my head and squint up into the clouds.
‘Bloody brilliant,’ I yell, squelching my way back up the bank. ‘Your turn!’

We are in the front room. My mother stands over me with her arm around my shoulder. My father is perched on the coffee table with one hand on my knee. I cannot look at them. My hands hang limply in front of me; I don’t know what to do, where to look. ‘It’s ok, son,’ my father is saying. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. You were playing and it was an accident. There was nothing you could do.’ I sit motionless, staring at the floor, staring at my feet, anything not to have to meet their eyes. The phone interrupts the silence.

A streak of colour fires past me and plummets into the foam. Spray showers over me. My cousin Jake surfaces, spluttering. ‘Wow! That is amazing!’ He splashes to the shore and shadows me back up to the crest of the bridge.
‘Come on Danny, your turn,’ I cry. Jake’s brother is lurking anxiously at the centre of the bridge.
‘Yeah! Don’t be a chicken,’ Jake joins in. I watch my younger cousin swallow and slowly shuffle forwards. He peers nervously down into the roaring rapids.
‘No way man!’ He is shaking his head. It’s too high. I can’t do it.’

My mother gently rests the receiver back on the phone and lets out a long sigh. Her back is towards us. ‘It’s too early to tell how much of a recovery he’ll make,’ she begins. ‘All they know is there will certainly be some brain damage. To what extent, they just don’t know yet. The sheer impact with which his head must have hit the water…’ Her voice fades and she turns to face us. There are tears in her eyes.

Danny spins away from the edge. ‘I can’t do it! I don’t want to. Don’t make me,’ he pleads.
‘Go on!’ I cry. ‘It’s fantastic!’
‘Yeah! It’s wicked! Come on scaredy cat!’ Jake adds, seizing Danny’s arm and frog-marching him back towards the drop.
‘No! Please, no! Jake, don’t!’ There is panic in his voice.
‘Don’t be such a baby.’ Jake is full of scorn. He glances across at me. There is a glint in his eyes I have never seen before. ‘Come on, get his other arm.’ Danny is struggling now as I grab hold of him. He is squirming like a snake. But we are stronger and hold him over the precipice. He is kicking and sobbing.

I never meant for him to fall. I didn’t know Jake would go that far.