Skin to stars, fear to freedom—the night I stopped asking permission and leapt anyway.
I sat on the dock with my feet dangling over the edge. Wisps of red hair, slick with sweat, clung to my forehead and neck like they’d melted there. I tried to pry them away, piling the mass of flames on top of my head in desperation to cool down, but they tumbled right back again. Sticky and stifling, the humidity made it all feel unbearable.
Maybe that’s why the idea came—born of a wicked Tennessee heat wave and the war-tangled grief I’d been carrying for months.
Fear constantly hummed in the background, like static ruining a good song on the radio. But somehow, the day had dulled it. The volume turned low enough to let in something quieter: a breeze through the pine needles, like church bells in the woods. The worst things were still there, tucked in a corner of my mind, waiting for me to wear them again like a second skin. The fear that my husband might not make it home. The fear of deep, dark water, even as my legs hovered just above the ripples.
I’d never really learned to swim—more flailing than floating. Graceful swan dives? Not a chance. And I never did shake the locker-room shame that clung to me whenever I had to undress in front of other girls.
Hush. Hush. Hush.
The waves whispered as I swirled my toes in the murky darkness at the edge of the rotting dock. If I was so afraid, why did I feel drawn closer? Why did danger call to me like an invitation?
The stars danced across the water like fireflies, even as summer began to fade. The moon shattered into shards of glass, and three of my favorite girlfriends gathered beside me. We laughed, still sticky from a day of trail rides, buttered popcorn, and watermelon for dinner. We smelled like manure and bug spray, and I was happy.
But even in that joy, I knew—somewhere in Afghanistan, my husband might be dodging mortars.
Every morning I woke to an empty bed was a fresh ache. I thought about death often, in the quiet moments between living. I needed something to rattle my bones. A shock to the system. A reason to breathe deeper.
He was always the one to pull me out of my comfort zone. I wasn’t the risk-taker.
I’d never been drunk (still haven’t). Never touched drugs. Never put a cigarette to my lips. I was proud of that (still am), but I wanted to know what freedom felt like. Real freedom—the kind that lives beyond the anxiety that chains you to the safe thing, the right thing, the expected thing.
To my church friends, I was the “bad girl” from Chicago—too many jokes, too much sarcasm. To my non-Christian friends, I was the tight-laced killjoy quoting Bible verses at the party.
Those pieces made up who I was, but none of them felt accepted.
There was another version of me—one most people never saw. Sure, I could be uptight, wildly critical. But I could also smack my bestie’s booty with a riding whip in a kink store. Play Marco Polo inside Walmart clothing racks. People-watch and laugh until my ribs cracked.
What I really wanted was freedom—the kind that came with letting go of all the versions of me that other people had decided were true. I needed liberation from the prison I’d built inside myself.
I stared at the water, dark and waiting, and I couldn’t shake the thought of how good it might feel to be fully submerged. To quench the heat. To stop spiraling through worst-case scenarios and just see what might go right.
The frogs croaked. The crickets joined. The trees pulsed with sound. We talked. We cried over things we’d never said aloud. We howled over memories long passed.
Link by link, the night unchained me.
It was like finding the key to a lock I didn’t know had been closed. A voice inside me whispered: I can do this.
“We should go swimming.” …Did I say that out loud?
“We don’t have enough swimsuits,” my blonde friend said, pouting.
“Do we really need them?” I asked, pulse racing.
“You mean like… skinny dipping?” my brunette friend giggled.
“Why not?” I said.
How deep was the lake again? Could my feet touch the bottom? Doubtful. Fish? Probably. Snakes? Most definitely.
Too late to take it back. A pact had been made.
We left our clothes in crumpled heaps on the landing. I slipped the useless hair tie from my tresses and curled my toes around the edge of the pier. My stomach flipped. Goosebumps prickled down my spine, but I was still—my bare back facing the woods, my eyes locked on the splintered sky beneath me.
I inhaled deep. Held it. Squeezed my eyes shut—
—and squealed before launching myself into the Milky Way.
Twisted red locks fanned around me like wildfire, and my heart paused mid-beat. Everything I’d been afraid of was left behind with the heap of laundry on the dock. For one sacred moment—
I was the brave one. I could do anything I set my mind to. And I could do it without someone holding my hand.
The lake kissed my skin with icy lips. The shock stole my breath.
I was swimming naked in a bottomless lake. I was doing the unthinkable. I was facing every single fear I’d ever known—and screaming, You can leave now.
My soul had never tasted such joy…
…right up until my foot touched something slimy.
My pale legs flailed beneath me, kicking water in every direction. I imagined I looked like a gladiator, a goddess reborn.
To anyone watching, I probably looked like a panicked fish slapping the surface, begging to be rescued. But I didn’t care.
A whippoorwill cried out from the shadows—like my soul reaching for light.
I was washed in pride. A caged bird, no longer.
Facing the unthinkable in the deep dark night.
*If this sounds familiar, it’s a rewrite. Proof I’ve grown quite a lot since I’ve been away without Wifi.*
Everpine & Petal 