Fearless?

Fearless? - Chapter Eighteen

‘You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along,’ 

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Chapter Eighteen

“White water rafting?” Azelie questioned as she looked around. “How exactly is this going to see if I’m fearless?” she added, looking up at Cole. It was 12:30 in the afternoon, and Cole had kidnapped Azelie for another day of trying to find her fear.

“Well... I heard its scary...” Cole trailed off, re-thinking his idea. “You might be scared of water!” 

“I might be scared of water? Cole, you met me while I was hanging off the wrong side of a bridge - I don’t think I’m scared of freaking water!” Azelie pointed out, laughing slightly at Cole. Although she didn’t see the point in it, she was rather excited at the idea of white water rafting, it had always been something she had thought about doing.

“You never know! We might get half way down the river and you discover a fear for water!”  Cole argued, the idea sounding quite far fetched. Azelie just laughed again, shaking her head slightly before walking past Cole. 

“Come on then! Are we going to do it or not?” She questioned, turning around to face him before walking on as he ran after her.

They were in the middle of the forest surrounding Bellingham, beside the bank of the river that flowed outside the town. It was a large clearing in the middle of the forest, with a wooden hut that acted as the main office and an assortment of rafts surrounding a sandy bank into the river.

They walked into the hut, Cole explaining that he had made a booking for the two of them before getting into the details of about what they were about to do. They went over all the safety aspects involved, before finally getting the wetsuits they had rented. It wasn’t long before they were standing beside the bank of the river, and were soon entering the water. 

The rapids started off slow, a few drops but nothing life threatening. As they went on down the river, however, the water started to get choppier, the boat tipping violently from side to side. 

“Shit - we’ve gone the wrong way!” The instructor shouted, seeing that they had taken the wrong turn and were now going down some of the rapids that were for people who had far more experience rafting that Cole and Azelie did. “Hold on kids! It’s gonna get bumpy!” He shouted as water splashed around the boat. 

The next few minutes felt never ending to Cole. They had to fight against the rapids, following Steve the instructor’s words exactly as they tried to work their way through the small tsunamis that constantly threatened to consume them. Fear pumped around Cole’s veins as he rowed, trying to alter the course of the boat. He turned around for a second to look at Azelie, expecting to see a terrified expression etched onto her features. But she was fine, Cole was even surprised to see her smiling brightly as they battled their way through the rapids. 

Then suddenly, a wave hit the raft, tipping it to the side slightly. The instructor who was sitting in front of Cole turned around, to Cole for a second, before looking past him, his eyes widening as he did. Cole caught on and quickly turned around, catching onto what the instructor was looking at - or rather what he wasn’t looking at. Azelie was gone.