Dedicated to ishine4youu, because the comment she left on the last chapter was one of the nicest comments I've ever received. Even reading it back just now made me smile. Thank you so much.

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"You've got to be joking."

I groaned as there came a noisy clattering from Daniel's machine for the twentieth time that afternoon. It had since become the warning sign that he was inching closer and closer to victory, leaving me lagging shamefully behind. In hindsight, agreeing to a competition against someone who'd lived in Walden their entire life had to be one of the worst decisions I'd made in a while. When he'd claimed that living by the sea had made him good at arcade games, he hadn't been kidding. It was hard to face, but the truth stood that unless I was blessed by some sort of miracle in the next five minutes, I was pretty much guaranteed a dip in the water.

"Seriously, how are you doing that?" I asked, as my own coin fell lazily through the machine, failing to even push anything off the top platform.

The rules, which he'd decided, were simple: we'd each been allocated a pound's worth of two pence coins, and the first one to knock one of the prizes off the end and down the bottom chute was the winner. Strictly no cheating.

Except there had to be some sort of foul play here, because there was surely no way Daniel could be having so much more success than me, just because he was, in his words, 'a pro'.

It just wasn't happening.

"Like I said, it's pure talent," he said, grinning as yet another pile of coins came cascading down his chute. Scooping the lot into his plastic tub - which was now teeming with copper - he waved it in front of my face. "Jealous?"

"Nope," I said stubbornly, pushing his hand away. "I'm doing fine."

"Really?" Looking down at my own tub, which held significantly less in comparison, he raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't really look like it. I hope you're in the mood for a swim, Flo."

Scowling, I turned my attention back to the machine. Daniel was right, of course. I was lagging miles behind, with no chance whatsoever of catching up, but it didn't mean I was ready to give up. If the consequence was a dip in the sea, I wasn't about to go down without a fight.

"It's all in the wrist," he told me, pushing another coin through the slot.

I shot him a sideways smirk. "Oh, I bet it is."

It took a moment for him to realise exactly what he'd said; when he did, he began to laugh. "And here I was, thinking you were innocent," he said, shaking his head in mock disapproval. "Didn't realise you were almost as bad as Jay."

I was about to defend myself, but got robbed of the chance; I was instead cut off by the noise of yet another waterfall of coins clattering to the bottom of Daniel's machine. With a somewhat childish cry of excitement, he bent down to retrieve something that sat on top of them all.

Something that made my heart sink.

"Well, well, well," he drawled, "look what we have here."

It was a key ring: a cheap plastic heart, embellished with a toothy smile. Twirling it tauntingly around his finger, he looked over at me. "A prize," he said, as if it wasn't obvious. "I have a feeling this means I won."

I rolled my eyes.

"Aw, come on, Flo." He patted the top of my head, though the few inches between our heights were hardly of significance. "The water won't be that cold."

"You're horrible, you know that?"

"Hey, now would a horrible person give you their prize? Out of the goodness of their heart?" Smiling, he placed the key ring in the palm of his hand and held it out to me. "For you."

"How generous." I was being blatantly sarcastic, but reached out and took it from him anyway. The heart-shaped souvenir was only a bog-standard arcade prize - tacky, with the paint peeling off at the corners - but it didn't matter. It was the gesture that made my heartbeat quicken, combined with the sight of the adorable grin that had spread across Daniel's face once I clasped my fingers around the gift.

"Don't say I never give you anything," he said, affectionately flicking the end of my nose. "So, you ready to get out of this place?"

I let my gaze wash briefly over the room; a genius IQ was hardly necessary to work out that the arcade wasn't exactly the town's hottest attraction. I suspected this had something to do with the fact the building looked as if it'd been built sometime in the seventies and hadn't been upgraded since. A thick smoky odour lingered in the air, forcing itself uncomfortably down our throats, despite the clear No smoking signs dotted around the room. The carpet didn't look as if it'd seem a vacuum in the last couple of years, and the soundtrack - blaring sound effects, jangling coins and a cheesy Britney record - was sufficient to give anybody a headache.

But we'd had fun. I had to give Daniel that.

"Sure."

Abandoning our change pots - I couldn't help but remark internally that whoever found Daniel's would hit the jackpot - we weaved our way through the machines, heading for the back exit. Pushing through the doors, we emerged on the pier once more, immediately hit by a gust of cold sea air that proved more than welcome after breathing in stale cigarette smoke for half an hour.

"What are you doing?"

In my haste to get some fresh air, I hadn't noticed that Daniel had already sped ahead, now several paces in front of me as he approached the railing at the end of the pier. On it hung a sign displaying two clear rules: the first of which was No diving, followed by Do not climb this railing, both in bold red text.

He stopped in front of it, hoisting one leg up onto the lower bar. Then, realising I wasn't beside him, he glanced back over his shoulder. "Come on, what are you waiting for?"

"Can't you read?" I asked, gesturing toward the sign. "You're not supposed to climb that thing."

This fact, however, didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. Swinging the other leg over, followed then by the first, he took a seat on the uppermost bar. "Psh, whatever. I've been sitting on this thing forever, and I'm still alive. Come on."

I hesitated, eyeing up the stretch of railing Daniel was perched on. Though it looked far from the world's most stable piece of metal, he didn't seem to be in any great danger. In fact, I was mentally evaluating the chances of it totally collapsing when my thoughts were cut off by a voice.

"Chicken."

I quirked an eyebrow. "What did you say?"

Daniel grinned, a mischievous spark flashing momentarily across his eyes. "I called you a chicken," he repeated slowly. I could almost see him dangling the bait in front of me, waiting for a reaction. "Come on, Flo. Live a little."

"You know, if I die, that saying is going to become incredibly ironic," I warned, but something strange had ignited inside me - some kind of fiery sense of adventure I didn't know I had. My feet shuffled forward of their own accord, and before I knew it, I was standing beside Daniel at the base of the railing. Below us, the sea battered the pier's wooden stilts, but his charming smile seemed the only thing I was capable of focusing on.

I hoisted one leg over, leaving both my feet on different sides of the bar. "Now the second leg," he coaxed, but this was much easier said than done. I was straddling the gap between dry land and the depths of the water, not to mention hardly famous for my exceptional sense of balance.

Gritting my teeth and gripping the cold metal for dear life, I swung the second leg over and prayed not to wobble.

Heart pounding, stomach churning with an uncomfortable torrent of fear, it suddenly occurred to me that I'd managed it. I was teetering on the edge of the railing, my feet dangling below me, staring out across the English Channel. The feeling was bizarre: almost as if we were floating freely above it, if I concentrated hard enough on the horizon. Every so often, Daniel's arm would gently brush my own, the gentle contact offering a surprisingly significant amount of reassurance. I mean, all it'd take would be for me to lean forward just an inch too far...

"You're scared, aren't you?"

I looked over at Daniel. "Freaking terrified," I admitted. "Aren't you?"

He shrugged. "Not really. What's the worst that could happen?"

I couldn't help but look incredulous. Hadn't he grasped the fact we were balanced on the edge of an incredibly rickety pier, mere metres above the sea? I'd thought it pretty difficult to miss. "We fall and drown?"

"We won't drown," he assured me, laughing. "We're not that far away from the shore, and the water's still pretty shallow here. Trust me - I've swum out further than this before. You see that buoy out there?" I followed his pointing finger to the floating red dot amongst the waves, bobbing lightly up and down in the wind, marking the edge of the safety zone. "Even way past that, a couple of times."

"And you didn't freak any lifeguards out?"

"Oh, yeah. Plenty. I didn't care much, though. I was in a kind of rebellious phase, I guess. Convinced myself I didn't care what anybody else thought." He paused, reaching up to absently scratch the back of his neck. "It wasn't, uh... the best frame of mind I've ever been in."

Part of me wanted to lean over and cover his hand with mine, an inexplicable impulse, but the other was too scared to loosen my grip of the railing for more than a second. "Well, I'm glad you didn't go too crazy," I said instead. "Though I think sitting up here is pushing the boundaries a little."

"I wouldn't say crazy, as such. I prefer the term 'adventurous'. Don't you ever feel like trying it?"

"Trying what?"

"You know, doing something wild. Something no one would expect of you. Or even that you'd expect of yourself," he added, almost as an afterthought. As if he needed to prove his point, he released his hands from the bar, holding them in the air. "Like this. No hands."

I laughed at the sudden flash of impulsiveness, much like the decision to get up here in the first place. "Yeah, well, my sense of balance isn't as good as yours. For me, that wouldn't be crazy; it'd just be stupid."

He brought his hands back down, clasping the curved metal edge once more. Silence stretched between us, broken into even segments by the constant crashing of the waves below and the seagulls overhead. "Jump," he said eventually.

"What?"

"You could jump," he said again. "Like, right now. Just jump off this thing. That counts as wild."

I snorted. "Yeah. Right."

"I'm serious," he said, glancing over. "You could do it. I mean, you've already lost our little competition, so you have to go swimming anyway. You could get it over with right now."

"I agreed to swim," I pointed out, "not jump off a pier and fall to my death. Did you even take any notice of that sign? It says no diving."

"It also says you shouldn't climb on the railing, and look how much attention we're paying to that," he said, grinning mischievously. "Come on, Flo. For once in your life, don't you feel like being crazy?"

"Uh, I think I'm okay, thanks."

"What if I jump with you?"

I did a double-take, expecting him to be joking. His expression, however, remained impassive. "But you won."

"And yet here I am, agreeing to share your punishment," he said, laughing. "I think that counts as crazy too."

I shook my head disbelievingly. The entire situation was strange enough - so much so that I found myself wondering whether it was anything more than a dream my bored subconscious had conjured up. I hadn't ever considered that my summer in Walden might turn out like this, in any shape or form. And yet here I was, dangling off the edge of a pier, being dared to jump off by a guy I kind of fancied, in a town that I'd forgotten before three weeks ago. Surely that had to count as crazy enough.

"Okay," I said eventually, my grip on the bar tightening. "Okay. Fine. I'll do it."

Wriggling one-handedly out of my hoodie, I tossed it behind me for later retrieval. I kicked off my shoes, too, shoving them away from the edge with my foot. A salty breeze nipped at my exposed arms, an undeniable chill beneath the mild sunshine, and I tried not to dwell on how the cold was about to get a lot worse in a few seconds.

"I can't believe we're about to do this," I stammered, struck by a last-minute wave of panic as Daniel took my hand in his. "If I die, I'm suing your arse for all it's worth, okay?"

"Got it," he said. I didn't need to look at him to know that he was grinning. "You ready? Three... two... one."

It all happened so quickly, much too fast for my head to keep up. One moment we were teetering on what felt like the top of the world; the next, Daniel's gentle tug on my arm had sent us both freefalling through the air. The wind whipped through my hair, effectively backcombing the curls, and I knew somewhere amongst it all I'd started shrieking. The exhilaration was overpowering, much like my vice-like grip around Daniel's palm, and the only thing I could think of was how we were actually doing this, how utterly crazy it was, and the fact that I had finally let myself go. Literally.

The fall came to an end as quickly as it began, our figures crashing full-force into the water, sending salty spray flying in all directions. My head dipped under the surface, dragged downward by the impact, leaving just enough time to hold my breath. Somewhere in the landing my hand had lost Daniel's, and the stinging in my open eyes made it even harder to gain a sense of direction.

Flailing my limbs around wildly, hoping to propel myself upwards, my foot collided with something solid. I would've let out a yelp of surprise had I not been three feet underwater. Moments later, watery arms enclosed my waist, and I felt myself being pulled upward.

All of a sudden, my head was above the surface, and I was gulping down lungfuls of air like my life depended on it.

"I hope you're sorry for almost knocking me out," Daniel said, right in front of me. He was sopping wet, his brunette hair sticking like glue to the sides of his face. Only then did it occur to me that his hands were still on my waist, drawing us noticeably closer than usual. Had the temperature of the water not sucked every ounce of heat from my body, I probably would've blushed. "Your foot is vicious."

"Sorry," I apologised. "I was a little preoccupied trying not to drown, because some lunatic convinced me it'd be a good idea to jump off a pier."

He laughed, his hazel eyes crinkling with the motions, though somehow still seeming brighter than usual. "I knew you had it in you to be crazy."

I could feel myself struggling to keep myself above the water level, despite his steady hands at my side. All my effort was being ploughed into treading water, but I kept being caught by waves which dunked my head underwater. When a particularly strong current dragged me down further, with enough time for panic to set in, I felt arms wrap around me completely. He'd taken hold of me, prising my arms apart and linking them around his neck so I was, essentially, clinging to him.

Embarrassed, I tried to retract them. "I'll drag you down."

"Are you joking? You hardly weigh a thing," he said, treading water like it was second nature. "Don't worry, I can handle it. I took a lifeguarding course last summer."

"I can swim," I said. "The jump just... surprised me."

He was smiling. "You don't say."

The worst of the shock had passed by then, subsiding to make room for the sheer cold. I was wracked by shivers, my teeth chattering in accompaniment. In the periphery of my vision I could see clusters of people huddled by the railings, all seemingly eager to get a look at the teenagers crazy enough to jump straight over the edge.

It was in that moment that the absurdity of the situation hit me, and I was suddenly struck by the overwhelming urge to laugh. Throwing my head back, I broke into hysterics as we bobbed with the passing of another wave. It didn't take long for Daniel to join in too, and soon the pair of us were giggling like maniacs, the main attraction in Walden's newest freak show to an audience of tourist onlookers.

"I take it back," he said, when his laughter had retreated enough to allow him to speak. "You are crazy, Flo. You're the craziest person I've ever met."

I shot him a questioning look. "Is that a compliment?"

"Of course. But, you know, I think we better swim back. It's bloody freezing out here."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

I forced myself to remove my arms from around his neck and put distance between us once more, though I'd been more comfortable than I should've in our previous position. Flipping over, I broke into a backstroke in the direction of the shore, and the sound of splashing soon afterward indicated Daniel was following suit.

I looked up at the cloudless sky above as we swum, trying to focus on the intermingling shades of blue, all blending together into an effortless blank canvas. But in the past few minutes this had suddenly grown incredibly difficult, for all I could see was Daniel's beaming face - the one that had been inches away from my own just moments ago - dancing in front of my eyes.

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So I want to thank you guys for the amount of lovely comments I received on the last couple of chapters. They absolutely made my week. Also, thank you for the lovely messages I've received over this past week through my ask.fm (excluding all the creepy ones, of which there were many). You guys are so supportive it's ridiculous.

Also, I've sort of decided that I'm going to really push to finish this story and edit it into something decent. From here on out, if you think of ANYTHING that could help improve this, please let me know. I won't be offended, because I genuinely want to improve as much as I can. I love you all and thank you <3