What am I doing here?! Please, God, let me make it through this safely!!! I don't want to die!

I cautiously lifted my head to take a peek down. Large boulders stood guard at the bottom. We could die here, and no one would know, I thought to myself. From this great height, our houses on Apple Orchard Road looked like toys dotting a play landscape.

A small breeze whipped my hair away from my face, causing goosebumps on my arms beneath my jacket. I took a small gulp of air, making no sound. I did not want Gina, my best friend, to see my fear. She was never afraid of anything. In fact, she was the reason why I stood there… at the edge of Doom.

It was earlier in the day, and she became bored playing records on her record player. We had already performed all of the songs in Grease, and we were in the middle of Abba when she lifted the needle of her player to stop my solo. Her floor was a garbage heap of costumes and dolls. She swept her blond waves from her face, looked toward her closed door, raised an eyebrow, and whispered, "Let's do something different!"

I should have known.

But Gina always won her battles, and to be honest, I never really argued with her. She had some sort of weird peer power over me. She had since kindergarten. Even as my gut screamed No, my feet followed her. She always led me to TROUBLE.

We crossed the street and entered the woods behind her neighbor's house. The next thing I knew we were climbing a steep embankment at the base of the mountain that bordered our town.

So there I stood—on the edge of death—without my parents' knowledge or consent.

"I want to get closer," she decided.

What could she mean by that?! I wondered.

She crept to the ledge and sat down on an old stump, a dead root really, that grew out of and back into the cliff, creating a sort of seat out over open air. Her perfectly sculpted legs dangled freely, defying Life itself.

"Sit down with me," she smiled, her perfect pearly teeth sparkling in the bright sun. Her little tan legs still dangled precariously over the edge of the cliff. She didn't care to notice that a bird flew beneath her feet into a treetop 20 feet below.

"Ummm, no thanks. I don't want to," I mumbled, studying my sneakers. I hesitantly stepped one step further back toward the trail.

"C'mon!" she said. "Nobody will know. Nobody's here!" She flipped her hair over her shoulder in a way that meant, I mean business.

"Gina, we shouldn't be here…" my voice quavered with worry as a knot formed in my throat. "I need to go home." Just then a breeze kicked up and a few leaves danced across the trail and floated out into a sea of nothingness.

Gina sighed a deep, heavy breath in a condescending manner. She was feigning patience with my attitude.

Her smile turned sour and she grabbed her hair into a thick ponytail and snapped it tight with a band she always wore on her right wrist. She glared at me in her I-Expect-You-To-Listen-To-Me way.

"Sit!" she simply said.

And really? Why wouldn't she expect me to listen to her? I thought to myself. I always did. (My mother hated that.) But eating chocolate-covered bugs or staying up late to paint our nails or do each other's makeup was different than this!

I could make this easy and do what she wanted. Or, I could finally take a stand. I had been listening to her and doing what SHE wanted since we were five years old. But this was wrong! I felt it in my bones. Here, we were alone. There was no adult in sight. No adult even knew where we were!

What should I do?

I took another small step backwards. I listened to the woods… the breeze in the trees, the rustle of leaves, the sticks creaking, the hum of the crickets and frogs… waiting for an answer. The sun was beginning to set on the face of the cliff. Soon the path would be dim and dangerous.

It hit me then. I need to get out of here! I screamed in my head. This is nuts!

I took a huge step onto the small trail we had followed up. "NO!" I stated clearly, jutting my chin out in defiance. "I need to go home," I asserted as my confidence grew with each word. I started walking away.

A moment later, Gina followed me in silence, then passed me on the trail with a brush of her shoulder. She always had to be first.

In silence, we climbed up and over rock ledges, ducking tree limbs and brush, as we headed down the mountain.

In silence, we parted ways when we got to our street.

In silence, she ran up her driveway.

And I walked down the road, heading to safety.

I glanced back up at the cliff from where we had just traveled and marveled at the sight of the rocks turning red in the dying sun. I looked for the limb on which Gina sat. But I couldn't see it from the street.

Something that day changed in our relationship. I didn't follow her anymore. For a while, she punished me by asking other girls to sleep over her house in front of me. She asked them to sit with her at lunch. She would turn to see if I overheard her invitations. After a while, she came around.

Within weeks I was back next to her at lunch, laughing at a joke or looking at Teen Magazine.

She asked me what I wanted to do a little more.

From then on if I did anything she suggested, it was because I wanted to.