A Little Less Girl Chapter 19 Summary

Jake

  • Alex asks Jake right away if he's going to jump from the Ledge.
  • No one's done it in the last twenty years because it's super dangerous and the last moron who tried wound up shattering his feet on the rocks on the way down. Yikes.
  • Somehow people always thought Jake would jump from the Ledge. And by "somehow" we mean because Blister tells people that Jake is cool enough to do anything—even make the big jump.
  • Katrina shows up to the Bus along with three of her other friends from cheerleading. Jake really does not want to see her, but he just couldn't bear the thought of Alex out here with Dani.
  • Jake decides to hike up to the Ledge. Sure enough, it's a rocky and dangerous cliff with a waterfall that pours into a lagoon below.
  • Jake sits on the edge and thinks about Amy. He thinks it takes guts to drive a car off a cliff like Amy did. Her death was sensational, at least. More than Ryan Wilford's—that kid just died of cancer, and since it was quiet, no one seemed to care much.
  • Blister and the rest of the group come up to the Ledge to see Jake. Apparently, they all think he's going to jump.
  • But Blister is having second thoughts—he tells Jane this is dangerous. Gee, you think?
  • Dani looks out over the Ledge to see the water below; then she sits down to unlace her boots.
  • Jake wants to know what the heck she's doing.
  • Oh, aren't we jumping off this deadly cliff, Dani asks? And a second later, she's gone down into the water.
  • Everyone is freaking out for a minute and no one can see any sign of Dani in the water at the bottom. So Jake rushes down to a lower ledge and looks in again. Still no Dani—yikes—so he dives into the water.
  • He goes under a few times looking for her; no one up top can see her either. Just then, Jake hears a voice. It's Dani saying the water's cold.
  • Jake yells up that he's found her. Phew.
  • Dani looks at Jake for a long time and then finally says to him, "Amy didn't kill herself because of you."
  • Jake tells her that he already knows that; he's not arrogant enough to think a girl would off herself just for him.
  • Dani tells Jake that Amy really loved him, though, and that she wrote about him every day in her diary.
  • Jake tells her that he's sorry Amy died.
  • Dani says people didn't really know how great she was, but Jake says he knew.
  • He explains that while he might not have paid much attention to Amy, once she overheard what he said about her, he started to notice her. He saw how she was losing weight and that she was really funny and a super talented artist.
  • Jake just looks at Dani and has this crazy urge to kiss her… but he doesn't.
  • Once they meet back up with the group, Blister and Alex start going on about how awesome Dani's jump was, but Jake heads off on his own.