Page 127 of Free Heart
Sailor pokes at her phone, throws her head back, and screams. The sound echoes around us, and birds snap their wings and scurry into the sky with a clatter of squawks and tweets in response. Snow rustles in the trees and falls in small avalanches to the ground.
“Everything okay?” Rye asks when Sailor slowly turns around and stalks through the snow back toward us, her face hard.
“Only my uncle being a dick. Nothing new.” She grabs her discarded camera, and lifts it up, only then realizing that Dan is on the mats. “Okay, so, what’s the plan now? We aren’t just going to sit here, are we? Climb!”
I frown. “Hey, if you need to take a break—”
“I don’t have time for a break, Sejin,” she says hysterically. “It’s now or never.Everything’snow or never. What don’t you get about that?”
Her cheeks and mouth redden, and she spins on her heel, storming through the forest back toward the parking area. I watch her go, but Rye shoves his phone in his pocket and follows her from a few paces behind. Rising, Dan puts his hands on his hips, stares after Sailor, and then turns to me.
“Film me, Doc.”
“What about all that?” I ask.
“We’re here to get this done,” Dan says.
Reluctantly, I dig my own phone out of my pocket and, with shaking hands, film his third attempt. This time, he nearly gets over the crux before he falls. He laughs with a small curse on his lips and I turn the video off.
“Shouldn’t we follow them?” I ask, peering into the woods where Rye and Sailor have disappeared.
“No,” Dan says. “She’ll cool off eventually. Give her a minute.”
As it turns out, he’s right. But not just a minute. Twenty of them. After Dan’s gone up one more time, had a short rest, and eaten half a protein bar for fuel, Sailor and Rye return. She’s got her chin up and her blonde hair flying behind her in the breeze. Her red cheeks still blaze, and it’s evident she’s been crying, but her eyes dare us to say anything about it.
Rye drops back a few steps and gives us the thumbs up sign to indicate Sailor’s okay now.
“Alright,” she says when she gets back to the site of the boulder. “What did I miss?”
“Two more falls,” Dan says with a satisfied smile. “Best failures of my life.”
I stare meaningfully at Sailor, and she sighs. “You’re going to make this awkward for me, aren’t you?”
“No,” I say. “We’re worried.”
“You’reworried,” Dan corrects. “Sounded like family bullshit to me. Or boss bullshit. Or both.”
I frown, ready to argue, but Sailor cuts me off before I can say.
“My uncle wants to do a project in Greenland, andIwant to do a project too—of both the filmandthe climbing variety. Buthewants my ex-girlfriend to be involved. She studies glaciers. He thinks it’ll add some measure ofpurposeto our climb if we’re not doing it to ‘feed egos.’ He wants it to look like we’re up there to help the environment.” She kicks at the leaves on the ground. “He’s stubborn, and he doesn’t understand the way I left things with Carrie. Caroline. Whatever.” She sniffs.
I glance toward Rye, who’s looking at Sailor with an empathetic expression I never expected him to direct her way.Not with how close she’s always been to Lowell, and how that bothered him in the past.
“He thinks it’s a matter of a phone call and playing nice. I don’t think he even thinks lesbian relationships are real. He wouldn’t want to call his ex-wife to ask a favor, but somehow what happened between me and Caroline isn’t the same thing, and—” She clenches her jaw and grits out, “I just want to make my fucking films and climb the walls I want to climb before I die.Hewants a whole lot more than that. He wants investors, and profits, and sponsors.”
She tosses her hair and looks at us brazenly as though daring us to say anything at all. “So, I was angry.”
“Makes sense,” Dan says.
“Now that I’ve explained my tantrum, are you ready to go again, Dan?” she asks.
“No,” Dan answers. “It’s Sejin’s turn. Right, Doc?”
I consult my gut, which is still a little wobbly after Sailor’s display, but I nod. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stomach the full exposure behind me if I actually make it to the top, but I probably won’t make it anyway. I put my shoulders back and approach the rock.
“I’ll belay,” Dan says, but when he stands up and promptly winces, Rye intervenes.
“The hell you will. You’ve worked that leg enough. Rest. I’ll belay.”
