Page 24 of Free Heart
“Let’s just say Lowell and I are experimenting with a lifestyle right now,” Rye says. “I don’t know if it’ll last, but we’re enjoying it.”
“A lifestyle,” I repeat. Did the fall do something worse to my head than just bash up my front teeth and give me fifteen stitches on my cheek? Did it damage my brain? “What kind of lifestyle?”
“A sexy one,” Sejin says.
“A complicated one,” Rye corrects. “But the details don’t matter. What matters is Lowell and I’ll both be around to help you recuperate. It’s all perfect timing in a way. Almost enough to make me believe in divine intervention.”
“Wait, wait,” I say, still not ready to let this whole thing go. “You’re fucking Lowell Moody,andyou’re doing Dawn Wall together? Since fucking when?” If Lowell wants to screw Rye and vice versa? Fine. Cool. The age gap is significant and I thought Lowell was mostly straight, but it’s not my business. Climbing’s my business, though, and the Dawn Wall is one of the toughest routes out there. “I’ve never known you to be that ambitious of a climber.”
Rye turns to me, and I see the glow of ferocity in his gaze. “I’m not. But Lowell has something to prove, and this is the way he’s decided to do it. As his ‘friend’—”
“I can hear the air quotes around that word.”
“—I’m going to support him.”
“Fine.” I point my finger at him. “We’ll talk about the fact that I know Lowell’s never fucked a guy before and what that might mean in a minute, but—”
“No, we won’t,” Rye interjects. “It’s none of your business.”
“Whatever. The more important thing is this—when I’m healed up, you’re going to helpmetrain Heart Route again, right?”
Rye faces forward and grunts his assent. I get the impression he doesn’t really want to do it, but he knows I’ll just carry on alone if he doesn’t, or I’ll find someone else to belay for me. I’m not about to give up on my goal. Not after everything. Not after this fall. Lowell thinks he has something to prove? No. NowI’vegot something to prove.
“Let’s focus on getting healed up first,” Sejin interjects. “We can talk training climbs when you canwalkagain.”
“I’m going to send the damn thing,” I say, determination rising in me. If they think this injury is going to keep me from making my goal, they’re wrong. “I’m going to send that fucking route.”
“I know,” Sejin murmurs, his knuckles going white on the wheel. “You’ll send it, or you’ll die trying.”
The words land like a bomb in the car. We all go quiet for many long miles. My leg throbs. I wish I were in my van. I wish I were asleep. I wish this was all a dream, and I’d wake up in bed with Sejin, whole again, rested, and ready to climb all day.
For the first time, being nothing more than a speck in an uncaring universe is more real than it’s ever been, and I don’t like how it feels. I don’t want to die and leave nothing behind. But I don’t want to be defeated by that heartless wall either. I don’t want to be the guy who failed and then crawled off with his tail between his legs.
Iwon’tgive up, if only because I don’t know what life looks like without a goal. I’ve never lived like that since the day I met Peggy Jo, and she changed my trajectory from the grave to the clouds.
How will it feel to be earthside for so long? Will I suffocate under the gravity of a life on the ground?
Finally, Rye breaks the quiet saying, “I was just researching on my phone, and there’s an app for coordinating schedules. Aslong as Dan can’t get around on his own, we should probably use that to figure out who can help him and when.”
“Sounds good,” Sejin says. “Thanks for that.”
“No problem.”
But thereisa problem. I almost died, and for the first time in my life, there are people who care enough to be bothered by that. I can practically feel their love for me tethering me to the earth.
It’s as scary as it is heartwarming. Especially when I can’t get back on the wall and prove to them—and to myself—that I’m still free.
That I’m still me.
*
Sejin
When Rye leaves,I stand in the gravel driveway gathering my wits for a few moments before I go back inside to deal with Dan. We helped him into bed when we first arrived at Peggy Jo’s, and it was a real shock to see the room exactly as I’d left it the morning before the accident—the bed rumpled, Dan’s backpack in a corner, and my socks tossed aside and further scattered by the cats.
It seems like there should have been a ricochet effect of Dan’s fall to shake up the house too. I’m not even sure what I mean by that—like would the shockwave have leveled the place or magically bounced all my things back to tidy? I just don’t know. But everything being exactly the same seems like a universal insult to what I’ve been through the last few days. What we’ve both been through.
The sun is starting to set. I rub my hands up and down my arms and watch as the pinks and oranges deepen against the mountains. The breeze is cool, and it brings goosebumps up onmy skin. The scent of woodsmoke hangs in the air from a distant, unseen neighbor.
