Page 41 of Free Fall #1

Sejin

“W atcha reading?” Rye asks as he sits down across from me in Papa Bear.

I check my phone and note that I have another half-hour before I start work. Gage and Celli have the counter under control, and Pete isn’t here to try to convince me to take up any slack without pay, so I’ve got time to chat. I hold up my book— The Impossible Climb by Mark Synnott.

“Ahhh, that’s a good one for an overview of climbing. Lot of history and plenty of gossip about the assholes of the sport.” Rye smiles. “Mr. Synnott clearly had some grievances to air.”

“He dishes on a few climbers, yeah. There’s one guy he seems really careful not to be too negative about because he’s dead now, but he obviously didn’t adore him, to say the least.”

“For sure,” Rye agrees. “I know just who you’re talking about. Most of the best-of-the-best are mentioned in that book, though. It’s a nice place to start.”

There’s no mention of Dan, of course because a—he’s newer to the game, and b—he’s determined to stay out of the culture of the gig.

Something I haven’t quite pried into as much as maybe I should.

Mainly because I want his attention on me when he’s not climbing, and if he’s part of this whole thing , a member of a select but still fairly thick crowd of climbers, then he’ll have a lot less time to loll around in his van with me. Or so I tell myself.

“I picked it up off Dan’s shelf,” I say. “He has a lot of books, but this one seemed like the one he’d be least likely to miss.” I indicate the spine. “It’s not very creased. Not like the ones he goes over again and again.”

“He doesn’t know you borrowed it?”

I shrug. “He wasn’t there at the time. He’d left with Peggy Jo, and I was just hanging out on my own—”

“In his van?” Rye’s eyes take on a glitter.

“If he heads out really early, I hang out before I leave for work. You know, it takes some time to warm up from those freezing waterfall showers he likes.”

“He makes you bathe in the waterfall?” Rye hiccups a laugh. “There’s literally a shower block right there.”

“I know, I know…” I wave it off. “He likes the waterfall, and I like it too.”

“Weirdos.”

“Yeah, so I was there alone, and my eyes landed on the books. I got curious, chose this one, and just…took it.”

“I’m sure he’d let you borrow it.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Yet I don’t want Dan to know I’m learning about climbing. I have my reasons, and they aren’t the ones he’ll want to hear. Namely, I want to know what drives people to do the things Dan does, and what their lives are like…and their deaths.

“What’ve you been up to? Seems like I haven’t seen you in ages,” I say to change the topic because I’m not sure I want to get into all that with Rye either.

He’s a great guy, but I know he’s tight with Dan.

Plus, I’m not sure I’m ready to share the inner turmoil I feel when I think about the man I’m in love with doing something as insane as climbing up El Capitan without ropes.

“True that. It has been a while,” Rye agrees. “Hey, check it out, I’ve got some real stubble coming in.” He takes hold of my hand, leans forward, and presses it against his cheek. I rub lightly and feel the new roughness. “Cool, huh?”

“Super cool,” I say. I don’t have a ton of facial hair myself, so I remember all too well how excited I was when the wisps I do manage to grow started coming in. “When you’re ready to learn to shave it, let me know and I’ll be happy to teach you if you need help.”

“I’m not shaving this for a long time,” he asserts with a grin. “It’s hard-won, and I’m going to enjoy looking at it in the mirror.”

“It’s definitely impressive,” I say, though it’s really thin. He needs a few more years of hormones working their magic before he’ll have anything like a real beard.

“Yeah, I think so too. Amazing what the right amount of T can do, huh?” He rubs his hand over his face.

Then he smiles at me again, his nose crinkling a little.

He’s pretty cute and looks even younger than his already-young years—which is pretty typical of the trans men I’ve met in my life.

“Anyway, let’s see. What have I been up to lately… I’ve been busy with that new job.”

“With YOSAR?”

“Yup. And climbing with Dan.”

It’s funny. I know Rye spends a lot of time helping Dan with training, and I spend a lot of time with Dan when he’s not training, but we don’t actually see each other despite that connection. We haven’t ever been friends exactly, more like casual, chatty acquaintances.

“Yeah…Dan…” I say, and my eyes go unfocused.

I don’t know what’s gotten into me today; maybe it’s reading about how another famous free soloist, a guy named John Bachar, died while doing a really easy climb without ropes.

I’ve been fixated on it all morning to the extent that I had a hard time concentrating on teaching the kids during my time at the preschool.

I’d been planning to start them on the Twice choreo for their hit “Can’t Stop Me,” which actually has an English version, but had ended up just letting them dance out their wriggles to old, familiar songs and in freestyle.

They’d all been exhausted and went down for naps easily, so Heather hadn’t minded—not that she ever cared what I taught them so long as it was age-appropriate—but I’d been confused by my inability to stop thinking about Dan falling and exploding on the rocks below.

In fact, I’d come into Papa Bear early to continue reading and hopefully to get some other stories in my head, or some kind of reassurance that free soloing isn’t as dangerous as it seems.

When Rye walked up, though, I’d just read about teenage Dan’s hero Alex Honnold’s justification for why free soloing isn’t that dangerous.

Driving 80 miles per hour on the interstate is dangerous too, and you can’t control all the factors around it either.

One slip of the hand on the steering wheel, or one slip of someone else’s hand on another steering wheel, and you’re toast, and yet people do it every day.

It’s true, but…

“Hey, you okay?” Rye asks. “You know you can talk to me about Dan, right?”

“Sure.”

Rye puts an elbow on the table and rests his chin in his palm. “He’s a lot to handle.”

“He can be, I guess.” But he isn’t. Not to me. “Actually, there’s nothing about Dan as Dan that’s hard for me to deal with? It’s just the free soloing that’s a lot.”

“Ah. Believe me. I get you on this.”

I swallow. Rye truly cares about Dan, and he’s going to know more about climbing than just about anyone else I can talk to about it.

I’d considered bringing up my fears to Peggy Jo when I’d met up with her alone to discuss me moving into her place, but the timing never seemed right.

And Peggy Jo is like a mother to Dan. Too close. Too invested.

Rye, though…

“I guess I’m reading this to try to understand, you know? Not just why people do this, but what the real risks are. How dangerous is free soloing really?”

“It’s very dangerous,” Rye says. “No doubt about that. And don’t let Dan or any other free soloist tell you differently.

But, if it makes you feel any better, free soloists aren’t typically suicidal and not that many have actually died while free soloing.

Most go out doing something completely different. ”

“What about that John Bachar guy?”

“Yeah, he was older, and it was such an easy pitch he fell from.” Rye frowns.

“It could have been that the rock got slippery, or for some reason he pumped out—that’s when your muscles get too overexerted and your grip releases against your will—but…

well, there’s evidence that he had some medical stuff going on with a shoulder injury too.

It could have led to muscle weakness that prevented him from getting as good a grip as he’d needed.

Apparently, he made some posts in a forum asking how to deal with that sort of thing not too long before he died.

Or maybe he had a heart attack or a stroke.

We’ll never know since he was alone, and his body was…

” Rye rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Well, let’s just say an autopsy would have been impossible. ”

“But a lot of other free soloists have died, right?”

“Yeah, but most weren’t even free soloing.

Like Dean Potter died doing a wingsuit BASE jump.

And Michael Reardon died while doing an easy climb near an ocean and a huge rogue wave swept him off the rock, a completely unforeseeable event.

Charlie Fowler died in an avalanche, not while rock climbing at all.

It’s obviously not impossible to die while free soloing—and more and more climbers are trying it, so more deaths have happened in recent years—but it’s also not inevitable.

There’s no getting around that it’s wildly dangerous, but most people agree that successful free soloists are actually very methodical people. ”

“And Dan’s successful?”

“So far, yes.”

“So far. Ha. That’s the quandary, right?”

Rye smirked. “He’d tell you that so far you’re a successful motorist…”

“A justification he’s picked up from his hero.” I lift the book.

“Yeah.”

“Part of me wants a list of things more dangerous than free soloing—”

“BASE jumping, wingsuiting—” Rye starts to tick things off.

“Another part of me just wants to find a way to get all Zen inside and not care. Just live for the moment. Enjoy him while it lasts. My mom died a few years ago, and I wish every day I could have another hour with her, with both of us carefree and neither of us knowing she’s sick.”

“I’m sorry. That’s rough.”

I ignore the platitudes. “I try to live like that with Dan, but sometimes I feel like this climb is my mom’s cancer. It’s always looming over us.”

“Does it tarnish the good times for you?”