Page 49 of Free Fall #1

Dan

Sejin’s got his bare feet kicked up on the dashboard, and his long hair is buffeting about in the wind from the open windows.

We’ve been listening to a Spotify playlist he’s created especially for our trip, and it still plays in cheerful undertones as he talks his co-worker down from some interpersonal ledge he’s gotten himself out on.

“How do I know? Because she’s crazy about you? Maybe that?” He huffs and pops a Flaming Hot Cheeto into his mouth and then licks his orange-coated fingers. “Did you ask her? No? Then just ask her.”

He blows a raspberry as I maneuver around a particularly slow-moving truck. “Use your words like a big boy. Look, I have to go. I’m in the middle of something.” He chuckles. “What am I in the middle of? My weekend off .”

Sejin ends the call after thanking Gage for watching the cats for us and offering him a few more reassuring sentences and insistences that Gage give Celli a call if he’s so worried. He sets the phone to Do Not Disturb and grins at me. “Children, am I right?”

“What’s he worried about Celli for?”

“She’s in Vegas with some girlfriends, and he’s worried she’s going to hook up with someone there or something boneheaded. I don’t know. He’s being an idiot.”

“Haven’t they agreed to be monogamous?”

“Probably.”

“Then he shouldn’t worry.”

Sejin pulls his hair up and into a ponytail low at the nape of his neck. “You know some people don’t keep their promises, right? Like some people would say they’re going to be monogamous and then just not be.”

I frown as I turn onto Park Road. The brown desert and greenish-gray scrub dotted with stubby, iconic Joshua trees stretches out on either side of us. “But you wouldn’t do that, and neither would Celli.”

“I know.” He reaches out and squeezes my forearm and then slides his hand up to rub the back of my neck for a moment. “How much longer?”

“Not too long now.”

“Cool.”

Sejin turns the volume back up on the music and sings along to what I think is that girl group Twice’s latest release.

It’s an autumnal-sounding song that doesn’t entirely fit the sunny-sharp weather we’re driving through, even with the dirt-brown of the desert.

But it’ll be nice to listen to another time when we’re traveling somewhere with deciduous trees in the fall.

Maybe we’ll spend an autumn in Korea even…something I’ve been considering more and more as Sejin has been looking for Korean language instructors online. If he wants to go, then I want to go with him. There are some killer climbs in that part of the world.

As for the song, Sejin’s enjoying it now, so that’s all that matters.

The Hidden Valley parking lot comes into view after passing by dozens of piles of big rocks. The tall, curved, protective stone rise sits beneath a swipe of big blue sky with one fluffy cloud right in the middle of it.

“What’s the plan?” Sejin asks, taking his feet off the dash and leaning forward to look out the windshield at the half-ring of rock. There are three spires around the parking lot, and plenty more good climbing spots just a small hike away.

“For what?”

“For me. I know you’re trying to trick me into going climbing with you on this trip.”

“Not trick,” I deny. “Persuade.”

Sejin’s lips quirk up. “Alright, so what’s the plan to persuade me?”

“You’ll find out.”

Sejin puts on his sandals and shoves open the door. The arid breeze flows in, and he sighs. “Ahh. Fresh air. Dust. Sun. This is living.”

I hop out with him, and we both stand a moment looking up at the rock formations and the sky.

The brown on the blue makes me think of a particular shirt in similar shades Peggy Jo wore a few seasons back and also of the turquoise jewelry a Navajo woman was selling at a roadside shop during my travels last spring.

“You’re going to be safe on this trip, right?” Sejin asks, taking hold of my hand and pulling me close. The parking lot is crowded with cars and trucks, but no one is looking our way since most people are looking at the pillars.

“I’ve been thinking about the meaning of safe,” I say, and Sejin squeezes my fingers and presses a kiss to my temple. “Do you know how many people are killed or terribly injured every year in skiing accidents?”

“Oh, no,” Sejin says on a sigh. “This again, huh?”

“Forty-five per year, and another forty-five—give or take—are catastrophically injured. How many free soloists die per year?”

“Dan, there are millions more skiers than free soloists.”

“Right, but when someone gets injured skateboarding, or skiing, or biking, people just shrug.”

“They don’t just shrug.”

“Well, they don’t sweat it every time their loved one goes out skiing or biking or skateboarding. They assume they’re coming home. They assume they’re going to be fine.”

“The chances of a single mistake meaning death are so much slimmer.”

“No, it’s always the single mistake that leads to death. The single step back that takes someone over the ledge. The single glance at a text message that causes the car accident. The single—”

“What if you sneeze while you’re up there?!”

“What if a skateboarder sneezes mid-jump? No one asks that.”

“A jump takes a moment. A climb can take hours.”

“What if you sneeze on the interstate while driving?”

“Everyone’s done that.”

“Some people have died from it.”

“Let’s not fight,” Sejin says, pulling his hand away and taking a step back, squinting up at the rocks in the sun. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Doc?” I need him to understand this.

“Yeah?”

“I’m always safe. I’m safer than at almost any other time when I’m free soloing. When I’m strapped in? I take risks. Big ones sometimes.”

“You can’t tell me that dyno and roof aren’t big risks.”

“They’re risks I believe I’ve minimized with practice.”

Sejin’s chin wobbles.

Fuck, he’s going to cry. I reach out for his hand again and thankfully he gives it to me.

Tugging him close, I whisper in his ear, “When I’m up on the rock and it’s just me and the universe, it’s like everything is so big, every breath is so focused.

I don’t lose concentration, not even for a moment.

I’m dialed in like a telescope. I’m so alive. ”

“So alive.” Sejin squeezes my hand. “I get it. Life is more than breathing.”

“Exactly.”

He says nothing more, but I can tell he’s thinking about my words even as he turns back to the van, opens the side door, and peers in. “What do you want to do for lunch? Ham sandwich? A salad?”

And just like that I know our conversation is over for now. I hope that’s a good sign.

*

Sejin

After a day hiking all around Hidden Valley, clambering up low rocks with Dan, and even letting him rope me—literally—into a very small climb in daylight, I’m exhausted. Covered in dirt, all I can do is wipe myself down with some wet towelettes and hope I’m not actually as dirty as I feel.

Dan, for his part, seems to relish being dusty and stinky, but that’s somehow sexy as hell on him, and that seems very unfair.

I watch him peel off his sweat-soaked shirt, tossing it into the back of the van.

We’ve set up an awning to provide shade and a few chairs for us to rest in outside as the sun finalizes its descent, all fiery orange and purple against the horizon.

I’m having a lot of fun despite my fears.

Dan never pushes me more than I can handle, and today I ended up loving the daylight climb.

We were able to snag a really pretty view from the top of the route, and my joy in it seemed to catch Dan with shared happiness too.

He’d smiled with an innocence that I haven’t ever seen in his eyes before, and it made me think of what he might have been like if his childhood had even a little bit of love in it.

Now he’s in the van putting together an egg scramble for dinner, while I rest and hold my hair up to let the breeze rush over my hot neck.

Dan is tan all over from his days in the sun, but he’s got some pink in his cheeks and on his arms today.

My skin grew darker as the day wore on, and I smirk remembering Dan’s wide-eyed disbelief that I’ve never had a sunburn in my life.

It’s not that I’m incapable of getting one, but so long as I put on a little sunscreen, I’ve never been exposed to strong enough rays for a burn to take hold. Today is no different.

“Here,” Dan says, and hands me a plate of eggs, greens, and other veggies.

“I’m going to free solo that one before we leave.” He nods at a spire I know is called Pillar Two. “I’ll take it from the back side and come out on top. You don’t have to watch, but it’d be nice if you did.”

“Do you really want me to?” I know he doesn’t like the pressure of having people on the ground observing when he’s free soloing.

“I think I do,” he says after a few moments of chewing and taking a swig from his water bottle. “I think it might help if you see me do it once.”

The food’s suddenly a lot less appetizing when I’m thinking of Dan going up the side of one of those enormous rock towers without ropes or a harness. “I don’t know…”

I get that he thinks it’ll help me to watch him do it and succeed , but what if he does it and fails ? Then I’ll see him die, or at the very least get really fucking hurt. I can’t handle that.

“I’m serious when I say I could climb that in my sleep,” Dan says. “It’s a breeze. Not even a challenge really.”

“It’s so smooth, though. The rock, I mean.”

“It’s a simple climb, I promise. Look, let me show you.” He ducks back into the van, leaving me with the plate of food and a pit in my stomach.

When he pops back out, he’s got one of his climbing journals, and he flips through it with one hand until he finds what he’s looking for.

“Right here. These are my notes from when I free soloed it a few years ago.” He tilts the journal toward me.

“Easy peasy, lemon squeezy,” he says, showing me those exact words scrawled on the page.

“Okay, so maybe going up is a piece of cake, but how do you get down?” I ask.

He smiles. “Carefully.”