Page 9 of Free Fall #1

“Okay, yeah. Let’s grab some boba or something.” I love boba with tapioca beads. The chewy texture is satisfying. “I saw they started selling it in the coffee shop.”

“The coffee shop?” Rye asks, his eyebrow popping up. “That where you met him?”

“Who?”

“Sejin.”

“Oh, no. Hookup app.”

“ Oh .”

“You sound disappointed. Why?” I ask.

“Ha. I guess I am.” Rye smirks. “I was hoping it was something more than a hookup for you guys.”

“More than sex?” I blow a raspberry. “Why would anyone want more than sex?” Though I do. I want his smile .

“True. Casual sex is great,” Rye agrees. “One of my favorite kinds. But I’m not lonely. You are. You need someone, Dan.”

“Not this again.” I roll my eyes. “I don’t need anyone.”

Rye looks me up and down. “If that’s so true, why not make that bet? It’s just thirty bucks.”

“Nope.” I think of Sejin’s photo again and the smile he flashed me this morning. I don’t make bets I’m sure to lose.

I gaze up at the granite wall of El Capitan ahead of us. It looms large. My gaze follows the lines of Heart Route. I take a slow breath and let it out.

I only make bets if I have a chance to win.

No matter how slim.

*

Up on the wall with Rye, the sky is blue above us, and the trees wave their green, bushy limbs down below. We get into an easy rhythm with Rye leading a pitch and me following him up, and then I lead a pitch and he follows behind.

“You sure this is the route you want to free solo?” he asks, gazing up at the wall ahead. “The roof over the Heart and that fucking dyno, man. That’s…that’s…” He stops just short of declaring it crazy.

I’ve heard it a million times before.

Well, I don’t have enough people in my life for it to be even close to a million, but I’ve heard it a few dozen times at least.

“Yeah. This is the one.”

I can’t explain to him what it is about the route that’s made me choose it.

I’ve never been seduced into romantic feelings for any man or woman, but there have been climbing routes that’ve tugged me under their spell more than once.

Heart Route, up the face of El Cap, has pulled me in like no other.

Just thinking about free soloing it this fall…

my heart thrums, my skin feels electric, and my mind goes blank and calm in a pure, crystalline way that I crave more than anything else in life.

That blankness has always been my goal. I love nothing more than when it descends on me while I’m climbing, and it’s just me and glacial bliss stretching out forever. Glacial bliss on glacier-made walls.

No one else ever believes that blankness could be worth the risk of what happens if I make even the tiniest error while up there without ropes.

But no one else really understands just how very little I have to lose either.

Maybe that’s the difference. They have so much on the ground calling to them, keeping them tethered.

I have nothing meaningful down there. Everything of importance to me is up here.

Rye wipes sweat out of his eyes. “Sometimes I don’t know why I’m helping you do this.”

“Because you know I’d just rope solo it if you didn’t.”

“Or find someone else.”

I nod.

“It’s just… How will I live with myself if I’ve helped you prepare for this and then you—” He winces and the ropes shake from the force of it. “Look how far down it is, Dan. There’s no living through a fall.”

“You make it sound like that’s the worst outcome possible.”

“Isn’t it?”

“For me, maybe, but not for you. You’ll go on with your life. Jeanie will grow up. You’ll have other friends who are a lot less troublesome than I am. It’ll be fine.”

“It really pisses me off when you say things like that.”

“Why?” It’s a mystery to me why he thinks he’d care so much if I kick it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes so many times in my life. People move on. They promise you’re important to them, but then you just aren’t. Not in the end anyway. The world keeps spinning.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Rye won’t care at all if I take a plunge off the wall, but he’ll live. He’s lived through worse, judging by the stories he’s told me about his past, and I have too. All this drama around a little death. It’s baffling really.

“You know why,” Rye says, and takes off up the wall because it’s his turn to lead the pitch.

There are a lot of things I don’t know. I’m comfortable with a certain level of ignorance. And not knowing why Rye insists my death would be the worst thing ever is just another thing I’ll never comprehend. It’s fine.

I head up after him once he’s linked into the next bolt.

“Here’s the part where I’ll have to be really wary,” I say, running my hands over the smooth, slick, glacier-polished granite.

“Pfft.” Rye kicks off it, swinging out into the air and bouncing off the rock again. “Yeah, this part is murder, but that dyno…”

“You and that dyno. It’s not like I can’t nail it.”

“How? How can you ever be sure?”

“If I can do it a hundred times blindfolded without missing once, then I’ll be sure.”

“You can’t climb this wall a hundred times this season.”

Watch me , I almost say. But the truth is, I don’t plan to and I shouldn’t be defiant just to make a point. I plan to practice the dyno both up on the wall, like today, and off the wall at the climbing gym and at a low-to-the-ground boulder problem I’ve found with a similar dyno.

The dyno doesn’t scare me as much as the roof of the Heart.

That thing juts out and, even though I’ve found a place with a strong crack to climb, and I can do the crux in less than five moves, I’ll still have to hang nearly upside down, gripping with just my fingers and toeholds, thrusting my hips up, fighting the weight of gravity on my back.

It just gives me the heebie-jeebies. Way more than taking a short leap completely free of the wall, betting I can grab the hold across from me.

It’s weird how some things scare a person, and some things don’t.

I guess with the dyno, I figure if I don’t make the jump, then I don’t make the jump. But with the roof, I’ll have a chance to really know before I go. I’ll be hanging on, scrabbling, trying anything to keep from going down. That seems worse somehow.

Ugh, that roof makes me sweat just thinking about it. And yet…

“Your lead,” Rye says, peering at me with his gray eyes that can twinkle like a sparkling sea or turn calm like the sky when it’s flat and empty of clouds. Right now, though, his eyes are hard, a little anxious. I hate that. Climbing is supposed to be fun.

“Let’s not stress about it,” I say. “I’m not doing it any time soon.

I have weeks of prep ahead. Months even.

Maybe even years if I don’t feel good about my chances.

” I chalk my fingers. “Look, I don’t want to die.

I want to live. I’m not, like, suicidal or anything.

So, I’m taking this seriously. I want to have every move mapped out.

Sequenced. Like choreography. I want to know I can nail it—”

“You can’t know anything. It could rain—”

“There are satellite apps to watch the weather.”

“It could still rain. Meteorology is barely a science.”

“Hey now, be careful, you sound like me.”

“Look what you’ve driven me to!” Rye smiles, though, and takes a swig of water from his backpack.

“I’ll stop. I know I can’t talk you out of this.

It’s why I’m helping you. I guess, if you go down, I’d rather know I did my best to help you prepare than to think you did it all alone, without anyone on your side. ”

“You and Peggy Jo make me out to be friendless. I’ve got friends.”

“Mm-hmm, and where are they today?”

“Busy.”

“Whatever. You pulled me into this, and now I can’t opt out. I can’t un-know your plans.”

“You could un-care about me.”

Rye lifts a fist and mimes a punch. “I will pop you for real one day, I swear.”

Rye will never pop me. I know that. Which is good because I’ve been at the receiving end of my fair share of fists. I’m not sure how I’d react to another one.

“Dan, could you just ‘un-care’ about me?” Rye asks impatiently.

I ponder the question, and that alone makes Rye huff. “Go,” Rye commands. “Get on up the pitch.”

See? This is why Peggy Jo is the only one who can stand me for very long, and why I might have a few friends, but most aren’t very close. I’m apparently an asshole, and I don’t know how to fix that.