Page 108 of Free Fall

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.”

He flips the page and I see another scrawl of notes about the downclimb. “Have some faith in me.”

“I don’t suppose I can stop you?”

“You could,” he says, but he sounds like he really doesn’t want me to. I feel like, if I do, I’ll be taking something precious from not only him, but from me too. This isn’t a test, but it’s a moment when I can either expand or contract, when I take from him or give to him. I sit with it for a long time before I say—

“Alright. So, is it going to be tonight or tomorrow morning? We have to leave fairly early if I’m going to be home in enough time to do laundry and be ready for my afternoon Movement class.”

“Tomorrow,” Dan says. “At dawn.”

“Okay,” I murmur.

“The weather looks good for it.”

We drop the subject and clean up the dinner mess.

Afterward, we climb up to the roof of the van with a small Bluetooth speaker and toss some soft blankets down to cushion our backs on the hard surface. We lie there staring up at the stars while my favorite soft KPop playlist spins out songs, and Dan starts to hum along to some of them.

I hadn’t realized he’d grown fond enough of some of the music to learn the melodies, nor had I realized how deep his singing voice is. He has to hum everything an octave lower, providing a warm harmony. We don’t talk much, but that’s one of the nice things about being with Dan. It doesn’t always require conversation.

We hear voices and music from the few other cars and campers still in the parking lot, and yet it feels like we’re in our own little bubble.

“Is your dad coming for Thanksgiving?” Dan says at the end of a song.

“Yes. We talked again the other day, and he’s booked the hotel Leenie suggested for him.”

“Mm.”

“So, we have to stick around for that…”

“Of course. We can leave after the holidays.”

“We’ll live in your van?”

“Sure.”

I take a deep breath. “Do you really want to meet him?”

“No, but I guess I will because that’s what boyfriends do, right? Meet families.”

I huff lightly, offended despite having asked, and also having already known the answer. “Why don’t you want to meet him? He’s a good guy.”

“I’m sure he is, but A—I’m fucking his son, and B—I live in a van, and C—I’m weird, and D—I don’t have a job. I might notreally understand people all that well, but I know how that looks from the outside. He’s gonna hate me.”

I sigh. Dan’s not wrong, entirely. “He won’t hate you. He’ll just be confused and worried.”

“Which will worry you, and I prefer it when you’re not worried.”

I almost saythen stop free soloing. But I clamp my mouth shut against it.

As much as I hate what he does, I also know that I love it too. Free soloing is part of who Dan is, and I love Dan. I love this weird, fragile life we’re building together. I love nights on top of his van, and his tasty egg scrambles, and the showers in a fucking waterfall. I love it all.

I lovehim. So I have to make peace with free soloing.