Page 55 of Free Fall

But it’s not a yes. Not quite yet.

“Why do you want me to climb this with you?”

“I love climbing, and I want to share it with you.” He points up. “At the top, I’ve already stashed a bag with everything we need to camp: sleeping bags, a portable stove, and dinner.”

He moves his thumb on my cheek again, and this time I do lean forward and kiss him. He drops the bigger bag and tugs me flush to his body. We waste a few good minutes of moonlight tasting each other’s mouths and getting way too aroused for our own good. I’m just about to drop to my knees and offer to suck him off when he pulls away and puts both hands on my shoulders.

“Sejin,” he says breathlessly. “Are we gonna climb or not?”

“We’re gonna climb.” Seeing that wide slash of a smile illuminating the escalating darkness, I feel in my gut I’ve made the right choice.

*

Dan

Sejin is agood sport about the climb. It’s too bad he’s afraid of heights because he’s a natural at it, really. Maybe night climbingcan become a sport of its own because he doesn’t seem at all frightened once he’s up on the wall with darkness stretching out behind him.

“It’s not bad,” he says cheerfully, reaching up for the next obvious hold. “I can’t even see the ground. For all I can tell by looking, it’s just a few feet down.”

It’s not even a high climb. A pitch’s length and that’s about it.

It’d taken about thirty minutes to get him set up with the ropes, to review how it works—which wasn’t hard since he’d bouldered some bigger rocks before—and then I’d taken lead. The moon had fully set by then, and now he really only has the rock in front of him, lit by the lamp I’ve attached to his head, and a few feet of darkness all around to worry about.

“You’re doing great,” I call down to him.

I’m at the top now, feet hanging over, waiting for him to join me.

“Thanks,” he grunts, tugging himself up to the next hold. “I feel good.”

When he emerges at the top, he looks good too. His eyes are shining, and his skin is glowing with exertion. The grin on his face is what takes my breath away, though. It’s so close to the one in that photo I’m obsessed with. There’s pride, joy, fun, and laughter there, but even though his eyes are the right shape, and his mouth is too, there’s something missing. I can’t say exactly what, but I suspect it’s what Peggy Jo mentioned. I’m afraid the missing ingredient might be love.

That’s a bitter pill.

He doesn’t love me. He never will. That’s the way it is. I may have to admit that I’ll never achieve this particular goal. It could turn out that seeing Sejin’s special smile directed at me is more impossible than sending Heart Route could ever be. But hopeless as it is, it won’t kill me to keep trying. Maybe loveisn’tthe missing ingredient. Maybe I can still discover the recipe. It’s not like free soloing. One misstep won’t kill me.

I try not to let these thoughts deflate my pleasure because Sejin is actually, for real, grinning at me right now, and it’s clear he’s having a really good time.

“Wow, that was awesome,” he says, collapsing next to me. “I did it.”

“You did.”

We both turn off our headlamps and just rest a minute. Sejin lightly pants beside me, catching his breath, both of us gazing out into the darkness where the trees below are just even darker shadows, and the sky above is pitch black with bright pricks of light from the stars.

It’s magical and kind of lonely with just us up here. But that doesn’t make it silent. The night noises of the forest below drift to us on the wind. I listen and lean back on my elbows, the hard granite digging in.

Sejin’s stomach growls and it’s remarkably loud. We both laugh.

I stand up, offering him a hand. “I guess that means it’s dinnertime.”

Using the pulley, I haul the bigger bag up from below and tug it safely up onto the top of the granite dome with us. I turn my headlamp back on and seek out a good location far from any edges and go about setting up camp.

Sejin helps, and it quickly becomes obvious that he’s not a total newbie at camping.

“Yeah, I was a Boy Scout,” Sejin says, helping me gather twigs to get the portable woodburning camp stove started. Once it’s lit, the golden glow from the fire illuminates his features and gives us enough light to organize our things and begin to prepare for dinner.

Suddenly Sejin slaps himself on the leg.

“Damn mosquitos,” he mutters. He slaps himself again. And a third time.