Dick,I think, but my mouth curves in a smile. “Can it, Boy Scout,” I mumble back, too afraid that if I speak louder I’ll come rightoff this thing.
“You know that’s not how we do it here, Aiden,” says Paul, his voice sounding farther away. “You’ve got toencourageher.”
“Oh, I am,” I hear Aiden say, and without thinking I cast my eyes back to him, see him smiling up, arms crossed over his broad chest.
“Don’t distract me,” I say, some of the nerves falling away from me like loose rocks on a cliff face. “I’m making this pole my bitch. Sorry, Paul!”
“That’s all right,” he says, chuckling.
I loosen my grip on one of the staples, watch my hand tremble as I pull it away, my other hand and my thighs around the pole tightening instinctively while I reach up.
“Relax your legs,” Aiden says. “You don’t have to hold on so tight.”
You didn’t mind it before,I think, remembering the way I’d clutched my thighs around him last night once we’d gotten back to our cabin, fighting to get closer to him even as he’d thrust his weight into me. “Surprised I have any strength left in these babies,” I call to him, seeking his face again, and I laugh when he registers my meaning, his brow lowering. Up close I’ll bet there’s a little flush on his neck, just under his stubble.
I get up another length—next hand, right foot, left foot.
“You’re doing great,” yells Sheree, clapping. “You look like you belongon that pole!”
“That—I don’t know if that’s a compliment, Sheree!”
“I heard it,” she says. “I heard it as soon as it came out of mymouth. Sorry!”
“You’re halfway,” says Paul, his voice calm as always, but I notice now that everyone sounds even farther away, and this brings a new sheen of sweatacross my back.
“Don’t think about what you’ll do when you get there,” calls Aiden, and I get a secret thrill that he knows what I’m thinking. Though, what else does anyone think about when they’re on this damn thing? Probably it doesn’ttake a genius.
“Can I think about what I’ll do when I get down?” I say, ignoring the shaky quality to my voice. “FYI, it involves one of these carabiners and your testicles!” That was probably a bridge too far for Paul and Tom, but I hear Sheree’s crack of laughter.
“Can’t wait, baby,” he calls back, andoh. Thatstupidnickname. He’s such anass. Such a pompous,offending ass.
I like him somuch.
I close my eyes, briefly, take a steadying breath, and keep going. There’s a point at which it starts to feel good again, the climb. Tiring, but a reminder of my strength. Despite my earlier longing for the horizontal comfort of the zip line, something about the vertical progress is satisfying in its own way, the feeling that I’m not running from something but that I’m climbing out of it. Below me, Sheree and Tom and Paul are cheering me, clapping and calling out words of encouragement. Aiden is quiet, but when I look down, I see he’s moved just slightly away from the group, to the other side of the pole, his head back to watch me. He’s too far away for me to see much about his facial expression, but I can see in the lines of his body that he’s focused. He’s rooting for me as much aseveryone else.
And I want to stand on the top and jump, I do. But when I reach the last set of staples, I freeze. Suddenly I can’t think how—even though I watched Sheree do it, even though Paul’s words are ringing in my head—I can’t think how to get my feet up there. I reach up to rub my palm over the top of the pole, and it’s—it’s sosmall, that space, no room for error. I won’t be able to stand there. My legs feel so tired now, shaky and clumsy. Isn’t it something I’ve made it this far? Doesn’t that count for something? I could let go now. I’ve still done the climb, after all, and that’s more than Aiden did at first.
I rest the front of my helmet against the pole and close my eyes, my body tightening up again, my breathing shallow from a combination of exertion and anxiety.
“Zo!” Aiden calls up to me, and I don’t move, can’t move. My hands itch to release the staples, to fall back into the bouncing security of the harness, to let my limbs go slack. “Don’t you quit,” he shouts, and I wish he were right here next to me, talking into my ear like he does when he’s inside me. I wish I could hear it like his gruff whisper, the voice that’s only for me.
To call back to him—even to say,I can’t, orI want to come down—feels too hard at the moment. I do what feels most manageable, which is to open my eyes, and even as I do it I’m expecting it to be a mistake, seeing everyone from such a great height and knowing fully where I am in relation to them. But all I see is Aiden, far below me, his arms still crossed over his chest. I feel something, when I look at him, some...I don’t know what. An exchange, I guess, something physical in his body that seems to charge my own. Ican’tsee his eyes, of course I can’t. But somehow I can. Somehow I can see him looking at me, challenging me,pushingme. It’s funny, how I once wanted to shrink under that stare. Funny how the first time he looked at me, really looked at me, I literally fell at his feet—sick, shamed, overwhelmed. But right now he’s looking at me and all I want to do is get bigger, get out of my cramped huddle against this pole and stand, rise to my full height, stretch out my arms, and reach that damned ball.
So that’s what I do. I take one last look at him, wonder if I imagine him nod his head at me, and then focus. Not on the pole itself, not on the jump, not on the ball. I focus on my own body, on how I can set my hands on either side, on how I can raise one foot, and then the other, between them. I focus on how it feels to crouch there, everything about me compact. If I bunch up my muscles too much, I tip a fraction to one side. If I hold on too tight, everything feels like it’s shaking—my body, the pole, the veryair.
It isn’t perfect. It’s not Sheree’s slow, balanced stand, her five full seconds of poise before she jumped. It’s a little rushed, my arms coming out recklessly to the side as I press my quads up, the hardest, most intense squat I’ve ever done. But I don’t slip. I don’t make the leap because of momentum or a slip of my shoe or lost balance. I make the leap because I decide to.
I feel the ball slap against both my palms, maybe a little clumsily. I hear the shouts of victory from below. I’m smiling, leaning back in my harness and letting it spin as it lowers, looking up into the blue sky and feeling lighter than I have in months—in years, maybe. I feel fuckinggreat. I feel like I could climb that pole again.
I feel the furthest thing from stuck. Spinning there, I know what I’ll do about Marisela, about Legal Aid. This is it. This is the beginning of me getting unstuck.
Strong, warm arms come around my legs, and I know they’re not Paul’s. I know it’s Aiden come to get me, but he makes no move to unsnap my harness. He pulls me down his body so we’re chest to chest, all the snaps and carabiners pressing between us. His smile is bigger than I’ve ever seen it, but I only get it for the briefest second, because he tucks my body into his so we’re as cheek to cheek as my helmet allows, and says, right into my ear, “I knew youwouldn’t quit.”
My answering smile feels huge, too big for my face, and my arms squeeze him with all the strength I didn’t think I had left. When he pulls away I try to school my expression, to look a little less like I’m a child bursting with glee, but before I manage it he leans in, presses his lips against my smiling mouth—a hard, firm kiss that catches me on the teeth at first until I shape my mouth to kiss him back. And it’s so good, that kiss—quick but intense, one of his arms banded around my lower back, the other coming up so he can unsnap the closure underneath my chin.
It’s the first kiss he’s ever given me in front of other people. And it’s not for show.
“You did so good,” he says, and kisses me again.
