"So I'm learning."
She starts moving again, and I follow, trying to place my hands and feet exactly where hers were. It's harder than it looks. Everything about climbing is harder than it looks. The rock that seemed solid from below reveals itself as a maze of options—cracks, edges, bumps, textures—and I have no idea which ones will hold my weight and which ones will send me tumbling into the canyon.
Evie knows. She reads the rock like I read a tactical map—instinctively, fluently, her body making calculations her conscious mind doesn't need to supervise. Every movement is precise. Efficient. Beautiful, in a way I wasn't expecting.
I've watched a lot of people move under pressure. Soldiers, operators, hostages. You learn to read competence in the body, see it in the way someone carries their weight, manages theirfear. Evie moves like the best of them. Like someone who has spent years learning exactly what her body can do and trusting it absolutely.
I’ve spent twelve years trusting my life to guys who can disassemble a rifle in the dark and walk through a minefield without blinking. I have never—not once—put my existence in the hands of a civilian. But as I watch her high-step onto a microscopic ledge, her balance perfect even as the wind tries to shove her sideways, I realize I’ve never been in safer hands.
This is not a woman who needs to be carried.
This is not a woman who needs to be saved.
"Rest ledge coming up." She pulls herself onto a small outcropping, maybe two feet wide, and turns to watch me finish the section. "Take your time."
"Take my time. Sure. I'll just hang out here and enjoy the scenery." My fingers are screaming, the tendons in my hands vibrating like overstretched guitar strings. My shoulders are on fire. The canyon floor is now fifty feet below, which is fifty feet farther than I'd like. "Any other helpful advice?"
"Don't look down."
"Too late."
"Then don't think about looking down."
"Also, too late."
I reach the ledge, haul myself onto it, and press my back against the rock wall. My breath is coming harder than I want to admit. Evie's barely winded.
"You're doing great," she says.
"Liar."
"You're doing adequately." The corner of her mouth twitches. "For a beginner."
"Oh, I'm a beginner now? Five minutes ago, I was a gentleman."
"You can be both." She's checking the rock above us, planning the next section, but her eyes keep flicking back to me. Checking on me. Making sure I'm okay. "Most beginners don't make it this far without panicking."
"I'm panicking on the inside. Very quietly. In a dignified, manly way."
"I appreciate the restraint."
The wind cuts across the ledge, cold enough to make me shiver. Or that's the adrenaline crash. Or maybe it's the way Evie's looking at me—like she's seeing something she didn't expect, something that surprises her.
"Can I ask you something?" I manage between breaths.
"You just did."
"Funny. How did—" I gesture at the cliff, the canyon, the impossible situation we're in. "How did this happen? The climbing. You said it started three years ago."
Her expression shifts. Closes slightly, then opens again—a conscious choice to let me in. "I was in a bad relationship. The kind where you lose pieces of yourself so slowly you don't notice until you're almost gone."
I don't say anything. Just wait.
"When I finally left, I didn't know who I was anymore. I'd spent so long being what he wanted—small, quiet, agreeable—that I'd forgotten what I wanted." She looks up at the cliff above us, and something in her face changes. Softens. "I came to Yosemite because I needed to be somewhere that didn't know my name. Somewhere I could be anyone. And I found this."
"Climbing."
"Freedom." The word comes out fiercely. "When I'm on the rock, I'm not performing. I'm not managing anyone's expectations or making myself smaller so someone else can feel bigger. I'm just... me. The real me. The one I hid for so long, I almost forgot she existed."
