He’s sitting on a boulder underneath one of those large, twisting-bark juniper trees that looks like it’s growing right out of the rock around it. He’s slumped forward with his elbows on his knees, rubbing at his forehead. My stomach sinks into my sneakers at seeing him like this. Knowing that I had a part in it, in addition to all the ways I’ve hurt him this week.
I don’t know if I can make up for any of this, but I sure as hell am going to try.
Starting with this: “Get out of here and take your goddamn cameras with you,” I say to the two cameramen, both of whom are also sweating hard from the run. One looks like he can barely hold up his camera after that. “Go back to camp, unless you think Rich wants a sexual harassment suit to deal with. Because I can promise you he will have one if you don’t stop filming right now and leave.”
The two of them look at each other for a long moment, and my heart pounds in my ears.Then one of them gives a slight nod to the other, and they turn off their cameras and head back down the path. Probably they’re going to radio in to Rich to confirm that he wants them to pull back, but I think he wants a lawsuit way less than a few extra minutes of footage.
Besides, he already got the good stuff. NowI’mthe one feeling sick.
When I turn back around, Jason is watching me through narrowed eyes.
“Jason,” I say. “I’m so—”
“What the hell?” he says, in the same furious growl I used on Kate. “You thought all this was funny, and now you’re pissed?”
My throat squeezes tight. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed.That was awful of me.”
His chin juts out, and he turns his glare to a patch of ants on the ground. “Whatever. Laugh all you want. I’m making a big deal out of nothing.”
I so rarely see Jason like this, hunched over and miserable. Rarely until this week.
I want nothing more than to sit next to him, to wrap my arms around him and hold him close. But I don’t want to invade his space, not after all this.
“It’s not nothing,” I say quietly. “And I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing at Destyny and how obvious and desperate she was being. But that doesn’t make it okay. I should have stood up for you, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”
He gives a tight shrug, but his eyes aren’t shooting daggers at me anymore, and he scoots over on the rock, leaving me room to sit.
I take the silent invitation with no small amount of relief, though I’m still not sure he’s ready for any kind of cuddling yet.
“It’s okay, you know. However you feel about it.” I pause. Is that implying I know what he feels? I mean, I think I do—he’s generally not all that hard to read—but I don’t want to do that thing again, especially now. “How, um . . . Howdoyou feel?”
His eyes cut over to me, and there’s the ghost of a smile on his lips. “That’s really hard for you to ask, isn’t it?”
“Embarrassingly hard,” I admit. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m telling you how you feel, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to phrase it, I guess. Growing up, I don’t think anyone ever asked me how I feel.”
He blinks at me. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” I say. We’re supposed to be talking abouthisfeelings, and we will, but explaining this seems important. Like it might help this conversation go better. “In my family, we just assume how each other feels, and we’re usually right. At least, we think we are.”
“Okay,” Jason says. “Well, I feel pissed. Where is that goddamn anger lamp when I need it?”
I grimace. “Back in the tent. I didn’t even think to bring it to the climb.Though given the nature ofthisclimb, I should have.” For myself as much as him, though I still don’t know how to sort through all my emotions about that.
It’s pretty easy to see that this, at least, isn’t about me—which should make me feel better, but does the opposite. It means I have evenlesscontrol over fixing it.
“It’s cool if you want to yell,” I say. “A good scream-fest out here at this stupid project, at the Not-Wives, at me, at the whole world. Drop enough f-bombs, and they can’t use the audio.”
“Ha,” he says, a sharp sound. But he doesn’t yell or swear. He just lets out a big sigh. “I’m not all that pissed at you—I mean, I was. But it’s not really that. I’m pissed at myself for reacting like this to something that doesn’t actually matter.”
“Sure it matters. You were being sexually harassed. Which is invasive and feels like shit.”
He gives me a dubious look. “You really believe that? I know you said that to the cameramen, but I thought you were just trying to get rid of them.”
“I was definitely trying to get rid of them. But yeah, that’s what it is. It’s happened to me before, and it sucks and I’m sorry I didn’t recognize it sooner.” I reach to put a hand on his knee, which he doesn’t seem to mind. His skin is sun-warmed, even here in the shade.
“Thatreallypisses me off that anyone did that to you,” he says, and his tone certainly reflects that, like he wants to reach back in time and punch that douchebag. “This isn’t the same thing, though. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never climbed in very little clothing before on my own show. Hell, I’ve been naked on my show.”
I nod. Well blurred-out, of course, but it’s a long-standing—and hilarious—tradition of his to strip down when he climbs some challenging new location, where he’s not worried about getting caught for public nudity or flashing random people. It’s not a sexual thing—especially not on his show, though it’s not like he’d never in the past had climbs with girls he was dating or friends-with-benefits that ended up that way. It certainly did when we went on our first climb, all the way to the top of the Los Angeles Convention Center.
