Page 38 of Aim for Love

The pipe is, indeed, at least 10 feet in the air. It extends over rugged terrain that would not be easy to land on in the event of a fall.

My ears hurt from how hard my heart is pounding as I stare hard at Mollie, standing over that chasm. She looks vulnerableand alone on that pipe, her hair blowing in a light breeze and her hands wobbling as she keeps them out for balance.

“You’re OK!” Scott calls back to Mollie. “You can turn around and go back if you want to!”

“I can’t…move…” Mollie whispers, barely loud enough to float back to us. I can see her legs are shaking. Abandoned out on that pipe, she’s stuck between committing to the plan and reversing course.

Dropping my camelbak backpack on the ground beside Mollie’s friends, I walk out onto the pipe. I’ve never walked this before—I’m notstupid—and the pipe itself could be slippery, but I trust the grippy soles on my boots. Mollie’s boots are new and relatively untested, aside from our hike the other day, and I don’t know how sticky they are.

It doesn’t take long before I am close enough to her to say, “I’m going to touch you now and help you turn around.”

“OK,” she says, her voice trembling.

“Don’t lock your knees.”

“OK,” she repeats, her breath short and wheezy. “I’m not good at balance,” she reminds me in a small voice.

“I remember, but I’ll guide you through this.Wegot this,” I say. Putting my hands on her waist, I gently pressure her to turn to the right, shuffling her feet as she goes, until she’s facing me.

We look at each other and her eyes are steady. They’re filled with fear, but she’s not melting down. She’s waiting for instructions. She trusts me to lead her. That’s good.

“Now I’m going to turn around. You’re going to keep one hand on my waist, only not for balance. Don’t hold tight, OK? Let me turn without trying to hold onto me.”

“OK,” she says, her voice still faint. She loosens her fingers on my shirt, though, so I’m not worried that when I move, I’m going to unbalance her and she’ll take me down with her.

Continuing to speak to her in an even tone, I turn around. “Now we’re going to walk back toward Nora and Sophie. One foot in front of the other, got it? Small steps.”

“Got it,” she repeats. I can feel her hand on my waist, and I don’t look down. She’s holding onto me loosely. I step forward, and she follows.

Moving quickly, yet not so fast I lose her, I move us back toward stable ground. I keep my eyes on the other two women, urging us on. They’re waving and cheering, like encouragement can save us from this situation. The closer we get to safety, the angrier I am that we’re doing this in the first place.

Mollie’s hand on my waist is a steady pressure. We’re going to be OK.

Once we both have two feet on firm ground, Nora and Sophie hug Mollie. “Oh my god! You could have died!”

I’m not sure either of us would have died had we fallen, but it would have hurt. A lot. Something definitely would have broken.

I glare back at Scott, on the other side. It’s hard to tell at this distance, but I think he looks abashed. “You could have gotten us sued and them killed!” I yell at him, unable to keep biting my tongue.

He spreads his arms, like “what can I do about it now?” And I turn away, unable to keep looking at him.

Mollie is looking back at me now, her eyes filled with tears. Her friends both have a hand on her, like they’re making sure she’s real. “I know that was stupid,” she says.

“It was,” I reply stiffly. It’s not kind, but I’m not particularly kind right now. “You don’t have to tryeverything.”

“I know,” she whispers. Her friends glare at me.

“Town is that way.” I point them in the right direction before I stomp off, leaving them there. My stomach feels like it needs to empty and my head is pounding. I’ve even got a tremble in my legs.

Once I’m alone, I end up pacing in my room, unable to sit because of the buzzing beneath my skin. Tom has warned me before about judging the tourists—“sizing them up too quickly and deciding they fall into one category means they can surprise you, for good or bad,” he’ll say.

And I know that I can be judgmental. I’m critical of people for the very quality I see in myself: we’re too fast to plan and too slow to change our opinion.

It’s not that I haven’t had to rescue people before. It’s that this time it was Mollie. And I thought she knew better than to follow someone mindlessly.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she’s not that different from her friends, who are encouraging her to use this week of adventure to be someone else. And maybe I’m no different than her attempt at that pipe—another “adventure” for her to share at her Sunday brunches.

fourteen

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