Page 62 of Playing With My Heart Strings

Jarrod is already waiting for us with more of the camera crew, who help the professionals set us up with GoPros on our helmets.

Resting my hand on Baylor’s hip, I whisper in her ear, “How are you doing?”

“A bit nervous,” she admits. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Neither have I. To be honest, I’m a little nervous, too, but everything is going to be great.”

The technician waves us over to get on our harnesses and the rest of the gear we need then goes over a brief overview of how to rappel down safely.

Before I know it, our harnesses are attached to the belay device and rope, and Baylor and I are standing next to each other on the edge of the tower.

I reach over to grab her hand and check in. “You doing all right?”

She nods, even though the grimace on her face says otherwise.

“I’ll be right here with you the whole way,” I reassure her as best as I can, trying to keep my own nerves at bay.

“Ready?” the technician asks.

“Ready,” we confirm at the same time.

“All right, have fun. Don’t forget you’ve got a radio if you need anything.”

To make our way down, we have to make our bodies perpendicular to the building so we can take steps as we feed the rope through the belay. Finding my position is a lot easier than it is for Baylor, and I can tell she’s struggling to get started. Her torso is lower than her legs, her feet still on the ledge of the roof.

She squeezes her eyes shut, her expression mimicking a person in pain.

“Hey, you’re okay.” I get her attention, and she slowly opens her eyes. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she mumbles.

“You’ve got this, Baylor. Just use your weight to help you take your first steps. Slow and steady, baby.” I catch myself off-guard calling her the term of endearment, but I don’t think she even notices as she takes a long, slow breath and steps off the ledge.

Her first few steps are slow and a bit wobbly, kind of like a fawn standing for the first time. But once she gets her footing, she whips her head toward me with the biggest grin. Then she makes the mistake of looking down the twenty-six or so stories, and her face blanches.

“Hey, hey, hey, look at me.” I’m talking to her before she even has the chance to speak.

“I d-didn’t realize how high up we are.” Her eyes snap up to mine.

“Don’t think about that, or it’ll make it worse. Talk to me. What’s your favorite color?” It’s the first thing that comes to my mind, even though it’s a pathetic attempt at a distraction.

It works, though, because she lets out a laugh. “Orange. My favorite color is orange.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone whose favorite color is orange,” I reply, keeping the conversation flowing. “My favoritecolor is green. But forest green. My bedroom as a child was neon green, which gives me a headache just thinking about it.”

We’re slowly inching our way down, and I think my efforts to distract Baylor are working, because she doesn’t look as tense anymore. Her shoulders have relaxed, and she’s not white-knuckling the rope like she was when we first started our descent.

“My bedroom was just white. My parents didn’t let me paint my room, because they didn’t have time—family of doctors,” she adds. “As a kid, I was obviously devastated, but looking back I’m oddly grateful. I probably would have chosen the worst color combinations known to man.”

“As long as you didn’t want to paint your room baby-puke green, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been that bad.”

We laugh together, throwing out the worst color combinations that we could have used for our childhood bedrooms. I look up to see how far we’ve come, finding that we’re about halfway down the building. I don’t mention it to Baylor, because I don’t want to freak her out, but pride rises in my chest at how she’s facing her fears.

“If you had to choose only one artist to listen to for the rest of your life, who would it be?”

“Do I only get their existing discography or do I get future albums?”

“All existing and any future music they release,” I confirm.

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