Page 131 of Free Heart
Lowell and I rap back down.
“How was it?” Sejin asks.
“Great. Not nearly enough,” I say. “More. I want more.”
His smile crinkles his eyes, and his laugh makes my heart lift. “I figured you’d say that.”
I kiss him and I know this is it, the beginning of the end of my Heart Route journey. I might not be on the route today, but soon enough I will be. I’ll see how much muscle memory remains for the climb, and how close I am to the free solo. Surely it won’t be long now until I can make my next attempt. And then, one way or another, I’ll never climb Heart Route again.
*
Sejin
The clock iscounting down the minutes until my shift at Papa Bear is over. Dan’s due any minute now. Since we were able to use the GoFundMe money to pay off most of his medical bills—and after a prolonged phone call with the hospital that ate up the better part of his day, Dan was able to convince them to writeoff the last chunk—we actually have enough money to plan a real wedding.
That’s what I’m calling it—a real wedding.
Because when Dan asked me to marry him back in December, I’d figured we’d go to the Justice of the Peace, or whatever, with my dad and Peggy Jo in tow and call it a day. But Dan, as usual, has surprised me. Turns out he’s quite the romantic, and he wants to have a ceremony with all the fixings.
Today we’re meeting with a florist and a baker. I’m curious what they’ll think when they hear about our desired location, although I’m sure they get all kinds of similar requests given that we’re in Yosemite Valley.
“Hey,” a voice comes from behind me.
I quickly wipe the table’s crumbs into the bussing tub and turn around to see what this customer might want, hoping it’s easy enough to settle before I’m officially off the clock.
“You’re Dan McBride’s boyfriend.”
“I am.” Andsheis the young climber I remember from the day I first found out what free soloing is. The one who’d sung the Humpty Dumpty song. “I haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“You got a haircut.”
“So did you.”
She smiles, touching her tousled curls. “I’m Amalia, and you’re Sejin.”
“Right again.”
“I, uh, wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”
I tilt my head. “For what?”
“For how we were that day when you asked us about free soloing. We didn’t know you were dating him. We didn’t even know he was gay. I mean, we didn’t know much about him at all.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“We said some shitty things. I’ve felt bad about it ever since.”
“Ever since he fell?”
“Yes, if I’m being honest. Afterward, watching some of his videos on TikTok, it hit me that he’s a real person. Before, it’d seemed like he was a character, the star of an impossible rumor.”
I gaze at her and take in her sincerity. She’s a kid in most ways, and it’s clear that she’s truly sorry for having taken any glee in Dan’s potential demise. “Apology accepted,” I say, glancing at the clock on the wall. Just half a minute more.
“I’m glad he’s okay.”
“Me too.”
“He’s a great climber.”
