Page 150 of Free Heart
She darts a troubled glance up, and then slides her gaze to the counter where Sejin is working, handing a fizzy lemonade to a solidly built truck driver who’s apparently just passing through. “Are you sure about that?”
I turn my gaze to him too. I take in the way his hair has grown, more than chin-length now. It’s starting to wave around the bottom. It’s not that much longer than last month at our wedding, but there’s enough progress that I can imagine the day when I can wrap it in my fists again. I want to be here to do that.
Frowning, I force my mind back over the last two weeks of training. I’ve been executing the pitches effortlessly. The new traverse that avoids the dyno is picture-perfect for its purpose, and I’ve dialed it in until I can do it in my sleep.
The roof…
I poke my straw around in the nearly empty boba cup. I stab a tapioca bead with the end of it. Well, the roof is always going to set my teeth on edge, but if it didn’t, then I shouldn’t be climbing it at all, much less trying to free solo the damn thing. I should be terrified when on it. I should be zeroed in so entirely, so fiercely that I know whether I have what it takes to do it or not.
Right now, I believe that I do.
“What are you thinking about?” Sailor finally asks, leaning forward in her seat. Her elbows are on the table, and her hands are pressed together beneath her chin. I can’t tell if she’s wringing them or praying, or both.
“I’m thinking about something my doctor told me,” I say, my gaze drifting back to Sejin. “He told me I’m a miracle. Not only because I lived that day, but because of how I’ve healed. He said for most breaks as bad as mine, he never would have imagined I’d even be climbing yet.”
“A miracle,” Sailor murmurs.
“When he found out what I was training for, he said—” I swallow hard, and I can’t help but look at Sejin again. He’s so handsome, and so happy right now, laughing at something a little girl is telling him. I squint, looking closer. I think that’s Lila Kohl from his class. I return my attention to Sailor. “The doctor asked, ‘Do you really think you have another miracle in you? Do you want to make that bet?’”
Sailor is silent. She doesn’t ask me what I’d said to the doctor in return.
I tell her anyway. “I told him it’s training. It’s discipline. It’s having the best day of my life on the exact day I need to have it.”
“It’s a miracle,” she says.
I nod. “Every damn time. Tell your uncle I’m in.”
“You’re not even going to talk to your husband about it first?”
Husband. I smile at that. “He knows who he married.”
*
Sejin
“You didn’t eventhink you should, I don’t know,ask me about it first?” I shout, scaring the cats, who scatter to various hiding spots in the house.
Dan leans back against the headboard, the bed still rumpled from the sex we’ve just had, a reminder of how good the dayhadbeen going before Dan dropped the bombshell that he’s agreed to put a deadline on the climb. Not only that, but he’s assigned a date to it so that everyone else on the film crew can be prepared too.
“What about me? What about preparingme?”
“Doc—”
“Don’t!” I yell, swinging around and pointing at him. “Don’t ‘Doc’ me. This is…you’re…” I feel my knees give out, and I sink to the bed to bury my head in my hands. I clench my hair and tug at it, the pain centering me enough to allow tears to come to my eyes. My fear comes out in a sob.
“Hey,” Dan says, softly, crawling toward me on the bed now, and dragging me into his embrace.
I’m still so angry that I want to fight him off, but I don’t. I collapse against him, crying and shaking.
“Hey, Doc, I’m right here. It’s going to be all right.”
“But we just got married,” I whisper.
“You knew I was going to do this again.” His voice is gentle; there’s not a hint of antagonism or anger toward me for reacting as I have. He’s not even baffled, which tells me that my reaction isn’t at all unexpected.
“I thought I’d have more time.”
“You’ve got the rest of forever,” he whispers. “No matter what.”
