Page 154 of Free Heart
I get myself together enough so say, “Now get your ass back down here so I can hold you.”
His laugh rolls through the phone and down from the top of the wall.
“On my way, Doc.”
It’s over. He’s coming to be with me on the ground.
He knows how to live here now.
EPILOGUE
Dan
The present Igave Sejin for our wedding was a handful of beginner Korean sessions with a young woman named Choi Kyungeun. I felt sure he’d love learning the language, and I wasn’t wrong. For the last year and a half, he has taken lessons once a week and is always sure to study in between. To his excitement, he’s becoming more and more fluent.
The money we got from the sale of the movie Sailor made about my recovery and free solo of Heart Route, along with the continued growth of my YouTube channel and online presence, allows us to live comfortably in a rented apartment near Tater Tots. It also allowed us to get an even nicer converted van to travel in for my more recent climbing exploits—all of which are sponsored now by WhipSmart primarily, as well as a few other sportswear and gear companies I like.
I’m pleased to say that after the success of the movie, I’ve been a hot commodity, though I haven’t done a truly ambitious project since Heart Route.
I’ve been keeping my eye out as we travel the country for a route that really sets me on fire, but I haven’t found anything yet. Maybe I’m so on fire for Sejin right now that I don’t need that sort of intensity in my climbing life. Perhaps the high from the Heart Route free solo hasn’t worn off yet. Whatever the case, I’m curious to see what lies ahead for me in the future. Including the immediate one.
“That bag will need to go in the overhead compartment, sir,” the slight-figured and black-haired airline attendant says to the man in the aisle next to us.
I watch as he gets up and struggles to lift it, but eventually the bag fits neatly. The attendant closes the compartment door.
Luckily, no one has taken the aisle seat on our row yet. They’re about to shut the door to the gate, so I’m hopeful we’ll have it to ourselves.
Sejin sits by the window, eager to get a glimpse of the earth from the air. “This is my first plane trip, and I’m going all the way around the world. Can you believe it?” He’s giddy.
I stroke a hand over his hair, grown out to almost his shoulders now, and smile. It’s not my first plane ride, but it’s my first trip abroad, and I feel like we’re jumping right into the deep end of things. Just the way I like it.
“What do you want to do first in Seoul?” I ask him.
“Get to the hotel and sleep probably,” he says. “But after that, I was thinking we should check out Lotte World.”
“Before any of the historic stuff? What about the Gyeongbokgung Palace?”
“We can do that the next day. Lotte World has rollercoasters.”
“You can do rollercoasters, but you can’t climb due to the exposure?” I frown.
“I close my eyes the whole time.”
“The whole time?”
“Yup, the whole time.” He grins at me, and his smile still makes my heart stutter in my chest.
Touching his hair again, I murmur, “Anything you want, baby.”
His smile goes slightly dimmer. “On the third day, we have that meeting with the woman at the National Center for the Rights of the Child…”
I nod and wait. I know he’ll tell me what he’s thinking.
“I’m still nervous about looking for my birth parents. Do you think it’s a good use of our precious time? Maybe we should cancel.”
“Do you want to cancel?”
Sejin ponders that for a long time, and I let him. “I guess this is my best shot to find out something,anythingabout them. Besides, there’s no guarantee, is there, that I’ll even be able to locate anyone.”
