Page 48 of Free Heart
“Climb or free solo?”
“Either. Both. This Dan—the one I’ve been living with the last few weeks—he’s heartbreaking. I miss the guy who’s always moving, always ready to prove to me he has it under control, even when I’m scared he doesn’t. And I know that guy’s still in there, but…right now I’m so confused.” Sejin covers his face. “Oh, God, I cut my hair.”
I pull him down onto the bed beside me, heedless of my journals and my notes and the used tissues that I should have tossed into the trash but haven’t had the energy to dispose of, and I rub my fingers over his new, short hair. “I’m going to get better.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to climb again.”
“I know that too.”
“And if you want, if youinsist, I can free solo again.”
Sejin huffs a laugh. “You’re such a dick.”
I shrug.
“I do want you to climb,” Sejin murmurs. “I want you to be the guy I met and fell in love with.”
“The guy who climbs up El Cap without ropes,” I remind him.
“If it means you’ll be Dan again, then I’ll be right there behind you while you free solo, cheering you on.”
“Please don’t. That’d be way too distracting. I’d probably fall.”
Sejin laughs again. “I hate you.”
“Do you?”
“Sometimes. But I also love you, and I know the person I fell for is a man who has radical goals he isn’t willing to walk away from just because they’re scary, or hard, or his lover doesn’t understand them—”
“Boyfriend…” I correct. I still don’t get the appeal of the word lover. It’s so French, and I’m many things, but none of them are French.
“Boyfriend. I’ll never understandwhyyou have to go up against the wall the way you do—”
It’s only now that I have no choice but to deal with all the relentless memories that I’m starting to understandwhyclimbing took on such a big role in my life. If I’m on the wall, I can’t be stuck in the past. It’s only and always the here and now when I’m up there.
“—but I also know I’ll never love anyone the way I love you, Dan. And theyouI love is a free soloist.”
I know there’s more to his stress than my frustration at being stuck in bed. I know it’s bills, and working two jobs, and caring for me and the cats. I know it’s the dwindling money in our bank accounts. But I can’t make promises about any of that. I’m worried about those things too. So, instead, I tell him about something else. Something I’ve never shared with anyone before.
“Have I ever told you about when I was a kid?”
“Only that you were passed around a lot, and that you didn’t feel loved.”
“Right. Part of what’s going on in my head lately,” I say carefully, “comes from that.”
Sejin sits up enough to look me in the eye. “Do you want to tell me? I’d like to know.”
I think about how to start, but end up simply diving in. “My childhood was just one trap after another. My grandfather—the one who left me that trust I’ve been living on—beat my mother. I have a few memories of hearing him attack her, and I think that’s why she left me with the state. I don’t remember her well, but I think she was a teenager? Or in her twenties at most. I suppose I could have asked more questions of Henry when the trust came into my hands, but I didn’t. I wanted a clean slate. I wanted to live the rest of my life selfishly, just the wall and me, nothing holding me down.”
“So lonely, Dan.”
“I liked being attached to no one and nothing. I was used to that.”
“But then you met Peggy Jo.”
I shake my head. “Even then, I didn’t let her in. Not easily.”
