Page 74 of Free Heart
Every single part of him is incredibly special to mebecauseit’s all part of the whole of him, but clearly I’m on the wrong path.
Memories tumble through my mind. The night he stepped inside my van for the first time. The morning we danced on Pothole Dome. The icing smeared on his cheek the day he first gave me the smile of my dreams. Washing in ice-cold waterfalls.The sense of home I always have when I’m with him. Rainy days spent in my van and long, clear nights on the roof of it.
He makes me feel like being on earth isn’t such a bad thing. In fact, I might not remember much of the climb or the fall, but I feel a deep certainty that when things went wrong, when I thought I was going to die, never getting back to Sejin was my only regret.
“You’re my gravity. You keep me here.” I lean closer so when he bends down our foreheads are touching. “You love life, and you make me love it too.”
“Lots of people love life.” Sejin lifts his head away. “I’m sure Sailor Evans loves life.”
“No, she’s miserable.”
He frowns. “Why would you say that?”
“Deep down, that woman is sad as hell.” Beneath her flashy smiles, Sailor’s desperate to avoid thinking aboutsomething. I recognize myself in her. We have that in common too, the need to avoid darkness.
Sejin rubs his face. “Great. Now I feel guilty.”
“Well, don’t.” I shift my crutches to a more comfortable position. “We can’t fix her problems.”
“I guess not.”
“But I can fixyourproblem.”
“How?”
I’m tempted to suggest sex because he’s wearing nothing but a towel, but there’s something in his eyes telling me that won’t be well-received. “By me holding you until you fall asleep?” I hazard.
Sejin presses a gentle kiss to my lips. “Okay. Let’s go fix me then.”
INTERLUDE 4
SAILOR EVANS PRESENTS:
AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DANMcBRIDE
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Timestamp: 23 min, 43seconds
“So, we’ve had a good time the last twenty minutes chatting past climbs, but let’s get to the question everyone wants to ask. What happened out there, Dan? What went wrong?”
I don’t know. I can’t remember the climb or the fall. It’d be nice if I did, so I don’t make the same mistake next time. I don’t want to have to recover from another broken leg.
“We laugh now, but we both know you were lucky to come out alive.”
I was. Yes.
“What’s the prognosis on your leg now?”
The doctor is impressed with how quickly it’s healing, but I’m still a long way from climbing. Until this accident, I can’t remember the last time my fingernail beds didn’t have some chalk in them.
“I bet!”
Yeah. I haven’t been on the ground this long since I was in my teens, and I’ve never been stuck inside a house. I can’t even drive. It’ll be nice to get the all-clear on that. I’ll be able to runsome errands, watch my boyfriend serve coffee at his café, and do a little overnight camping somewhere flat and boring.
