Girl Against the Universe (15 page)

CHALLENGES

1.
Make the tennis team.

2.
Ride in a car with someone besides Mom: Jordy.

3.
Spend a day in a crowded place: Tennis tournament.

4. Take something back from the Universe: Rock climbing.

5.

6.

7.

GOAL

Plane ride to Ireland for memorial service.

We had to plan around Jordy's tournament schedule, so it's the second weekend in October before the two of us get to go rock climbing.

On Saturday morning, I watch for his car out the window and head for the living room when I see him pull up.

My mom looks up from changing Jake's diaper. “Are you going to be home in time for dinner?”

“Probably not,” I say.

She unsnaps a container of baby wipes with one hand. “What are you guys doing again?”

“Just hiking and stuff.” I dropped two duffel bags full of gear straight outside my window so my mom wouldn't see. She's still adjusting to me being able to ride in a car with someone else. I don't want to worry her by telling her I'm driving halfway across the state to go rock climbing.

Tom enters from the kitchen. “You want something to eat before you go? I'm making French toast.”

“Sounds amazing,” I say. “But we're kind of in a hurry.”

“Am
I
ever going to meet this guy?” he asks.

I think back to our late-night conversation. “I don't know. If you do are you going to kick his ass?”

Tom chuckles. He pounds his right fist into his left palm, looking about as threatening as a baby polar bear. “Maybe.”

My mom looks back and forth between the two of us as she finishes with Jake. “Why would you kick his ass?”

Tom winks at me. “Inside joke,” he tells her.

“Whatever.” She heads toward the nursery with my little brother. “See you tonight. You guys have fun and be safe.”

“Will do.” I step out into the warm sun and pull the front door closed behind me. Ducking down below the living room window, I cut across the grass and grab the gear bags.

Jordy pops the trunk of his car and I stow everything inside, hoping that my mom is too focused on Jake to spy on me through the window.

“Damn. What is all that?” Jordy asks.

“A rope, two harnesses, shoes, webbing, chalk, and the necessary cams and carabiners,” I say.

“That's a lot of gear.”

“That gear will keep us safe,” I say with a smile. “You have no idea how good it felt to drag it out of the depths of my closet.”

“And your mom was okay with it?”

“I told her we were just going hiking. What about your mom?”

Jordy smiles. “I said I was going rock climbing with a friend.”

“I thought you always had to lie or sneak out.”

“I do usually, but I told her I'd be getting exercise today and that I'd do a double practice session tomorrow. I also told her maybe what I needed was just a break—a day to not think about competing for once.”

“And that worked?”

“She told me if I left the house I was grounded.” He shrugs. “But next week's shrink homework is to do something for Real Jordy and not lie about it, so I figured I'd get ahead for once. I swear to you, I'm getting better at not letting them run my life.”

“That's awesome. I'm happy for you,” I say. “I mean, not about the grounded part.”

“I'm happy for me too,” he says. “And I'm basically grounded all the time, right? What else can my mother take away from me?”

“Well, I don't want to be the reason she's mad at you.”

“You're not,” he says. “What about you? How was your session with Daniel yesterday?”

“Good,” I say. “Daniel is psyched that I'm climbing again.”

“Cool.” Jordy starts the car and then tosses me a tube of sunscreen from the center console. SPF 50. “Apply liberally. It'll take about three hours to get there, but we can switch off driving if you want.”

“You'd trust me with your car?”

“No one is safer than you.”

“True,” I say. “But I'll try to make it the whole way.” I start working on my sunscreen as we head north on the 15, pausing occasionally to do a five-second check. We pass through the outlying suburbs of San Diego and then some smaller towns.

We turn east, near Riverside. Gradually the trees and wildflowers give way to layers of brown and tan. Sand blows against the windshield and tumbleweeds bounce across the highway. This is the part of California that never makes it into the movies. The hot, dry part where most people don't want to live. But there's something almost magical about the slender saguaro cactuses and beautiful Joshua trees that stand sentry along the road.

Jordy closes his window and turns on the AC. About twenty minutes later, we enter the park at the West Entrance Station. The road is paved, but occasionally a deep crevasse snakes across the surface. Jordy drives carefully, navigating around the cracks and divots as best he can. On either side of us, piles of boulders rise up like forgotten cities. Between them are patchy scrub grass and Joshua trees—some alone, some so close together that their twisted branches actually intertwine.

We follow the road for a few miles and then pull into a parking lot for a picnic area. Beyond a sandy patch with a barbecue grill and a couple of picnic tables is a massive wall
of rock. The parking lot is full of cars, some of them from other states like Oregon and Arizona. Splashes of neon rope are visible against the brownish gray of the rock.

I feel something building beneath my skin—a fluttery sort of pressure. It's nerves, but for once it's not all about the bad things that might happen. I spent the past few days practicing my knots and researching routes, and part of me—a huge part—is dying to get back into my shoes and harness.

Well, Connor's harness. Mine doesn't fit anymore.

I suck in a breath of dry desert air as we get out of the car. The heat sears my nasal passages and sizzles in my lungs. The sun is white-hot against my pale skin.

Jordy pops the trunk and I grab the harnesses, the rope, and a string of cams and carabiners. He grabs the rest of the gear and slams the trunk. With one hand he holds up a small black duffel bag. “I even remembered the Jordy Wheeler Deluxe Emergency Kit.”

“You're such a Boy Scout,” I say. We cross the sandy area and approach the wall of rock.

“So you've climbed here before?” Jordy asks.

“Just once, on a family vacation. I was only ten, but I researched everything last week. Don't worry. I got this.”

He grins. “I'm not worried.”

I use a guidebook I got from the library to locate a climb that's medium difficulty. “Here. This is a good top-roping spot.” Top-roping is the safest type of rock climbing, where the rope is doubled and one person climbs at a time. The
other person belays, or keeps control of the rope's slack by pulling it through a special device.

We drop all of our gear on the ground. I look up at the wall. Fifty feet looks higher than I remember.

“You okay?” Jordy slips his feet into the leg holes of his harness and starts fastening the straps.

I'm glad he has his own. I brought my dad's for him, just in case, but seeing Jordy wearing it would have felt weird.

“You look like you're about to faint,” he continues. “I promise you, I'm going to be fine.”

“You can't promise that,” I remind him.

“Fair enough, but just think about Ireland. Think about getting on that plane in a couple of months. If you can do that, you can do this.”

It's a great thought; if only I was sure I could get on a plane. “Yeah, okay.” I grab everything I need to set up the climb. “I'll be back.” I head to the end of the clearing, where there's a walk-up, a pile of boulders I can climb over to make it to the top of the cliff. I find the spot right above where Jordy is now lying back on the gravel and looking up at the sky. I use the gear to create multiple safe anchors and then pull hard on the rope until I'm satisfied it's secure. Then I do a few perfunctory stretching exercises while I survey the scene below.

A girl in hot pink capris and a black tank top is clinging to the cliff, her legs spread wide and one hand stretched way above her head. Her other hand feels back and forth across
the rock, searching for something to hold on to. I trace the path of her rope up to the top of the ridge and back down again, where it's hooked to a guy who looks like he's in college. He's got both hands on the rope, his eyes watching every move the girl makes. Three other groups of climbers have similar setups.

Beyond them, two kids are leaning up against a hatchback in the parking lot and smoking a cigarette. I sit on the ground and stretch my hamstrings, looking back and forth from the climbers to the kids every few seconds until they finish the cigarette and grind the butt hard into the gravel.

I think of Daniel telling me to take back something the Universe stole from me. I feel like I'm on the edge of a huge moment.

Below me, Jordy appears to be taking a nap.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey yourself,” he calls up to me. “Are you having trouble?”

“Nope. Just scoping out the whole area. Seeing what's what.” I hold the coil of rope out from the cliff. “Heads up.”

He hops to his feet and backs up as I toss both ends of the rope over the edge. Sliding on my harness, I double-check the straps and then clip into one side of the rope. I give it another sharp tug and then begin to lower myself down the face of the cliff in small bursts, one foot kicking out from the rock as I go. I land gracefully at the bottom with a grin. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to rappel.

“That was hot.” Jordy pushes his sunglasses up on his forehead. “You look really good in your gear, by the way.”

“No one looks good in a harness,” I say quickly. Pretty sure it's true. The nylon straps tend to make whatever fat you have bulge out at unflattering angles.

“You do.” He shrugs. “Sorry. This is Real Me. We can hang out as friends, as shrink-homework pals or whatever, but I'm not going to pretend you're not hot.”

My face goes red. “Why do you have to make everything so impossible?”

He winks. “Because it's fun. And you're cute when you blush.” He grabs the rope and clips into the belay side. “Are you ready to climb or what?”

“One sec.” My muscles are still twitching with nerves. I shake out my arms and legs, grab my water bottle, and take a long swig. Then I blot the sweat off my face with the sleeve of my T-shirt. “Now I'm ready. Just let me double-check the setup.” I step in close to Jordy to make sure his belay device is properly functioning. We're so close that I can see his eyelashes, his freckles, the tiny grooves in his lips.
His lips!

“You're still blushing,” he says.

“No I'm not.”

“Yes you are.” He clips a fist-sized cloth bag to one of the loops on the back of my harness, his hand lingering on my hip for a moment. “Don't forget your chalk.”

Chalk. Right. I'm already sweaty from the combination of heat and nerves. And Jordy.

My eyes are drawn back to his lips, to his smile. To his whole face—the slightly crooked nose, the brown eyes, the shock of brownish-blond hair sticking up behind the sunglasses that rest on his forehead.

Cursed
, I remind myself. I do one last five-second check of the surroundings. It's as safe as it's going to get.

Jordy tugs on my side of the rope. “Belay on, already.”

I step up to the wall and prepare to climb. “Climbing,” I say.

“Climb on.”

It takes me a couple of tries to get started. Once I find a little ridge that my foot feels secure against, I reach high above my head and locate an outcropping that I can wrap my whole hand around. I step up, my free hand searching for a third point I can use to secure myself. I find a crack my fingertips fit in and flatten my body against the wall, the muscles in my arms going rigid. I take a couple of deep breaths and then step up with my other foot, my hands sliding across the rock face in search of new holds. I glance back over my shoulder. I'm only a few feet in the air, but exhilaration is already buzzing inside of me.

Jordy pulls his side of the rope through the belay device. I lean back from the rock to test him. The line is snug. If I slip, I won't fall. I bring my right knee up toward my waist, the tip of my climbing shoe finding another ridge to support my weight. I step up again, my body pressed so tightly against the stone that its rough surface scrapes layers off my skin. My
free hand finds a new point of anchor.

Slowly, I repeat this process. Once. Twice. Three times. My fingers ache and my forearms are burning, but it's a good kind of pain, like my entire body has been frozen for years and I'm finally starting to thaw. By the time I'm halfway to the top, one of my nails is broken, a thin line of blood visible beneath the jagged edge. I barely notice. I feel . . . good, like I'm becoming part of the cliff. For once my brain has shut off.

For once I am only thinking about this moment.

I can see bands of lighter rock interspersed in the sandy beige. Tiny spiderwebs are nestled in cracks. Dead leaves cling to the face of the cliff. Mindful of where I put my hands, I slide my fingers upward until I locate another hold. I swing my leg out wide until the tip of my shoe catches against a lip of rock. I find a secure spot and rest for a second, breathing deeply and shaking out my arms. I reach back behind me and dip the fingertips of each hand in my chalk bag.

A few moves later, I see the top of the rope. Grunting, I make one last move, and my fingers hit the locking carabiner at the cliff's edge. “Made it.”

“Congrats. Ready to come down?” Jordy calls from below.

“Yep.” I smile so big it hurts. I forgot how good rock climbing could feel. I forgot what it was like to do something and not be distracted by a hundred dark thoughts.

Jordy starts letting out the rope in smooth three-foot
gaps, and I drop in quick but steady bursts.

“Well?” he asks as I touch down on the gravel.

“I feel like a superhero,” I say. Impulsively, I throw my arms around Jordy's neck. “Thank you for coming.”