Chapter 41
Alec
The word rings in my head long after Rob says it. Girlfriend.
I didn’t correct him, but it sits wrong in my gut. I haven’t had a girlfriend since middle school, and that barely counted. She only liked me because she could hang out with Finn, and all I wanted was to climb the cypress tree in her yard.
That’s the truth. I don’t do relationships. I don’t know how.
But Clementine’s here. And, for reasons I can’t explain, I wanted her here. Wanted to take her somewhere I love, show her something that’s mine, that’s real.
Maybe that makes her my girlfriend. Maybe it makes her more.
I don’t fucking know.
The engine roars under my boots. The plane is cramped, four seats that might as well be three. We’re close enough that our shoulders stay welded together. Every creak causes Clementine to clamp down on my arm.
I don’t mind it. Not one bit.
“I wanted you to see a glacier in person,” I tell her. “See what life with me really looks like.”
Her voice cracks through the headset. “How are you not terrified up here?”
“I’ve flown into the Tenzing–Hillary Airport in Nepal eight times. Most dangerous in the world. This is nothing.”
I grin. She squeezes tighter anyway.
The clouds peel back, and the world breaks open. Peaks rip out of the earth like bones.
“Oh my god,” she gasps as Rob banks us toward the ice.
“That’s the Matanuska Glacier,” I say. “First one I ever climbed.”
It’s sprawled out like a beast, scarred and cracked, blue as deep water. The kind of blue that swallows you whole.
She squints at me. “I’m pretty sure that exact shape is tattooed on your leg.”
“Surprised you could tell.”
“Spent a lot of time staring at those legs,” she says, winking. “What can I say? Thigh tattoos do something to me.”
I huff a laugh, but my eyes stay on the glacier. “It used to be bigger. A lot’s melted.”
Rob twists to look over his shoulder. “Losing about a foot a year. You wouldn’t believe how far it’s receded in ten.”
“One of the climbs Finn and I did was to raise awareness,” I tell her. “Vatnajokull in Iceland. That’s the one in the documentary.”
Her breath fogs the window. “Would you climb this one again?”
“Actually, that’s part of why I booked this flight. I wanted to scope it out.”
Rob glances back. “Too hot the last couple weeks. Probably won’t be good to climb until October. Though if a window opens up before then, you’re gonna want to take it.”
October. That’s after Wild Trails. I cringe. I’d hoped to climb sooner.
There’s a small, ugly worry riding me—if I don’t stand on real ice before Wild Trails, will my hands hesitate on a rappel?
The nightmares have been quiet most nights, but they’re only quiet; they’re not gone.
A gym session isn’t the same. I need the wall, the real bite of crampons, and the clean math of axes and screws to prove that part of me still works.
I don’t want to let Clementine down again.
Clem swivels toward me, eyes darting between the ice wall and my face. I catch the edge of nerves in her eyes. “You’re really going to get back on the wall.”
“Not just this.” My voice drops lower. “Told my agent I’d climb Vatnajokull in November.”
“You’ll have people with you, right?”
“Yeah. They’re bringing in some new climbers. And Herald. I’ve climbed with him before. Not as quick as Finn, but smart. He can spot an avalanche risk a mile off.”
“And how do you feel about climbing this one?”
“I think I need to prove I can do it without Finn. I need to prove to myself that I still have it in me.”
“Right.” Her voice is low.
“You okay?”
“Just one thing to see it on TV and another to see it up close. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I keep my gaze locked on the glacier. I can’t handle the fear in her eyes, because it cuts deeper than anything I’d prepared for.
I don’t know how to hold what I feel for her and what I feel for the mountain without one ripping the other to pieces.
The mountain was my first love, and Clementine is—she’s important too.
“That’s why I brought you out here.” My voice comes out rough.
“If you’re with me, you’re going to worry.
Every climb, every storm, every time I step onto ice like that.
” I nod toward the glacier swelling larger in the window, the blue of it cutting into the sky.
“That’s what you’d be signing up for. It’s part of what I do. Part of who I am.”
The plane tips sideways, and her nails dig into my arm.
“I know.” Her voice trembles, but she doesn’t let go. “And I don’t want to miss out on this just because I was scared of what might happen.”
I glance at her. She’s scared and still here, pressed into my side.
“I don’t have this figured out,” I admit, low, only for her. “How to let someone in and still climb the way I need to. Because I do need it, Clem. The ice. The burn in my lungs. The pull in my arms. It’s how I breathe right. I can’t lose that.”
“I don’t want you to lose it,” she says softly. “I just…I just don’t want to lose you.”
Something twists in my chest. Two truths, both immovable. I’ll always need the mountains. And right now, I want her too.
“I like having you here,” I tell her.
“Good. Because I like being here.”
“We’ll talk about it after Wild Trails. Like Rob said, I probably can’t climb until October anyway,” I say. My fingers fumble in my jacket pocket. “For now, I have something for you.”
“More than a plane ride?”
I pull out the small origami box I made for her, the edges damp from my grip. I wasn’t supposed to give it to her yet, not like this. But I need to replace the look on her face with something else.
“You know I’m not great at saying things, and maybe this explains it better.” Her brows lift, and I hand it over. “And don’t start with the whole I-can’t-accept-this thing. This one’s nonnegotiable.”
She works the flap open with clumsy gloved fingers.
“Who knew a man so rough could make such cute little boxes?” she teases. But when she sees what’s inside, her whole face changes as a smile as wide as a crevasse stretches on her face.
“Alec,” she breathes, laughter spilling into the word.
“You like it?”
She presses the two tickets against her chest. “I’ve never even been to Paris.”
“You’ve also never seen Yo-Yo Ma.”
She stamps her feet with excitement, reading the tickets again and again. “I can’t believe this!”
“Booked the family jet. We leave next week for the night. Hopefully one of those gala dresses survived the garage sale.”
“I have three to choose from.”
“Then maybe try them on for me first. Let me pick which one I want to take off.”
Rob’s voice crackles through the headset. “Want me to switch channels for this?”
Clementine buries her face in my chest, giggling. The sound vibrates through me, shaking loose knots I didn’t even know I’d tied.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I hold her closer, eyes on the glacier stretching endlessly beneath us. The climb will always be there. But this, her warmth pressed against me, her laugh still in my chest, is hard to replace.