20. Noa #2
She runs her hand along the rock face. “This is a good reminder. When you’re climbing, you can’t think about anything else. Just the next hold, the next move.”
“Speaking of.” I’ve mapped out my next three moves and I execute the first, swinging my right leg out to boost myself up to the next perfect handle.
“Are you challenging me to a race, Noa Hart?”
I shoot a quick glance down at her before I make my second maneuver.
“It’s on.” She expertly spiders her way up to my side. “Once a competitor, always a competitor, huh, trackstar?”
Even though my muscles are burning, the fact that she’s referencing something I told her minutes before Friday’s Phantom Kiss makes my heart race for reasons that have nothing to do with exertion. I shove the feeling down and remind myself I’m going for the gold.
“In it to win it,” I say.
Before I even finish my sentence, she drives a knee up to her chest and uses a foothold to push off, instantly gaining three solid feet of height above me.
Only then do I realize she’s been holding back on my behalf.
As I reach for my next handhold, she’s already four moves ahead.
But I’m determined not to give up. I wrap my hand around a little jut of rock, gripping tightly as I transfer my body weight to that arm.
In a flash, the cone of rock snaps loose and tumbles to the ground.
I go flying backwards, limbs flailing in the open air, panic flaring in my chest, until I miraculously find purchase with my foot on a ledge.
I wedge my fingers into a cranny, breath sawing in my throat, every nerve screaming as I cling to the wall.
I glance up at the speck that Aarti’s become, still scaling the rockface high above me, blissfully unaware of my recent brush with death. Then I make my next mistake: I look down.
Holyfuckingshit the ground is so much further away than I expected.
My ears are ringing with adrenaline. My hands are sweating. The rock face feels like it’s tilting away from me.
“Good save, Noa!” my belayer yells to me from below.
“I need to come down,” I gasp, squeezing my eyes shut. “Now. Right now.”
“Okay, no problem,” he calls up. “Just lean back and–”
There’s a mechanical grinding sound that definitely shouldn’t happen. The rope system jerks, then stops. A piece of rock whizzes past my head.
“Hold on.” I can hear controlled panic in his voice. “Small technical issue.”
“ SMALL ?” I shriek.
“The runner’s stuck,” he shouts. “We’re sending someone up from the top trail to free it. Ten minutes, tops.”
Ten minutes . I’m going to die here. This is not how I pictured my demise. I always assumed it would be ice-cream-related in some poetic way, not during an activity I'd never willingly agree to.
I clamp my eyes shut and try to remember the box breathing Aiden taught me. In for four, hold for four, out for–
“Hey.”
Aarti’s voice is in my ear. Not from above. Right. In. My. Ear.
My eyes fly open. She’s next to me on the rock face, having apparently ninjaed her way back down while I was hyperventilating.
She reaches toward me and for one insane second I think she’s going for my butt, but then I realize she’s switching off my mic pack. She turns off her own, too.
“They don’t need to hear everything. Just us now,” she says. “Look up.”
“What? Why?”
“Look up instead of down. Trust me.”
I tilt my head back. The sky is impossibly blue, with wisps of clouds drifting by.
“I look at clouds when I’m too high. Reminds me I’m much closer to earth than outer space.
You can focus on your harness, too. Feel how secure it is?
I strapped you in, after all.” She wiggles her brow at me.
“The runner being stuck doesn’t mean you’re in danger.
It just means we get to hang out for a bit. ”
“Shocked you’re good at this, too,” I manage.
“What?”
“Being… comforting.”
A smile plays on her lips. “Want to turn your mic back on and say that?”
I actually laugh, some of the tension easing. “Not a chance. I’m not moving a muscle until I am going down .”
“Just think: at least you’re not on The Bachelor. They make you jump off bridges for first dates on that set.”
The mention of dates has us both glancing to the clouds again, looking for anything else to talk about. But it’s not so bad; quiet, suspended together. The earlier panic is still there but manageable now, contained by her presence.
“We should probably–” I stammer.
“I wanted to–” she says simultaneously.
We both stop. Start again. Stop.
“Allow me,” she says. “I’m sorry. About the other night. At your brother’s.”
“You mean… our almost-kiss?”
She looks away, studying the rock. “Yeah. That.”
“Why are you sorry?”
She’s silent for so long I think she won’t answer. When she does, her voice is careful, measured. “I really like you, Noa. I wanted to kiss you. But this is all so much bigger than me. I can’t afford to take risks.”
I study her face. “Do you think you ever will?”
The question hangs between us. Before she can answer, there’s a shout from above. The runner has been freed. We descend in silence, and when we reach the ground, Madge is in damage control mode.
“We can work with what we got, add some funny narration in post,” she’s saying. “You really held your own up there, Noa. Let’s call it for today.”
The crew breaks down equipment while Claire herds us toward the production van. I slide into the middle row. Aarti climbs in after me, taking the seat by the window.
We’ve been driving for about ten minutes when she leans forward to the driver.
“Actually, can you drop me at the corner of Hillhurst and Franklin?” she asks.
“Sure thing,” the driver says.
I stare out the window, trying not to wonder where she’s going, trying not to care that after everything that just happened on the rock face–the almost-conversation about the almost-kiss–she’s just going to disappear again.
The van slows to a stop. Through the window, I can see a small storefront with cartoon paw prints dotting the windows.
Aarti unbuckles her seatbelt, then turns to look at me. For a second, I think she’s just going to say goodbye.
Instead, she tips her head toward the café.
“Come with me? Touch something better than rocks.”