Chapter Fifteen #2
I coloured with humiliation and anger. ‘And you’re saying that, Felix?
With your flaunting display with Morgan?
My life has nothing to do with you. How dare you make accusations or judgements on things that you have no right to even ask about.
’ My voice was rising and if the wind weren’t whipping it from my mouth, I would have been heard all the way down the valley.
My stomach twisted, because maybe he was right.
Maybe I was being unprofessional. Maybe I was being uncharacteristic. Maybe I was flirting with Abel. Fuck.
I fumbled with my carabiner, trying to free one and clip on with the next on the uphill side of the U-bolt, my hands shaking with emotion. Felix brazenly unhooked completely and walked straight around me, bumping my shoulder on the way past, then hooked on ahead of me.
Arrogant arsehole.
‘I just know how important your work is to you, Mary. And it’s sad to see you potentially throw all that away for some quick fuck in the wilderness.
He’s not your type. He’s an action man. Not to mention a tosser.
He’ll get his fix and get out of there. My advice is stick to your safe little life before you screw everything up. ’
It was like I’d been punched in the stomach.
I swallowed and leant into the wall, trying to steady myself.
This was not good. I was high up on a slope that needed all my focus not to completely freak out, and now I was trembling with anger and hurt and confusion, struggling to attach my stupid carabiner. Not a good combination.
I tried to focus on my breathing to drown out the sound of the wind and how it whipped my face.
It felt as though a gust could pull me off balance.
Then I looked down and that made it worse.
The drop swam before me. The perspective didn’t make sense.
I was too high. The sensation pulled at my organs and made everything seem to sway.
I could see the group below doing their briefing and Abel looked up at me, but I couldn’t keep my eyes down there anymore.
I lifted my head and rested it on the cold concrete.
I closed my eyes and took a breath in, then let it out.
It was worse with my eyes closed. I turned so I could look at something that was stationary and close.
The concrete. I stared at the concrete and the little lines in it.
I touched the coldness of it. I tried not to think about the rising nausea in my belly.
I didn’t want to notice it for fear it would grow and I’d vomit.
Then I heard the clink of metal against metal, the zipping sound of a carabiner against the cable.
‘Go away, Felix,’ I said, still facing the concrete, my hands gripping the cold wire of the cable.
‘Mary.’
Before I’d fully registered it was him, Abel’s body was around me, one hand on the cable each side of me, pinning me to the wall, so that it didn’t feel like I was going to tumble all the way down. I let my body crumple into his warmth, the relief rushing out of me.
‘Mary, are you okay? I’ve got you.’ His face was against mine, his whispered words right against my ear.
I couldn’t say anything. I just focused on his closeness and the solidness of him.
‘Mary. What is it? Did something happen with Felix?’ He pulled his head back and his eyes were searching, a fire in them.
I swallowed. ‘I just freaked out a bit. I’m sorry.’
‘Did something happen with Felix?’
‘Uh …’
‘What did he say, Mary?’ Abel had brought his hand from the cable to my chin to keep my eyes on his, but his body still pressed me against the wall. I couldn’t fall. I knew I couldn’t fall. Even with my legs barely doing their job of keeping me standing.
‘He just said to be careful.’ I swallowed. ‘With you. I’m sorry.’ I felt so pathetic. Felix was right. I couldn’t do this kind of thing. What was I even doing out here?
Abel’s eyes turned furious. ‘With me?’
‘He said I was being inappropriate.’
‘You’re being inappropriate?’
‘I’m sorry. I hope it doesn’t seem like—’ I couldn’t even say the words. It was too humiliating. Abel must feel disgusted by my behaviour – it must be so obvious I was attracted to him. ‘I’m not being myself. I’m just … all over the place at the moment.’
I watched his jaw work, the muscles flickering on the sharp angle. He pressed his body tighter to mine and it was like a security blanket, firm and comforting, strong and reliable.
‘Do you want me to take you down?’ His voice was low and steady.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I don’t want to make a scene. I just need a second. I can do it.’
He nodded, then said, ‘Mary. Felix has no business with you, your life, or your choices. He doesn’t know what’s best for you.
Or want what’s best for you. He has completely inhibited you.
He is a weak man who finds strength in making you feel small.
’ He pulled his head back to meet my eyes again – fierce, strong, believable.
‘You are an amazing woman and you are doing all that is required of you on this course. Okay? I’m the one who’s started anything that could be classed as inappropriate.
’ He gave a small smile as he tucked the loose hair behind my ear.
‘I’m the one who started with the sugarplum thing.
Which you are, by the way. An absolutely gorgeous sugarplum. And a brave one.’
I felt something unfurl in my chest, the fear and the humiliation somehow loosening their grip and warmth flowing in their place. In some improbable way, a smile had formed in me and worked its way to my mouth.
‘Hey.’ His smile seemed to grow as he saw the tension leave me. He touched my cheek, right at the corner of where my mouth had lifted. ‘Hey.’ His voice was soft and kind. ‘There’s my brave sugarplum.’
My body seemed to melt into his. He was lovely beyond belief. It drew a new ache inside me that wasn’t about fear or humiliation, but something closer to gratitude and yearning.
He took a breath. ‘Will I take you up or down? It’s absolutely your call. Whichever you choose is completely fine.’
‘Up.’
He smiled, a proud and unrestrained smile. ‘Great.’ He turned and called down to the huddle back at ground level: ‘I’ll be down in five!’
A few thumbs-ups acknowledged his message and then we were moving, steadily, methodically.
My hands were finding the way to function again, Abel at my heel, talking me through, giving me words of encouragement, calm and positive and reassuring.
And in no time, we’d completed the climb and were up the top, safely on another platform.
Lilly looked concerned. ‘Are you okay?’
I nodded.
‘She’s fine,’ Abel said. ‘It’s not particularly helpful when someone pisses you off and fucks with your nerve midway through trying to do your job.
But we got there.’ He shot a disdainful glare at Felix.
‘Dylan, Lilly, I’m sure you can help keep Mary out of this arsehole’s way until the rest of us get up here? ’
‘Absolutely.’ Lilly looked darkly at Felix while Dylan appeared mildly perplexed but nonetheless unbothered, as he nodded.
I had to smile at the way Felix seemed to slink in the corner. He was clearly outnumbered by people who were on my team and the feeling was extremely gratifying.
Lilly and Dylan were wonderful. While we waited, they shared stories of their own mishaps and terrifying moments in the wilderness.
I expected they were using a considerable amount of artistic licence to make me feel that I wasn’t the only one who freaked out in these situations, but regardless, it was very comforting and made me overwhelmingly grateful for their company.
Maybe I’d had it all wrong. Maybe most people were quite wonderful once you got to know them, and maybe letting people in wasn’t as scary as it had always seemed.
By the time Abel had returned with the second group, I was feeling a lot stronger and had managed to push Felix’s unnerving comments into the back of my brain.
It took another hour or two before we were finally back at the bottom.
During which time Lilly got hypothermia and needed warming with a cup of tea; Dylan sustained a femoral fracture that needed splinting; and Felix got kicked in the face and fell down the slope and no one caught him.
Okay, that only happened in my brain. In the scenario, he just got frostbite on his feet and couldn’t walk.
I hoped he really did get frostbite one day.
On his dick. And that his balls fell off.
My role was to start dry retching from my acute mountain sickness, then become short of breath as I developed my pulmonary oedema.
The group had obviously been listening to my talk earlier that day, because they were quite speedy in suggesting the correct treatments.
My recovery was dramatic but, even so, I needed to be supported on the descent and I found it surprisingly comforting to be taken down the mountain by two of my colleagues.
Abel kept close by and while he wasn’t directly clipping me on and off, his attention held me safely every bit of the way.
Finally, my feet were back on the gravel at the bottom.
A wave of relief crashed over me as I listened to the excited chatter.
The vibe was good, almost ecstatic, as though we really had successfully been in a mountain-eering adventure.
It must have been after seven p.m., the sun gone and the sky black and dotted with stars.
The wind had eased over the last half an hour and the night was calm and gentle.
Abel reached me and wrapped his arms around me. ‘Smashed it, sugarplum,’ he murmured in my ear. I could hear him smiling. He pulled back and rubbed my arms. ‘Warm enough?’
I smiled back. ‘Yeah.’
‘Good. All right,’ he called to the group, ‘everyone ready to get back to the lodge?’
The question seemed almost anticlimactic after the rush of what we’d just done. There was a hesitation.
‘Dylan, didn’t you say it was tradition to do a swim after the mountaineering scenario?’ Lilly said.
There was a ripple of laughter and enthusiasm.
‘Has been done before,’ Dylan affirmed.
‘Let’s have a swim!’ Jimmy was already taking his top off.
I smiled as I watched with detached amusement. People were predicting how freezing it would feel, or how awesome. I wasn’t a person who did crazy things like jump into freezing cold water in the dark.
Nonetheless, I followed the group down the rocky path to the pebbled beach.
It was only twenty metres or so but when the path opened out, the stretch of river was magnificent.
A sweeping bend in the bank had put the concrete of the dam wall out of view and we were surrounded only by nature, a virgin jungle of trees and moss, river-washed rocks and a slippery, silky blackness that glimmered in the dark, gurgling as it travelled into the distance.
Through the trees, the half moon lit the scene in soft, silvery strips.
Abel had found a spot to sit on the rocks while the others worked out what they would – or wouldn’t – wear, what they’d dry themselves with, who was game, who wasn’t.
I sat beside him, feeling his warmth even through the thickness of our jackets.
‘You’re not going?’ he asked.
I snorted. ‘What do you think?’
His face was soft and glimmering in the moonlight. ‘I think you can do whatever you want to do.’
‘Well, I can firmly say I don’t want to get in the freezing cold water,’ I said with a laugh.
‘Great. Don’t do it then.’
It was like he was calling my bluff. Unspoken in his smile, a tease; something knowing.
‘What?’ I finally said as I heard the brave bracing of my colleagues inching towards the water.
‘Nothing.’ He smiled back, just this side of smug. ‘I just think that you do.’
Okay. Maybe there was a part of me that wondered what it would feel like to be a person that did something a bit crazy. That wondered if people were telling the truth when they said that cold water felt amazing. Damn him. Sometimes it felt as if he knew me better than I knew myself.
I did a mental scan of what underwear I had on. Navy blue, not boring by any standard, but my bra covered my nipples and my undies covered at least a third of my butt. The lingerie lady would have called them cheeky briefs rather than a G-string. Passable for a semi-dark swim.
And then I was imagining standing in my bra and underpants in front of Abel and walking towards the water.
And from somewhere deep in me came an impulse that was stronger than all the other reasons I wanted to go for a swim.
Yes, I wanted to be brave, audacious even.
But I wanted Abel to see me being brave, because he gave that to me – he gave me bravery like a gift I’d never had.
So, while the others were absorbed in shrieks of cold splashes of water, I stood and Abel watched me as I unzipped my jacket. And pulled off my thermal top. And slipped down my leggings.
Abel watched me.
And as I walked towards the inky river, I felt his eyes searing my skin, hot against cold, fire against ice.
When my feet sank into the freezing cold pebbles and the water licked my ankles, I turned to him and my belly seemed to fill with something dangerous and bold. His eyes stayed on me, raw and hungry, as though no one else was there.
I took another step and I lowered myself in, deeper and deeper, the unknown terrifying and exhilarating, and I didn’t know where I was going.
But I wanted to go there.