TRACK 13 #3
Hey, if he's calling her that then I might've saved myself from a beating later, because that means he looks at her more like a sister.
Smoothing her hands across the chalk on her pants one at a time, she grabs the first bar.
When I say that this woman makes Tarzan look like a joke swinging on his vines, I'm not kidding.
She goes across the cloud bridge one swing and hand at a time but not lingering long enough to use up her upper body strength.
No, she saves that for when she has to swing sideways to grab one of the pegs and uses only her arms to pull her up to the next one and then one more until her foot can reach the bottom one.
Then she's climbing up again, all the way to the ceiling.
From there it's sideways to the left and then back down, the pegs all sparingly placed.
I don't think I'd even be able to make this one.
As she comes back down, there's nowhere to put her feet so she dangles for a moment before swinging them under the rock and wrapping her legs around a long handle that runs underneath. If she hadn't studied the formation, she never would've known that was there. Smart and beautiful.
She hangs upside down for a few seconds, obviously giving her arms a rest before pulling herself hand over hand along the bar.
When she gets to another one that hits that one at a ninety degree angle, she drops her legs and does the same maneuver, wrapping them around that one.
The end of it brings her back to the side of the wall where there's a smaller handle, but to reach it, she's got to let go of the bar with her legs.
With her moving so fast, I don't realize how hard of a task this one is going to be until she's pulling herself up using the handle and grabbing one of the pegs like she did over near the cloud bridge. Unfortunately, she seems to be gassed and may not make this one.
"DIG!" Her friend barks out, just about scaring a year off my life.
However, I'll take it, because it works. I can see her back straighten as she clenches her core and pulls herself up. It's slower than when she started, but she makes it. Fisting both hands and raising them up in a fighting motion, I clench my teeth to keep from calling out and distracting her.
The guy crap-talking her at the beginning lets out a quiet impressed whistle. "Impressive. Good view, too."
Her friend's hand squeezes the rope holding her before he speaks low. "You better stop talking. Right now."
"Why?" he asks with a quick laugh.
"Because," her friend states plainly, "if you don't, I'm going to punch you in the face, and it's going to be hard for us to be friends after."
"Okay, chill," he says. "Who is she to you, anyway?"
Another one of the dudes that works here has come to stand directly behind us and answers, "That's Liz. His tutor that helped get him into Uni."
Her friend nods. "Get into uni. Kept me out of trouble and off the streets so that I didn't end up a thug before my brother could get back."
Not this smart, beautiful, crazy, wild woman out here making me fall even more in love with her.
With both feet now on pegs, she chalks her hands again before starting up and then to the side.
Unfortunately, it was a maze trick. The end pegs are too far to reach from where she is.
She should've climbed up further, and she sees this as her head moves one way and then the other.
Instead of giving up like most people would, our girl works her way back before heading up further where she should've.
As she moves back to the end, I notice that she's still going to be too far.
"She's going to have to jump for it," Yoon Ji mutters from my side.
"Mmm," I agree.
Getting to the last peg, she sees it, too.
Chalking up her hands off her pants, I watch her take a breath right before she jumps.
There's a moment when she's airborne that I think gravity is going to do her in, but her fingers catch on the peg and then her other hand joins it.
She literally scales the wall until she's close enough to reach out and smack the bell at the top.
As soon as the sound rings out, she drops, letting the ropes catch her as the entire place erupts in cheers.
She kicks herself off the wall with her arms lying limp in her lap as she comes down. Then just lets herself free fall when the wall runs out. I'm the first one there to help get her feet under her.
Grinning proudly, she says, "Yeah, I almost didn't make that last bit. My arms are wet noodles right now."
"But you did," her friend says, pulling out his phone. "Pose for the wall."
I fix her hair where it's sticking out on one side and step back as she lifts her arm like she's showing off her muscles and pops out a quick V with her fingers and smiles.
"Got it," he says. "Good job. Knew you could do it."
She huffs still smiling while reaching for the harness around her hips. "I need to get this thing off."
"I got you," Mr. The-View-Looks-Nice offers.
Her friend throws out an arm and catches him across the chest as I whip my head toward him. "I've got it."
Squatting down, I start working the buckles loose before glancing up at her. She's already looking down at me, and it's a good thing I'm already down so low, because that look literally makes my knees weak.
"You cheated," I throw out to keep myself from drooling on her shoes or worse.
She laughs. "I did not, and you won."
"You let me win," I pout.
Reaching out, she pushes the hair back that's fallen into my eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about. I was just saving my strength and lost fair and square."
"Liar," I whisper.
She winks down at me, and I know it. I'm a goner.