Most people didn’t agree with climbing without ropes. They considered it too reckless, too foolhardy. He couldn’t tell whether she was one of those who would judge him, label him an adrenaline junkie or whatever, but he couldn’t help feeling slightly defensive. “Occasionally. But only when I know the climb well, have done it many times with ropes and feel certain I can make it.”
“What happens if you encounter something unexpected, some water or slime on a narrow ledge that makes it too slippery to grip—or a rattlesnake that slithers out of a crack in the rock?”
“Surprises like that generally don’t end well,” he admitted. “Encountering a rattlesnake while hiking could end as badly, though.”
She studied him. “Do you know the guy who climbed El Capitan free solo?”
“Alex Honnold? I’ve met him. Why? Do you know him?”
“I interviewed him on my show in 2018, right after the documentary came out. Since you probably climb in Yosemite, too, I figured you might’ve run into him.”
“I’ve encountered him in the valley a time or two.”
She adjusted the blanket she’d been using. She had on the same faded Van Halen T-shirt he’d seen earlier, but he could tell that she was now wearing a bra. And when she shifted, causing the blanket to fall back, he noticed she was also wearing a pair of pink yoga pants. “How’d you get involved in rock climbing?”
“Unlike Alex, I didn’t have the opportunity to start as a kid. I didn’t get into it until I was in high school. I began bouldering at Enlightenment Ridge, which isn’t too far from here.” Climbing had provided an outlet. It was the only thing that quieted his mind and barred unwelcome thoughts from intruding.
“Do you have a sponsor?”
He leaned up against the wall. “I didn’t until recently. I got one just a few months ago, as a matter of fact.”
“Some climbers don’t like the idea of getting paid for climbing,” she said.
“Those are the ones who can’t get a sponsor,” he responded drily, but she didn’t give up that easily.
“They claim the money incentivizes guys to climb too fast and take bigger and bigger risks—to be the first to scale a particular rock face in a certain amount of time or whatever, which can be dangerous. They also say that the social media and other attention that goes along with climbing professionally is a problem, because it’s so distracting.”
“It’s a dangerous sport. I’m not going to stand here and argue that it isn’t. But I’d rather be making money doing what I love to do. That’s the only way I can do more of it.”
She raked her long hair back with her fingers and twisted it on top of her head. She still wasn’t wearing makeup, but she didn’t need any. She was as pretty as ever—just as pretty as she’d been at eighteen. She’d make the perfect news anchor or television host. She had a wide mouth with straight teeth that gleamed when she smiled.
He remembered being absolutely captivated by that smile, too nervous to even talk right when she deigned to speak to him.
“How old were you when you came to New Horizons?” she asked.
“Fourteen.”
She let her hair drop. “Were you born in California?”
He nearly laughed. He’d been afraid to ask her anything that might make her uncomfortable, and yet she was veering awfully close to the one subject he didn’t like to discuss—his past. “I was,” he said simply.
“What part?”
“Bakersfield.”
“Do you mind if I ask what happened to your birth parents?”
He hesitated.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s the interviewer in me, I guess. I start in right away, but...is that a no?”
“Why don’t we trade?” He flashed her a grin. “I ask you something I’d like to know about you, and then you can ask me something you’d like to know about me. Maybe it won’t be comfortable for either one of us, but at least it’ll be fair.”
She eyed him dubiously. “That’s okay. The last thing I want to do is discuss what I’m going through.”
“Understood. But I’ll let the offer stand. Let me know if you change your mind.”
He breathed a sigh of relief as he headed downstairs to the bedroom that had been his when he lived with Aiyana. He was fine with leaving things as they were between him and Emery. Satisfying his curiosity where she was concerned wasn’t worth digging through the wreckage of his childhood, especially because they’d go their separate ways soon enough. What was the point?
There was no point, no reason to even think about his childhood tonight.
But after he brushed his teeth and stripped off his clothes, he pulled out the letter he’d received and stared down at his name, written in pencil.
Somehow, his father had tracked him down. He’d found this letter in his post office box when he went by to clear it out before coming to Silver Springs. He hadn’t opened it, though.
He wasn’t sure he ever would.
3
Tuesday, December 8
When Emery’s alarm went off early the next morning, she fumbled around on the nightstand until she could find her phone and silence it. Ever since she’d arrived in Silver Springs, all she’d done was sleep. It was going on a week now, and yet she still didn’t have any energy. After pushing so hard for so long—to get her degree in Communications and Media Studies at Cal State LA; to graduate at the top of her class; to launch her career in television; to eat healthy so that she felt good and looked good, something that was important for an anchor; and to make it to yoga every afternoon, all while trying to maintain a relationship with Ethan on the sly—she’d nearly run herself into the ground.
Of course, some of what she preferred to categorize as exhaustion had to be depression. So many things had gone wrong at once, and not only little things. Her parents were breaking up. While divorce was pretty commonplace, it was still extremely painful, and this one had come as
