Page 55 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

“Hurry up!” a kid shouts from the floor.

“Mind your business!” Eli yells right back.

“Hey, hey, eyes on me, okay?” Peter urges him to focus. “I’m going to guide you, all right?”

Eli nods quickly. “Okay, yeah.”

“Okay.”

Peter begins to climb down, and Eli feels the panic rise in his chest, a brewing in his stomach. He doesn’t even want to think about what it might look like to vomit from his current predicament. Except he can’t stop his mind from going there, and—

He swallows, determined to not make a fool out of himself.

Well, no more than he already has.

“Wait, where are you going?”

Peter says with a smile in his voice, “I’m going to get under you.”

“That’s smart. Good thinking.”

Eli waits, his cheek chafing from where it’s rubbing against the rough wall. Then he feels a hand on his right ankle.

“I’ll lead you on where to go, okay?” Peter’s voice arrives as a relief, even if it’s only been a few seconds.

“Okay, okay.”

“Put your foot here, just go down a bit.” Eli lets Peter pick his foot up off the rock, trusting that he won’t let him fall as he guides Eli to the next rock. “Now take your left hand down onto that smaller rock. Use the black or the purple ones if you need to.”

Eli is embarrassed to admit that it’s the first time he’d even noticed the other colors of rocks on either side of his body. In his mind, he supposes he thought using them meant he was cheating.

“Okay, now your left foot, down to here.” Peter continues to lead him down the wall. “And your right hand down, just like that. You’re almost there.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

Oh, he’s never going to live this down, he knows that much.

“Now here, and left arm here.” Peter guides him until, finally, Eli feels him release his ankles.

“Where’d you go?” Eli tries not to let the panic take control again.

“I’m on the floor,” he says. “And so are you. Basically.”

Eli looks down again out of squinted eyes, and instead of the miles from the floor that he’d imagined in his head, he’s barely half a foot off the ground, and he finally breathes a sigh of relief.

“Oh my God . . .” Eli lets his forehead fall against the wall.

“Come on, let’s get some water.”

Eli finally lets go of the wall, his arms aching from keeping his weight up for so long. He tries his best not to meet the eyes of the ten-year-olds who are waiting for their turn, watching as they climb the same wall that he had, only to make it to the very top and then leap onto the padded floor as if it’s all a playground.

“It’s tougher than it looks, you know,” Eli says.

“Oh, I’m aware,” Peter tells him, and Eli ignores the patronizing tone. Instead, Eli lets Peter guide him to the benches that sit against the railing. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Totally. You know.” Eli does his best to wave him off, but his heart is still pounding. “Those kids make it look easy.”