Page 132 of Full Contact

Felix was tightening his shoe straps on the bench. “For the record, watching other people try it doesn’t count as training. I’ve watched Dana climb for six years, and I’m no better.”

“You’re a little better,” Dana said.

“I’m better at watching.”

I warmed up on the yellow and the gray routes, then chalked up for the orange.

The bottom was as generous as I remembered. Then the wall tipped back over my head. I made the first two moves under the roof, and at the third, I arrived where I always did: hips sagging, feet too low, reaching for a sloper just past my control. My fingers found it, slid, and let go.

The auto-belay lowered me to the mat.

“Same place,” Dana said.

I shook out my forearms, drank some water, and went back up. I came off at the same move. I went back again and came off there again. My forearms burned. I sat down beside Dana, satisfyingly wrecked.

She put her elbows on her knees and looked at the floor.

“So,” she said. “Anders.”

I waited.

“I asked him to text before coming over. Not every time. Just on nights we hadn’t planned. I told him I liked knowing my evenings were mine until I said otherwise.” She rolled her water bottle’s cap in her fingers. “He heard that I only wanted him around when it was convenient. That he was somebody I fit around the rest of my life.”

“That isn’t what you said.”

“It’s what he heard. He wasn’t angry. He was just very polite, and then he went home early.” She screwed the cap back on. “I was hurt. Then I was angry that I was hurt. And I still wanted him to come over Saturday, which made me angry at myself. I’m fifty-three. I’ve raised a kid. I thought I’d know how to ask for a night alone without it turning into a declaration.”

“What happened the next time you saw each other?”

“He texted on Thursday and asked whether Saturday worked.” She smiled, not entirely happily. “He’s trying. I can tell he’s still hurt. We had dinner. It was nice, but it wasn’t the same.”

“It might take a while.”

“It is taking a while.” She stood and handed me the bottle. “I’m going to climb something I hate.”

I went back to the orange route one more time. I made the first two moves under the roof and stopped before the third.

I heard Trier’s voice. Where are your feet when you start the reach?

Too low. Both of them.

I brought my right foot up onto a small chip by my hip, higher than felt sensible, and moved my weight over it before I reached. My hips swung toward the wall. The sloper was right in front of my hand. I pressed my palm flat against it, trusted the friction, and it held.

Two moves later, I slapped the top.

By the time I reached the mat, my forearms were twitching so badly I fumbled the carabiner. Dana’s fist bump rocked me back a step. Felix announced that he’d lost by finishing nothing at all, and he bought the smoothies.

Outside, the lot had iced over at the edges. I sat in my car with the heater running and wanted to tell Trier.

He picked up on the second ring. “Peaches is on my foam roller.”

“Hello to you too.”

“I put the roller down to work on my shin. Then I turned around for my water bottle, and now she’s lying across the middle of it, looking at me like I put it there for her.”

“Did you?”

“I have no idea anymore. It feels like I did.” Something rustled, and I pictured him lowering himself to the floor beside her. “How was the climbing?”