Chalk

23

My first day back on a rock was also our last outdoor climb of the year.

I woke the next morning to a flurry of snow, the mild days of fall gone in a pure white instant and I knew that it was over. Wet rock was impossible to climb and Edward had been warning me for weeks that the season was almost to a close. I begged him to take me out one last time, using my body and mouth to my advantage, and had him relenting in seconds.

This was a newly acquired skill.

Even though we hadn’t climbed at all in almost two months, we’d been keeping each other occupied. Most of that was with our tongues, but we’d tried to branch out a little in the last few weeks and I’d been accompanying Edward and Jasper to the rock gym as a spectator. Jasper only joined us only when we could pry him off Alice. It was a task that got harder and harder to do as the weeks passed, the two of them finding a comfortable middle ground between high fashion and desert rat that seemed implausible.

The gym had nothing on the real thing, dusty and smelly and congested with people and stagnant air, but the boys bared their teeth and soon enough had just about every other climber off the wall, watching them instead. They moved with a skilled ease that I couldn’t spot in anyone else and were both sort of awe-inspiring to watch, maybe especially for the experienced climbers. Edward stood beside me one afternoon, a crowd gathered around us as we watched Jasper dance all over the wall as though he was completing a giant connect-the-dots puzzle. I understood by now that there were specific routes on the giant, jumbled wall, each color indicating a specific climb to follow.

Jasper was disregarding all of this, swirling around the entire face rather than belittle himself with the rather mundane problems.

They had a grudge against gym climbers. Gym climbers were soft, exhibitionists who couldn’t exist in the real world because mother nature doesn’t map out her routes with neon-colored polyurethane holds. Her problems were far more subtle, intricate series of steps that required observation and strength that the gyms forever tried to imitate, but could never parallel. Gym climbers found themselves ‘thretching’ up a boulder problem as though they’d never climbed before, no matter how revered they were under the cover of a roof. The boys hated going there and I think they only did it to show off and retain some muscle strength, caving under duress or freak weather.

Such as winter.

Which was fast upon us.

We headed back to our boulder field that last day, the green of summer faded out to brown and grey, grass hard and crunchy beneath our feet. Edward marched ahead with two crash pads on his back which I thought was a little unnecessary at first, but the memory of our last climb stopped me from saying anything.

Another crash pad certainly would hurt.

He took me back to my very first problem, that boulder tucked way back at the farthest end of the trail. I tried not to smile at him when we stopped beneath it, but totally failed. He grinned back and dropped the pads to the dirt, busying himself with refilling his chalk bag, billowing clouds of white powder lofting into the air and catching hold of every ounce of sunbeam streaming through the trees. It dusted his hair with a shimmery halo of white and settled in his eyelashes.

“What is this one called, anyway? I asked as I was lacing up my shoes, my feet sliding easily inside now that the rubber was beginning to contour to my feet and I knew how to pull them on without dislocating my ankle. I’d been on so many climbs, had watched him climb a million others, all with the strangest of names. I was rather perplexed that I hadn’t bothered to learn the name of my very first climb.

“The Problem Queen.” Edward flashed me that killer smiled before he pulled his shirt over his head, discarding it on top of a nearby rock and tensing every one of those muscles. “That’s how I knew you were special.”

He winked at me and leapt for the rock, prancing up it in seconds and waiting for me at the top. I took more time, adjusting to the dull ache in my hand that I had the feeling would stick around for a while. Edward had me training with rice, placing two deep bowls of it in front of me and instructing me to sink my hands in up to the wrist and move them through the rice in a couple of different patterns. I had no idea how it was supposed to help until five minutes later when all the muscles clear up to my shoulder were aching from the simple exertion. I was glad he’d made me do it so much in my off time because this would have been impossible otherwise, my muscles feeling weak and unused as it was. It was only five holds but it took me forever, even once the ache had died away, and I got that flush of adrenaline which reminded me why I liked doing this in the first place. I gritted my teeth and sunk my softened fingers into the stone, pulling myself to the top out of force of will alone.

Edward offered a hand and pulled me to my feet on top of the rock, putting his hand on my neck to kiss me solidly. Part of me knew he was doing it to distract me from the dizzying fall to the ground that was sloshing through my stomach. Part of me didn’t rightly care and I kissed him back, still buzzing on an adrenaline high.

“Thanks. I needed that,” I panted against his mouth when he pulled away to smile at me, talking about the kiss and the climb.

“I figured your first time back on that hand should be on something easy.”

“You didn’t pick it to be metaphorical? Or, did you do it to relive the glory of finding yourself a Gabby, struggling up a rock?”

Edward smiled sideways at me, pulling me in for one of those soft, sweet kisses he seemed to like so much. We stood on top of the boulder, feet encased in ugly shoes, arms and hands leaving faint chalk imprints everywhere we touched each other and our bruises finally fading away. He sighed into my mouth, speaking against my lips.

“No. To relive the glory of finding myself a Girl, struggling up a rock.”

The End