We step inside the shop and he flips on the lights as the door falls closed behind us. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. My eyes trail across the ropes and nets and obstacles that take up every inch of space in the building. “What is all this?”
“It’s our Ninja Warrior gym,” Elliott says proudly. “My dad Garrett competes every year, so we built it for training purposes, but now my parents are thinking of running training camps for all ages during the warmer months.”
“Your dad is on TV?” I ask. “On the real show?” I’ve seen clips of American Ninja Warrior, but only enough to know that the obstacles are really hard.
“Yep. Cool, huh?” Elliott says. “The contestants don’t get paid, unless they win it all, which is why a lot of them are trying to coach aspiring competitors or open their own gyms. Dad fell in the qualifiers this year, but last year he made it to the third round in Vegas—his best showing yet.”
“Wow. He must be really strong.”
“He is,” Elliott says. “But this stuff is about a lot more than strength—you need flexibility, balance, and mental toughness. Garrett credits his success to rock climbing, triathlons, and yoga.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Yoga? Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Elliott says. “Now, where do you want to start?”
I look warily at the different stations. There’s a log bridge, a series of cargo nets hung at different angles, a trampoline, some kind of extreme monkey bars, and a warped wall made of plywood, with rock-climbing holds bolted into one side of it. And that’s just the first quarter of the gym. I shake my head. “I don’t think I can do any of this.”
“No one can do this stuff without practicing,” Elliott says. “Rachael said you liked hard physical labor. It doesn’t get much harder than this.”
“True,” I say slowly.
He tugs me toward the log bridge. “Let’s see how your balance is on the Spinning Log. All you have to do is get to the other side without falling off.”
“Okay.” I step up onto a platform and look at the platform on the other side. It doesn’t look that far away. Maybe ten feet or so. I reach out to test the log with one foot. It wiggles—a lot. “I’m going to fall on my face.”
“That’s why we have these big squishy mats on both sides,” Elliott says.
I step one foot forward again and then pause. “I don’t know. I’ve had such a good day. I’m not sure I want to wreck it by failing miserably at something.”
Elliott nods. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
And then I feel bad. He brought me here trying to make me feel better. Who cares if I can’t walk on a stupid log? Grown men have fallen off this thing on national television.
“Screw it, I’m going.” I take off across the log at a fast clip, trying to keep my feet in the middle, one in front of the other. I make it about three-quarters of the way before I slip off and land on the mat. “Oof,” I say.
Elliott reaches down and helps me to my feet. “Pretty impressive for your first try. You want to go again?”
“Let me watch you.”
Elliott grins and I can tell I’m about to get massively schooled. He leaps up onto the starting platform without even using the built-in steps. He races across the log in about three strides, flinging his body toward the mat at the end once he’s past the midway point. “That’s one way to do it,” he says. “It’s not pretty but it gets the job done.” He rises from the mat and turns back toward the starting platform. “Or you can take the slow and steady approach, which is a lot harder.” He inhales deeply, and extends his arms out to his sides. Then he turns to the left and crouches down like a surfer. Slowly but surely, he sidesteps his way across the log. It barely even moves.
I clap my hands together as he jumps down. “That was amazing. I bet you can do this blindfolded, can’t you?”
“Nah,” he says. “But thanks. Want to try again?”
“Definitely,” I say. This time I try the three-steps-and-leap-to-the-mat strategy. It takes me four more attempts to make it across, but I am so amazed to hit the mat at the end without falling that when I hop down to the floor I give Elliott a somewhat sweaty hug. “Thank you,” I murmur into his -T-shirt. “Normally I don’t even try stuff unless I’m pretty sure I’ll be good at it.” Yet another bad habit I picked up from my mom: If you’re going to do something, do it better than everyone else. Or don’t do it at all.
“You’re welcome.” He squeezes me gently. “And we’re going to have to get you past that frame of mind, or else you’re going to miss out on a lot of fun stuff.”
I look around the gym. “What’s next?”
He grins. “You tell me.”
I point at a set of angled platforms pushed against one wall of the gym. “What are those?”
“Quintuple Steps. Probably not the easiest thing to do in jeans, but you can try.” Elliott arranges the platforms and shows me how to jump from one to the next. For being a stocky guy, the hang time he gets between leaps is amazing. “Now you,” he says.
It takes me a few minutes to work up the nerve to make the first leap, but once I do, I manage to complete all four jumps with varying degrees of gracefulness. My palms get scraped up and I’m probably going to have a bruise on one knee, but I’m still surprised at how well I did. “That didn’t seem hard enough.”
“Well, I might have put them a little closer than regulation for you,” Elliott says. “But yeah, these used to be the first obstacle on the show. Now they’re using something a little harder.”
“Give me something really hard,” I say.
“That’s the spirit.” Elliott leads me over to the Warped Wall. “If you’ve seen this before, you know it’s extremely challenging, especially for shorter competitors. Being successful requires both strength and timing. You want to build up as much speed as you can in your approach and take about three steps on the wall before you go for the top. The trick is converting your horizontal momentum to vertical momentum in the right spot.”
I’ve seen people make this look easy on TV, but in real life it looks impossible. I exhale deeply and then run full speed at the wall, making it about halfway up before I tumble back down the curved surface to the bottom.
“Not bad, not bad,” Elliott says. “But don’t lean into the wall, because then you run out of room. Try to lean back a little.”
I try a second time, this time making it farther up the wall, but still nowhere near the top.
Elliott arches an eyebrow at me as I hop to my feet again. “In competition, you get three tries.”
“I’m not sure a million tries would be enough,” I say, but I tilt my head from side to side to crack my neck and then face the wall once more. After the third time of leaping toward the top only to end up tumbling back to the bottom, I lie on the mat and wave one hand in front of my face. “I’m hot.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Elliott says with a grin as he helps me to my feet.
No guy besides Dallas has ever called me hot and I’m completely unprepared for how to respond. I open my mouth to mumble a classic “Funny,” when I see the serious expression on Elliott’s face. He’s staring at me. I lift one hand and realize my headband slipped off during that last fall.
“That mountain lion got you good, huh?” he says quietly.
Bending down, I snatch my headband from the mat and put it back on, adjusting it to cover my bald spot and scar. I concentrate on the floor of the gym. “I should probably go soon. It’s getting late.”
“It’s about eleven-thirty,” Elliott says. “I’ll take you home if you want. But do you want to see the best part of this place before you go?”
I shrug. “Okay.”
Elliott ushers me past several more obstacles to a door at the back of the gym that opens out into the alley. There’s a ladder connected to the building, with rungs leading up toward the roof. “Your next challenge is this very technical ladder.”
“Is it going to start spinning or twisting or something?”
“No, but there’s a nice view at the top. Take your time. My dads will kill me if you fall.”
I follow Elliott up the ladder and onto the roof. This building is taller than the fluorescent lights that illuminate the parking lot, and if I cup my hands around my eyes, I can blot out almost all the lights from Springdale. There are more stars than I ever knew existed.
I can’t believe I’ve been living here for almost two weeks and I’ve never even gone outside to appreciate this. The only time I’ve even been outside when it was dark is when I went running at six a.m. It must’ve been cloudy that morning.
I gesture at a rolled-up sleeping bag that’s tucked against an air-conditioner unit. “Do you sleep up here sometimes?”
“Nah. It’s kind of hard for that, though I suppose I could bring a sleeping mat up here.” He looks thoughtful. “I usually just hang out and watch the stars. I guess I could go get a second bag. I’ve never brought anyone else here before.”
“We can share.” I grab the bag and unzip it into a big square. Together Elliott and I lay it out on the concrete roof. Reclining back on the quilted fabric, I marvel at the night sky. It’s a mix of black, blue, and purple, with millions of pinpoints of light scattered across it. I’ve seen pictures like this on websites and in museums, but I always thought they were taken with special cameras or heavily edited. It never occurred to me that the real sky could be this beautiful. “This is incredible,” I say.
Elliott lies next to me, close but not touching. “Springdale has special lighting ordinances to help stargazers,” he says. “Businesses turn off all the lights they don’t need and outdoor fixtures are angled toward the ground to minimize scattered light. There are places in the park where you can sometimes even see the Milky Way.”
“That’s awesome.” I stretch my arms over my head. “So why’d you bring me?”
“Hmm?” Elliott asks. I can hear the fatigue in his voice.
“You said you’ve never brought anyone here?”
“Oh, well, I’ve brought friends to the gym, just not up here. This is kind of my spot to get away from everything, but it seemed like maybe you needed a spot too. You can feel free to sneak up here even if I’m not around. Just be extra-careful on the ladder. Ezra keeps saying we need to get a lock for it so no one falls and sues us.”
“Ezra is the practical dad, huh?”
“They’re both practical. Ezra is just more of a worrier.”
“I bet he’s the one who told you that you need a fallback career.”
“Yep.”
“You don’t need a fallback career,” I say. “You’re going to be an amazing vet.”
“Says the girl who’s never seen me with an animal.”
“Sometimes you can just tell,” I say, thinking about the way he’s treated me. Kindness. Compassion. Add that to brains and hard work and I have no doubt that he’ll succeed.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I pause. “Don’t you sort of have a fallback career anyway? Working at the store?”
“Pretty sure my parents want me to have a career I’m passionate about. The store is okay and I’d never turn down a job there if I was desperate, but I like animals, and the outdoors.”
“And people?”
“I could take ’em or leave ’em.” Elliott laughs lightly so I know he’s kidding. He nudges me gently in the ribs with his elbow. “I like some more than others.”
My face goes hot as I try to decide if he’s flirting with me or just being nice. “Thanks for tonight,” I say. “And thanks for not asking.”
“About your mountain lion?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve all got our mountain lions.” He props himself up on one elbow and looks over at me. “Just promise me you’ll talk to someone if shit gets too hard. It doesn’t have to be me.”
“I will,” I say. “I think it might be getting a little better.” Deleting my social media accounts has made it possible for me to distance myself from all the online hate. And now that I’ve vowed to tell the whole truth, I just need to figure out who to tell first and how to work up the nerve to do it.
“Glad to hear it,” Elliott says. “But the offer for a good listener stands.”
“Thank you. Even if I never take you up on it, knowing it’s on the table helps.”
We both fall silent as our eyes are drawn back to the sky. I almost ask Elliott if he knows anything about stars, but right now I don’t care what the constellations are called or which of these points of light are actually planets. All I care about is the way I feel. Calm. Safe. I embrace the sensations and let the beauty of the night wrap around me. The stars twinkle and blur before my eyes. How can all this just be random? Lying here, I understand why Elliott believes in something greater than what we know. I also understand what Elliott meant when he said he was quiet sometimes because he was embracing nature. There’s no need to wreck this moment with words.
The wind blows across us, but it’s a warm night for the desert, so it makes the hairs on my arms stand up without chilling my skin. As I lift a hand to my mouth to stifle a yawn, a streak of light arcs across the sky. I close my eyes for a second and make a wish: Give me the courage to do the right thing.
“Did you see that?” I say. “Shooting star.”
Elliott doesn’t respond. I look over at him and smile when I see that his eyes are closed. I try to match my breathing to the rise and fall of his chest. His dark eyelashes flutter slightly.
I’m not sure how much time passes, thirty seconds, a couple of minutes, maybe. I know it’s intrusive and a little creepy to watch someone sleep, but it’s also kind of soothing. The pendant he wears around his neck has slipped out of his T-shirt and I can see that it’s some kind of deer carved out of dark rock. I’m just turning back to look at the sky when my phone buzzes in my purse. It’s 12:15 and I have a text from my dad: Fifteen minute warning.
I text him back: Thanks. On the way.
Next to me, Elliott shifts in his sleep. I reach out and touch his arm, resisting the urge to trace the V of his deltoid with my fingertips. His eyelashes flutter again and then his eyes blink open.
He looks confused for a second as he sits up. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess showing off downstairs must have worn you out.”
His lips quirk into a smile. “What can I say? ANW is a pretty exhausting sport.”
“I have to be home in twelve minutes or my dad is going to give me a lecture.”
Elliott rolls his head around in a slow circle and then swallows back a yawn. “Guess we’d better get going then.”
“Are you awake enough to drive?” I ask, that horrible image of Brad Freeman’s headlights flashing through my mind. “I can always call my dad to come get me.”
Elliott doesn’t say anything for a few seconds and I wonder if he’s thinking it over. “I’m okay,” he says finally. “It’s only a couple of miles and I’m not that tired. It’s just easy to relax up here, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It is. I could totally fall asleep too.”
Elliott and I make our way back down the ladder. From the ground I appreciate not only the stars, but also the silhouettes of the red rock cliffs towering beyond the buildings of Springdale, like the walls of a giant fortress.
“You’ll have to show me more of the obstacles sometime,” I say.
“Anytime. I work out almost every night.”
We cut around the Zion Outdoor Experts building back to the parking lot. Elliott unlocks the door for me and I step up into his truck. He slides into the driver’s seat, clicks his seat belt in place, and starts the engine.
“So are you training to be on American Ninja Warrior too?” I ask. “Like your dad?”
“It’s a good question. By the time I’m old enough to compete, I’ll probably be good enough to at least survive the qualifiers, and the show loves to spotlight families competing together. I like the idea of pushing myself to the limits and I love mastering the obstacles. But I don’t think I want to be on TV.” He turns out of the parking lot and onto the main road that runs through Springdale. “I could definitely see helping out in the gym as a coach, though, if we get it up and running. It’d be fun to work with wannabe ninjas, especially the kids.”
I think about how shocked everyone was when I turned down the chance to be in Dallas’s video. “I wouldn’t want to be on TV either,” I say. “The whole experience seems like it would be too stressful.”
“Garrett says the crowd energizes him, but Ezra is more like me. We go every year and sit in the stands, and you can tell when the cameras are on you and it makes us cringe.”
Elliott turns off the main street and pulls his truck over in front of my dad’s house. The blinds are partially open, and the living room light is on. “Home right on time,” he says. “When do you work next?”
“Tuesday.”
“I’ll see you then.” Elliott pats me lightly on the leg and I open the door and step down from the truck. I turn and wave as he drives off.
My dad is on the sofa, looking at something on his iPad, when I enter the living room. “You’re late,” he says.
“One minute that it took me to walk across the yard,” I say. “You didn’t have to wait up, Dad. I’m going to college in a couple of months. You’re going to have to trust me to get home all right on my own.”
He sets the iPad on the coffee table. “I suppose you’re right, but that’s not exactly easy given everything that’s happened.”
My face flushes just thinking about the accident. What would my dad think if he knew the truth—that my insecurity and carelessness got Dallas killed? What will he think, when I work up the nerve to tell him.
“I’m trying to do things better this time,” Dad continues.
“I know you are, and I appreciate it.” Somehow this tragedy has made Dad into a better person and me into a worse one. I bite back tears. I don’t want to lose it on him, especially not this late. I’m sure he has to be up early for work. Desperate for a distraction, I gesture at the iPad screen. It looks like someone’s CT scan. “What are you looking at?”
“Oh. It’s actually pretty interesting. Check this out.” Dad taps the screen and goes through various views of the CT. He points out certain areas on the screen. “This is a thirty-four-year-old woman. The body of this tumor is compressing her spine and threatening to rupture the aorta. There are offshoots invading the pericardium and left atrium.”
“Holy crap. Do you have to remove that?”
“We’re thinking about attacking it as a team—there’d be me and Dr. Kent from my practice, as well as a couple of vascular surgeons. And then a neuro guy from Salt Lake City would be in charge.”
“Would you have to go to Salt Lake City to do the surgery?” I ask.
“Just for a day or two,” Dad says. “Probably next month. Would you be all right with that?”
“Sure,” I say. It would be strange to be here alone with Rachael, but I’m not going to keep my dad from participating in an epic surgery that could save someone’s life.
“Right now it’s all academic. We’re formulating a plan of attack so we can share it with the patient and hopefully get approval from her insurance company.” Dad yawns as he stands up from the sofa. “Did you have a nice time with your friend?”
“Yeah. It was cool.”
“Good.” We walk down the hallway toward our bedrooms together. He pauses in front of my door. “It’s really nice to have you here, Genevieve.”
“It’s nice to be here,” I say.
Dad gives me a quick hug and I slip into my room and get ready for bed, replaying the events of the evening in my head. I never would have thought I’d have fun messing around on a Ninja Warrior course, but Elliott is right about it demanding total focus. And I did better than I thought I would.
And then the stars. Lying out on the roof was so peaceful. The sense of calm that came over me there lasts until I fall asleep.
But then when I wake up the next morning, there’s another text from Shannon. And my sense of peace goes right out the window.