Nine
Rilla spent the first two and a half hours staring at the backs of Adeena’s and Petra’s contrasting ponytails as the sun crept high along the mountain ridges. Adeena only came to Petra’s shoulder, but their pace was the same. Fast. Up. So much hiking that Rilla forgot to be worried about climbing, and got pissed she’d been tricked into exercise.
A huge group of college-age hiking boys clustered on the stone steps carved out of the gorge around Vernal Falls, taking photos of the roaring falls and white water surging down the narrow ravine. Rilla would have wandered off the path and died somewhere in the land of well-defined biceps, ugly-ass wraparound sunglasses, and “brah” if it weren’t for Petra yanking on the shoulder strap of her backpack and pulling her along.
“Down, girl,” Petra said.
“It’s just . . . it’s so pretty,” she sputtered, and looked back at the boys. “Sniff.”
Adeena laughed.
Rilla tried not to look back.
Unfortunately, that meant she was focused on how much her legs hurt, how thin the air seemed, and the weird flashes behind her eyes like she was crawling her way into goddamn Mordor.
The trail wound up a deep gully, and the wind caught great tufts of mist from the falls, dusting the rocks with mist-heavy emerald moss and Rilla in a layer of sparkling, bone-chilling wet. At the top, Rilla slowed, her hand clutching the railing for support, thinking they’d surely pause to catch their breath.
Nope.
The two girls dropped back and matched Rilla’s pace, but they didn’t stop.
By the time Rilla staggered to the top of a second waterfall, she was somehow pouring sweat and still freezing from the first waterfall. “I’m out of shape,” she wheezed, figuring it was better to admit it than pretend her death wasn’t happening, as if she could hide it. Out of shape and wet. Both Adeena and Petra were dry, she noticed. The bright, technical fabric of their shirts had released the waterfall, while Rilla’s cotton layers clung to it.
“Yeah. You are,” Petra said, biting into an apple.
Adeena made a choking sound.
“She said it. I just agreed,” Petra said to Adeena, then looked to Rilla. “Eat something.”
Rilla blinked at their arguing, a terrible sinking feeling in her stomach. She hadn’t packed food. Adeena hadn’t said to pack food. Why hadn’t she thought to pack any food?
“Get something now, before we start hiking again,” Petra said.
Rilla looked down. “Oh, I’m not hungry.”
Silence.
She couldn’t bring herself to look up, pretending she was suddenly super interested in the rocky soil underfoot.
“Look sharp,” Petra said.
Rilla lifted her chin and caught the granola bar Petra tossed her. “Thanks.” Food seemed counterintuitive to getting in shape, but Rilla ripped the bar open and demolished half in one hungry bite.
“I always pack way more food than I need.”
“Another reason you’re not an alpinist,” Adeena said, peeling an orange as she sat cross-legged on a rock.
“You just never know, Dee. Don’t come crying to me when you need snacks.”
Adeena closed her eyes and shook her head as if to say Petra was absurd.
The dull roar of the foaming Merced filled the silence as they finished eating. Even though it was mid-morning, the sun hadn’t climbed high enough to light the depths of the canyon walls, leaving the bottom still dark and blue in shadow, and the mist of the river like smoke. It should have warmed up by now, but the air was still cold and thin. Rilla subtly stretched her hamstrings against the rock so she wouldn’t maim herself standing up too fast.
“Holding up?” Adeena asked.
Rilla’s mouth was too full of granola bar to answer. “Imph mphinnn,” she managed.
“It’s going to be a long day, but the climbing is easy,” Petra said, screwing the lid back on her Nalgene. “Good conditioning. Want some water?”
Rilla swallowed. “I have a bottle. Thanks.”
Petra nodded, with an approving smile. “Let’s get this hiking shit over with.”
“I like the hiking. It’s so relaxing,” Adeena said.
“You would, alpinist.”
Adeena threw an orange peel at her. “You’re lucky to have me, otherwise you might get lost on the way up without a string of bolts to guide you.”
Petra just laughed and turned off the path, into the rocks and trees.
Adeena stood off the rock. “It won’t always be this hard. I promise. And even though I would have taken you on something shorter for your first time, this is something you can do.”
“What was your first climb?” Rilla asked. “Was it like this?”
Adeena smiled, looking carefully where she stepped. “A mountain near my home in Gilgit, in Pakistan. My brother was a guide. I had been begging to go, so he took me for my twelfth birthday. It was a three-day trip. Our mother was so angry.” She laughed softly.
Well then. Rilla pressed her lips together. No more complaining to Adeena. “When did you come here?”
“For school, last year. I have family here, too.”
“Your brother?”
There was a long beat. “No.”
Rilla frowned, but felt like she’d just stepped off the path and she didn’t press. “This is kind of my first time. I never climbed at home.”
“This is your home now, isn’t it?” Adeena asked.
Rilla didn’t know how to answer.
They hiked deeper into the backcountry, around Liberty Cap and Mt. Broderick, both of which Rilla spent a good fifteen minutes thinking were Half Dome until she realized they weren’t. They walked a near invisible course that Petra and Adeena seemed to know—through a boggy meadow Petra called a lake, into more open, rocky land spotted with massive sequoias, firs, and patches of grass scattered with lavender-colored lupine. When Rilla asked how they knew the way, Adeena pointed out the little cairns Rilla hadn’t noticed because she’d been so busy hunting for signs of her impending doom.
The white-peach granite of Half Dome’s massive shoulder became visible—a looming thing through the trees that seemed to create its own force. They paused for water and Adeena pulled out a scarf.
“You going to pray?” Petra asked.
“I’ll keep our asses covered,” she said with a laugh, turning off the trail.
Rilla wanted to ask—about the stop, the cloth, the way Petra understood. She didn’t know how to ask and Petra didn’t explain. Instead she studied the dome and waited.
Dread settled into Rilla’s bones like beads of mercury, and though they walked ever toward it, the dome never moved. “How high is it?” she asked when Adeena returned, almost not wanting an answer.
“From here?” Petra asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
“The climb itself is eight hundred feet,” Petra said.
“But that only gets us a quarter way to the top,” Adeena added. “From Valley to the summit, we’ll go a total of almost five thousand feet today. The summit is eight thousand eight hundred feet above sea level.”
“You’re such a nerd,” Petra said.
“I forgot sport climbers’ brains were underdeveloped.” Adeena flounced ahead.
Petra walked faster and passed her.
Rilla wanted to ask what the difference was between alpine and sport, but she didn’t want to draw attention to her lack of knowledge, so she just tried to keep up, staring at the dome as she trudged behind. The magnitude of what she was about to do hit her in the chest. Even with Adeena and Petra, it felt way too big. Too impossible. Just yesterday, she had held her pee for three hours, because it meant another trip on that damn attic ladder. And she had spent that whole time clicking through all of her ex-boyfriend’s photos and eating a box of Pop-Tarts. This—Half Dome—wasn’t something she could do. Sweating more than she had been five minutes ago, Rilla rushed to catch up with Adeena and Petra, who were—shocker—arguing. This time, about which direction they should be taking.
“Okay, but I really can’t climb,” Rilla interrupted. “I cried when I did it with Walker.”
“Girls usually do,” Petra said without missing a beat.
Adeena cackled.
Rilla swallowed, her stomach tight. She could literally die doing this—inexperienced, out of shape, and in way over her head.
As if hearing her thoughts, Adeena turned, shading her eyes. The sun slanted dark shadows on her face. “It looks intimidating, I know. Even if you know what you’re doing, you should always be a little scared.”
That wasn’t helping.
“Don’t listen to her,” Petra interjected. “You don’t need to be scared. It looks more intimidating than it is. We’ll haul you if you need it.”
“Just focus on the trail ahead of you,” Adeena coached. “If you can hike, you can do this climb.”
Rilla shaded her eyes to look up the wall. “I feel like I’m in one of those rescue-your-teenager programs or something.”
“You’d be having to walk a lot farther, trust me,” Petra said dryly “Want some gummy bears?”
“You went to one of those outdoor rehab programs?” Adeena asked Petra. “Those are real?”
“My parents caught me smoking weed when I was fifteen and . . .” Petra jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “The whole summer. I think they just wanted to go to Corsica alone.”
What the fuck was Corsica? But Rilla didn’t ask, taking the gummy bears Petra offered and biting their heads off as the group resumed hiking.
Rilla frowned and tried not to look at the dome anymore. She could turn around, hike back to the cot in the attic, pull the covers over her head with the Pop-Tarts, and never come out. Maybe even, she should.
But if she did that, that’s what she’d have to do for the rest of the summer. She certainly couldn’t show her face to Petra or Adeena or Walker, or any of the other climbers ever again. And somewhere inside, she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t grit her teeth and take the chance she’d been given to try.