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A man who can dangle from glaciers like they’re jungle gyms but can’t leave a dirty plate in the sink. What a man.
“You did so fucking good,” he whispers, raw and quiet, meant only for me. I smile into the pillow, body sore, heart full. There’s nothing left in me but warmth, and when his fingers find mine under the covers, lacing tight, I let myself drift, held completely.
Alec’s quiet kind of care, practical and protective.
My heart stumbles so hard it nearly face-plants. He let someone call me his girlfriend. In public. With zero hesitation. I just stand here, pretending the entire axis of the earth hasn’t tilted. No correction. No retreat. No escape from the fact that my brain is screaming, Holy hell, you have big feelings for him, like capital-F feelings. Maybe even L-word feelings.
I’m safer hanging above a glacier in a machine I don’t understand than I have ever been standing on solid ground without him.
Thigh tattoos do something to me.”
My fingers brush the petals as heat pricks my eyes. “Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me.” “You deserve the fucking sun, Clementine.”
That’s the difference. I’m not clawing at the wall to prove I can still cling to life. I’m climbing because I want to go home to her. Because I finally know what it feels like to want more than the summit.
Climbing through the silence now so I can go back to the life awaiting me. I belong here because it reminds me of who I am. And I belong there because she reminded me of who I could still be.
The thought hits me like an avalanche in my chest, tearing through every layer of armor I’ve built. I love her.
If I make it down, I’ll never climb solo again. If I make it down, I’ll tell her I love her.
love doesn’t cancel out fear, and understanding doesn’t erase hurt.
Tomorrow, I’ll walk to that starting line, not as the girl waiting for someone to choose her. As the woman who has already chosen herself.
“And I don’t know if I can live without you. So, tell me—what the fuck do we do about that?”
“You’re the reason I want to survive all of it. I’ve never felt more alive than I do when I’m watching you laugh, or listening to you argue with me, or paddling that damn lake with you. You think I want to throw myself off mountains now? I don’t.”
“Then don’t believe the words. Believe what I do. Believe I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that if you’ll let me. Believe that I’ll choose you every goddamn day.”
“Clementine, you are the home I spent my entire life searching for on peaks.” I close the space between us, and she doesn’t step away. “And I don’t want to throw my life away for a summit anymore. I don’t need the death-defying climbs, the solo risks. I need you. It’s you. Not the mountain. You.”
“You quiet my head,” I whisper, swiping a tear from her rosy cheek. “You make me feel like a kid again, before all the years of pain.” She’s trembling, furious. I cup her jaw with my other hand and tilt her face to mine. “I love you, Clementine,” I say. “And I will spend every day proving it to you.”
“I know,” I murmur, holding her tighter. “But I’m your asshole, and I fucking love you.” “I fucking love you too,” she says into my chest.
He notices I’m cold and hands me his fleece without question; it guts me, because that’s exactly who he is when he’s not running—competent, careful, offering.
“You’re the only thing I’ve never doubted. It’s me I don’t trust. I know how I move in the mountains. I calculate wrong, the weather shifts, one anchor fails—and that’s it. Game over. I can live with that risk for myself. But loving you…” His throat works. “It felt like tying you into my rope system knowing damn well I might fall and drag you with me. What if I didn’t come home? What if I left you carrying that weight?”
If you’re mine, you stay. And if you want to climb, I’ll support you, but you can’t keep things from me.” “I’m yours, baby.”
“That I can do what I set my mind to. I didn’t just come for the prize money. I came here to see if I could do this, if I could be this version of myself. And I can.”
Control is a stupid illusion, one I told myself made life worth living.
Fear is death on the ice was useful to me for years, but fear was just an excuse that kept me from taking the scary risk of letting people in.
It isn’t a vow to stop climbing. It’s a small, honest truth that I will wake up and choose this. Choose her and us every day.
“To Bill Lennox, who built this lodge with his hands and left it standing strong enough for us to fill it again. To Margaret, for not coming after me with her gardening shears and for making this place look better than it has any right to. Those ornamental cabbages mean a hell of a lot to me, even if nobody else here gets it.”
“To my siblings—thank you for making me tough and for teaching me that tough doesn’t mean unkind. To my parents, who taught me the only three things worth learning: work hard, be decent, and don’t be hasty. To Finn—for surviving the stupidest things we tried on K2. I can’t wait to see what we get up to in the next twenty-seven years.”
“to Clementine. Thank you for not hitting me with a shovel the first day we met, even though you had every right to. Thank you for showing up to every single practice, for your patience and your smartass comments. Thank you for being curious and kind and funny. For turning this house into a home. For turning me into a man who has one. I’d choose you, Clementine, over and over again. I love you. I love all of you.”
“I love you, Clementine,” I tell her. The most certain thing I’ve ever said. “You’re my favorite adventure.”
“I used to think reaching the summit was the whole point. But coming down to you—” I search for the right word. “It felt better than any peak I’ve ever reached.”
