Page 135 of Valley Girls
The morning shadows of Adeena and Petra waited against the wall, quiet as she made her way to them. The going back was a lot harder than leaving. A lot harder. She shuffled slowly, hands open on the wet wall. What had she done? What had she done to be here? She sniffed and the misery she’d felt when looking at them turned into misery at looking at herself. She’d stolen Petra’s watch. When all Petra had done was help her. Invited her in. Took her climbing. She kept getting pissed at the rules Petra broke on this climb, because she was pissed at herself.
Rilla reached Adeena, waiting as Adeena clipped her into the anchors. “Thanks,” she said.
“You need to get dry. Petra’s getting you clothes.”
“Are y’all dry?” she muttered through the shivering.
“Mostly. We’ll bivy and rest up. Get something warm.”
“Take your shirt off,” Petra said. “I got a sweatshirt.”
Rilla worked out of her jacket, handing it to Adeena, and then peeled off the soaking layer of thin technical shirt she’d been wearing and the soaking wet bra underneath. “It’ll dry as soon as the sun comes up,” Adeena said, taking her sports bra and handing her a sweatshirt. Rilla yanked it over her head, worried somehow it would slip out of her hands and disappear into the wind.
They wrestled with the portaledge as the sky lightened and the wind whipped the cliffs dry. By the time Rilla had her wet pants off and hanging off the edge to dry, she was in her underwear in her sleeping bag, watching the sunrise.
No one talked. They didn’t even eat.
They all just fell asleep.
Forty
“Sleeping beauty,” someone yelled.
Rilla peeled her eyes open to the bright sky. Fuck. She was soaked in sweat. Moaning, she pushed back her sleeping bag and sat up.
“Hey-o, one is awake.”
“Didn’t even have to kiss her.”
“Just from the power of your manhood that close, it woke her anyway.”
Rilla made a face and turned. A group of four climbers were hauling off the bolts that had been under a waterfall. The one looking at her, not hauling, wore a T-shirt on his head under his helmet. “Did y’all get caught in that storm last night?”
She rubbed her face and leaned against the wall, pushing her feet out over the edge of the portaledge. “Yeah. It was brutal.”
“I bet. Everyone okay?”
She looked to the other sleeping bags. “Yeah. We’re good. What time is it?”
He glanced at the watch on his wrist. He looked military maybe, now that she thought of it. “A little after one.”
She nodded. “Do you have a smoke?”
He laughed. “I think I can spare one for you. Hang on.”
Leaving his friends to finish the hauling, he dug it out of the top of his pack and picked his way easily on a long leash from the anchors.
Rilla made room beside her, stuffing the sleeping bag into her pack hanging beside her.
He crawled to sit beside her and lit the smoke for her.
She took a deep breath. “Oh my god. You are a lifesaver.” She crossed her bare legs and took another deep pull on the smoke.
“We were lucky. We found a bit of a dry spot ... almost shit my pants with the lightning though,” he said, lighting his own cigarette.
“Tell me about it. My hair stood on end.”
“And you didn’t get hit?” he asked.
