Page 137 of Valley Girls
“I’m free-climbing. I can’t rush the Great Roof.”
Adeena and Rilla looked at each other. They’d both assumed Petra would have given up by now. She wasn’t going to do it. She had, in reality, already failed by grabbing on to gear, and the hardest climbing was still ahead. To climb it now seemed beyond delusional.
“Petra. Honestly. You think you can free it? You’ve only done a third of the leads and ...” Rilla trailed off.
“What the hell is your problem?” Petra said.
“I don’t want to bivy here,” Rilla said. “We have time. I want to get higher.”
“We’re okay on food.”
Rilla gritted her teeth. “You’re fucking delusional. You aren’t that good of a climber. We’re gonna run out of water.”
Petra’s cheeks got redder.
“Rilla,” Adeena said softly. “It’s fine. We can figure something out.”
Petra glared at her.
Rilla rolled her eyes. “Let’s bivy under the roof. You can climb it first thing in the morning. At dawn.”
“That’sanothernight on a portaledge.”
Rilla shrugged. “The ledge doesn’t have room anyway.”
They all looked longingly at the packed gravel ledge. Solid ground.
“All right,” Petra said. “You’re hauling though.”
The wind died in pitch twenty-two. And the heat crept in. Sweat gathered under Rilla’s helmet as she slowly worked her way up on lead, to the base of the Great Roof.
The hauling felt like a personal punishment, and Rilla got more pissed off the harder it became. Petra was finishing eating by the time she was done and Rilla had nothing to look at but the satisfaction on Petra’s face. She kept trying to swallow back her anger and pettiness. Her guilt. But it flavored everything. She choked down a piece of sausage and cheese and some water and ignored Petra, staring across the Valley as the stars lit the sky.
•
What day was it? It was her first thought when she woke before dawn.
It was day four. They were supposed to be done today, but they had only reached halfway. And Petra wanted to free-climb. Rilla rolled upright and shouted, “Petra, get climbing or I’m leading.”
Petra slept on.
All her anger flooded back. But it was hard to remember the start or end of her reasons. It was like a fire licking out of control. She peed into her container, emptied it away from the belay, and clipped it back onto the gear. “Let’s go, Petra. Adeena can belay. I’ll pack.”
Adeena sat up groggily. “I need so much coffee. I hate this climb,” she moaned. “I want a shower and a real bed.”
Same,Rilla thought.
•
Two hours later, they were still waiting for Petra. Not for her to climb, but for her to realize what everyone else already knew—she wasn’t that good. She was capable. Knowledgeable. Competent. But not great. She wasn’t Caroline. She wasn’t Adeena. She had not free-climbed The Nose.
Rilla crossed her arms and looked out over the Valley in her sunglasses. Waiting and furious. She hated that Petra couldn’t see herself realistically ... hated more what that annoyance might say about herself.
Finally, Petra gave up and came down for the aiders. She was dirty, and scrapes covered her knees and elbows and thighs and even her cheek,somehow. She’d wrestled with herself and had to face the truth.
Rilla’s stomach turned. “Well, thanks to you, we’ll be lucky if we get to the summit by midnight.”
“What is your problem?” Petra shouted.
