Seven Seconds

Her hand reached out to me from above. I strained to grab it. On the first attempt, the tips of our fingers met and pecked at each other like gentle kisses. I tried to get my footing, to reinforce the toehold on the narrow ledge that held me. Carefully, I pushed up toward her fingers as I pressed my weight against the rock. This time our fingers passed each other, and her hand grabbed my wrist.

“Give me your other hand,” she said. “I've got you.”

It is a tricky thing, trust. Putting yourself out there for another person takes courage that too many people possess. There is always the chance that trust is misplaced, that you will be taken advantage of. The rewards of trust, however, often outweigh the dangers of exploitation. Perhaps that is why so many people embrace risk. I have a tough time doing that.

Climbing is a risk. One slip and you risk falling, faster and faster until you reach terminal velocity of more than 225 feet per second. In a mere seven seconds--the time it takes to process your error and its unfortunate consequences--the average person falls more than eight hundred feet. I looked it up.

It takes a lot of trust to overcome the mathematics of the situation, especially when you are a thousand feet up and clinging nervously to a crumbling rock.

I inhaled a deep breath and swung my right hand above my head. She caught my wrist with a tight grip and almost immediately began to pull. With my feet pushing to help, she pulled me up to the wide rock ledge to which she had climbed. I sprawled in front of her, my feet dangling off the precipice. I crawled up on her, gasping for breath. She laughed and kissed me.

“It gets the blood pumping,” she said.

“Speaking of blood, I think I scraped my shin.” I reached down and felt blood.

“A little boo-boo,” she laughed. “You want me to kiss it for you?”

Conquering the rocks was her idea. She was more athletic than I and had climbed before. The most that I had managed was a light day hike on a paved path, but I wanted to be with her, and she was a climber. So, I agreed to learn and to go with her.

“We'll start slow,” she promised. On the first climb, we reached barely a thousand feet. By the time we reached the summit I was exhausted. “You lack stamina,” she teased. “You need to get some endurance.” That was the theme of our second climb: a nice angle of ascent with several challenging ledges that required her to help me. At each ledge, she kissed me in encouragement.

“Get up, get up,” she would say, taunting. As if I was half a man. As if my performance was somehow not enough for her. I kept climbing, wanting to be better, but it was never enough for her. She was always far ahead of me.

This was our third climb, the peak reaching almost three thousand feet above the ground. Halfway up, I could barely breathe. My heart thumped against my chest and my head throbbed. We had spent hours on the climb, and we were barely halfway to the top. She was barely breathing hard, her muscles tight and her chest gently rising and falling in perfect rhythm.

“C'mon, big boy,” she said. “Come and get me.” She paced out ahead of me, not letting me catch my breath. I chased her up the mountain, grinding step after step to the next ledge. She hoisted herself up in a single graceful dance, cresting the ledge as if hoisted by angels. She sat at the top of the ledge spreadeagled, waiting for me.

I struggled again on the ledge. She taunted me. “Use your hands. That's good. Now bend your legs and thrust hard. What a good boy! Do you like that? Doesn't that feel good?” As I pushed myself up on the ledge, my fingers cramped. My heart skipped as my body began to give way. Fortunately, my feet were firmly planted, and I remained on the rocks.

“Trust yourself,” she said. There it was--trust, that most artificial of emotions. Trust is a false game. It is not a requirement for love, just an unnecessary attachment. Why should you trust anyone?

With a grunt, I pushed my way up the rock face, my chin crested the ledge and I found myself staring at the space between her legs. It was all part of her act, and I was sick of the taunting. Every word was an affront. Every motion was a discourtesy. I simply could not go on.
When I finally pulled my body up to her, she was ready to move on. Between gasps of air, I convinced her to pause for a moment and enjoy the view. “Trust me,” I told her. “The view is beautiful.” It was a beautiful spot, a perfect spot.

“It's stunning,” she said right before I pushed her. It took seven seconds before her body hit the first boulder on the way down.