My Heart Insists It’s Time to Let Go
“I’m not sure I can hold on any longer,” I say. My muscles are screaming at me, and though I’ve tried to remember to keep my arms straight and use my legs, I’ve barely made it halfway up the wall. On the other hand, I’ve had so much fun with Seth. We’ve had to start over so many times just for laughing. Regardless of winning the wall, or what I would have previously perceived as completing the task, Seth’s earlier words wrapped me up in a cocoon of safety.
“Can you wait for me to come to you?” he asks, looking down at me.
I’m enjoying the view. His strong legs in his navy shorts, and the way the sinew of muscle flexes under his dark gray athletic shirt when he reaches and moves. If I had it in me to do so, I could reach up and touch his foot—he’s not that far away.
He’s already started back down the wall.
“Sure,” I say.
It isn’t long, a few seconds and he’s next to me, grinning so deeply that his dimples are on prominent display. I have the urge to lean toward him and kiss him. I don’t. I’m not sure I could concentrate on what I’m supposed to do if I did.
“You did it.” He beams at me.
“Did what?”
“Hung out on the wall for–” he glances across the room at a clock– “over an hour.” He leans forward and presses a kiss to my lips as if reading my mind. “You’re going to feel it later.”
I smile at him. “I’m already feeling it. I’m expecting a massage later.”
“Are you trying to kill me, woman?” Seth asks. He leans closer and says in my ear, “If I get these hands on you–”
I laugh. “I’m not sure I can make it down.”
“Let go.”
I look down at the padded floor, which looks inordinately far away. “Jump?”
“You’ve got the harness.” He reaches out and taps the cord tethered to the harness I’m wearing. “You don’t have to hold on when you’re tired, Hannah.”
I always feel like he’s trying to tell me something in the layer of his words. “Just let go?”
“Yep. Here. I’ll show you. I’ll be waiting at the bottom to catch you.”
When he lets go, the harness lowers him to the floor. “See,” he calls, now below me. “Now I’m here to catch you.”
The idea of letting go of the wall is slightly terrifying, but the harness digging into my groin reminds me I’m covered. I take a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes.”
“I got you.”
I let go.
The harness catches my weight and lowers me steadily to the ground. Seth folds me in his arms the moment I touch down, my back flush against his front.
“See. You did it,” he says in my ear.
Turning in his arms, I grasp his face between my hands, then press my lips to his, suddenly needing more than the flirting we’ve been doing for the last few days. I need this connection with him. I want this connection with him. His arms tighten, his hands clasping behind me, resting at the small of my back. When I end the kiss, Seth smiles, and I’m basking in a warm glow of beach sunshine.
“Hannah?”
I close my eyes at the intrusive voice. Sebastian. The glow sputters around me, and anger sparks to life to take its place.
Though Seth and I both straighten as I turn my head toward the voice, Seth doesn’t let me go all the way, one hand resting at the small of my back. Sebastian is standing on the other side of the pad, a bag slung over his shoulder, glaring at me.
“Sebastian,” I say.
“It’s Sebastian now?”
I feel Seth tense next to me.
After unhooking my safety rope from my harness and handing it to Seth, I walk across the pad to a place where I can remove the harness. My heart races like a wildfire across a meadow, and I’m suddenly that raging fire wanting to consume everything in my path.
From the corner of my eye, Sebastian walks around the perimeter of the space toward me.
I recall sitting at coffee with him and his meek demeanor then, the apology, the acceptance that I was moving on. Then him that night outside my apartment after work, saying ugly things and throwing around threats. How Jewel had to run interference. Learning he texted my little sister to get information. Barraging me with emotional and hateful texts. And now, interrupting me with Seth, with a look on his face like I’m the one who cheated on him!
For the last several months, I’ve tried to be understanding, tried to respect the time we spent together, tried to honor the human that is Sebastian instead of being resentful that he lied to me, that he cheated. And yet now, instead of feeling like I owe him something after all we’ve been through, I just feel angry.
By the time he reaches me, I’m shrugging out of the harness, letting it drop from my legs to the floor. I reach down and snatch it off the ground, my movements like punches.
“What are you doing here with him?” Sebastian asks, though the words sound more like a hissing snake speaking through clenched teeth. “You’re making me look bad.”
“With Seth?” I ask at normal volume and meet Sebastian’s gaze. “We’re on a date.” I tilt my head in challenge, hating myself for all the time I wasted feeling weak. Today, I feel justified. “You’re making yourself look bad.”
His brows collapse over his eyes, and he scowls. “I told you how I felt about that.”
“You lost any right to tell me how you felt about that when you cheated on me. Now, I need you to leave me alone. I need you to stop texting Ruth—I went to campus security today.”
His eyebrows arch over his eyes.
“You need to fucking stop.”
Sebastian rolls his eyes, and offers me one of those placating smiles, as if that’s all he needs to do to get me back in line. The horrible realization is that’s all he’d had to do for a long time. “So like you, Hannah. You’re getting worked up about nothing. Like usual.”
“Excuse me? Nothing?” For a split second, I doubt myself. I check my feelings, second guessing that maybe I’ve been disrespectful, then imagine Jewel shaking me and telling me to wise up. Imaginary Jewel is right. I straighten my spine and face him. “I’m not worked up. I’m fucking pissed.”
“You’re always making more of shit than it needs to be. Like that shit in December. And I texted Ruth to check on her. You don’t need to be unhinged about it.”
“Unhinged?” His words hit me like a smack in the face. All the ways we didn’t fight during our relationship because I cowered in the belief that perhaps I was being too overly emotional. He’d said it enough. Too sensitive. I’d just thought it was my grief, but right now, the anger has burned away the haze. I take a deep breath. “First, that shit in December was you fucking cheating, Sebastian. Second, you showing up outside my apartment to yell at me isn’t appropriate. And third, texting my little sister to get shit on me isn’t checking on her, it’s using her. And I don’t appreciate your slew of rude text messages. You need to stop. This,” I move my hand between us, “is over.”
He leans forward as if to say something, then freezes.
I feel Seth’s presence behind me before I feel the comfort of his hands on my shoulders. “You okay, Hannah?”
I look over my shoulder at him. “Can we just go?”
“Sure.” His hands squeeze me gently, but his eyes—shaped with rage—are digging mines into Sebastian. The energy radiating off Seth is dynamite ready to unleash and take down the mountain.
Sebastian shoots me a glare, backing away—he must recognize it—then turns and disappears deeper into the athletic center.
I walk to my cubby and yank out my bag, then shrug into my hoodie with clipped, angry movements. I’m shaking.
Seth’s at my side, eyes on me, shrugging into his own sweatshirt.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“Remember what I said about apologizing to me, Hannah?” He sounds angry—but it isn’t directed at me.
I nod, sling my bag onto my shoulder, and walk from the athletic center out into the cold, where light and quiet snowflakes have begun to fall. Tears brighten my eyes, and I blow out a breath, the steam making me feel like there’s a sleeping dragon inside of me.
For some reason, I think about my dad. It didn’t snow very often in Cantos, since we were near the ocean, but when I was little, I remember trying to make a snowman one of the few times it did. Of course, that isn’t the kind of snow that falls near the beach on the Oregon Coast. It’s slushy, and if it sticks, it’s temporary because it always turns to rain. But Dad had followed me out into the yard anyway.
When I’d cried because I couldn’t get a proper snowman, he’d pulled me into his arms. “It’s okay, Hannah Banana,” he’d said. “You tried. And from where I’m at, you tried your best. That’s all anyone can ask for.”
I miss him.
Suddenly, my hand is in Seth’s. He pulls me against his chest, his front against my back. With an arm draped just under my collarbone, he presses his cheek to my temple. “Feel like going home?”
I shake my head.
“Want to come to my place?”
I nod.
“Okay if I drive?”
He leads me to his car, opens the door for me, waits until I’ve gotten into the passenger seat before shutting the door. Then he joins me and drives us across town to his apartment.
It’s quiet when we walk into the main room.
“Trace went home and won’t be back until later tonight,” Seth tells me. “Mind if I shower? I’m sure I smell awful.”
I give him a smile. “You don’t.” I like the way he smells even after working out, like a mixture of iron and salt.
“Would you like to shower? I can use Trace’s.” He seems nervous, moving about without purpose. “I should check to make sure the bathroom is presentable.” He disappears down the hall and reappears a few moments later. “All clear.” He smiles. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
I follow him down a narrow hallway to a door, the light reaching out into the hallway. When I walk into the narrow bathroom, I see one of those tubs with the frosty glass sliders. It’s older, the tub and sink a muted blue gray. A large mirror stretches across the length of the wall with one of those movie star light bar fixtures across the top. He points out all the features, soap, shampoo, then disappears and reappears with a burgundy bundle of fluff. “Towel.” He puts it on the counter.
“Thank you.” I press a hand against the towel and resist the urge to draw it up to my face to hide. I’m deflating from the adrenaline and anger. Though I still feel justified, now I just feel…
“Hannah?”
I look up at him from the towel, registering the concern in his voice.
“You okay?”
I want to smile. I want to say, ‘yes.’ I want to reassure him and make him comfortable. But I’ve been doing that a long time, I realize, making sure everyone around me is comfortable. My mom and Ruth. Sebastian. And I’m suddenly so tired. I recall Seth standing at the bottom of the rock wall telling me to “let go,” and I can’t hold on anymore, and I know there’s no harness.
I shake my head. I can’t stop the tears that start.
Seth’s arms are around me in the same instant. “I’ve got you.”
In his arms, I let go.