59

"Come on, Gabi!" Tears in my eyes, cheering her on was the only way I was gonna keep going. This stupid, stupid route, I'd chosen to climb it last second. Pebble respectfully declined and sat on the ground, while Gabi and I picked routes right next to each other.

I started to have a panic attack just before the second clip. And that's what made this route so hard. It would've been easy had I not been struggling to keep my heartbeat slow, my breathing in check.

It was easier at the YMCA, when I had hours alone in a room with one small wall.

It was easier when I wasn't so scared.

It's weird- I'm supposed to be the fearless one. I'm supposed to be the one that climbs to the highest branches in a tree, the one that's taken the most falls, the one that talks to strangers. I'm supposed to be the one that gets lost on purpose, the one who has no idea where she's going, and doesn't give a shit, as long as she knew where she came from.

But I'm also the one who has panic attacks. And they were usually inconsistent and random, about stupid stuff like Global Warming or the AI Takeover or the feeling of total abandonment, but never about something like this, like falling. And never so many times, triggered by the same activity.

I was about to give up, to ask my belayer to bring me down, to tell her that I was scared, that I couldn't breathe right.

"Come on, Charlie!" She shouted. "Trust those feet! Come on!"

I couldn't be that loser who kept giving up. I wanted to be like Gabi, who was audibly grunting, and cussing out the wall. Who kept at it. Who begged us to come down here. The person I was at one point. The person I wanted to be.

"Encourage each other! Come on!" Our coach yelled from below.

"You got it, Gabi! Come on!" I yelled to the girl hanging about four feet away from me.

"Yeah Charlie, you got this!"

That's what ultimately got me up the wall, albeit slowly. My legs were shaking and my fingers ached like shit. I'd never sweat so much in my life, and I've camped without AC in a Florida summer. Gabi got me through it.

Pebble had waited below the entire time.

"Took you long enough," they grinned.

I kicked them in the shin.