Valley Girls

by Sarah Nicole Lemon

  Rilla made a gagging noise and closed the app. How on earth had she thought she could be friends with Caroline? Or have a chance with Walker?

  It was like all the embarrassment she should have felt, caught up in one rush of red-hot agony. Oh god, they probably hated her. They probably thought she was the dumbest person. They were probably talking right now about that awkward girl who had no idea. The nerve she had . . .

  Rilla looked at the phone, and found herself clicking it back on.

  Caroline was from southern Ohio, which was a similar place to central West Virginia. Caroline was on her own, with her sibling, like Rilla. It was impossible to look at those pictures and not feel that all Rilla needed to do to fix herself was be like Caroline.

  Irritated at herself for even remotely believing in magic and her ability to be that cool in the first place, Rilla resolved to never think of climbing again. She was definitely afraid of heights. It was a ridiculous sport. She already had a problem with recklessness. She didn’t have a death wish, no matter what anyone thought. It was stupid.

  She closed Instagram. There. Done.

  Determined to forget climbing, she spent her days at HUFF, hanging out with Jonah. He fed her leftovers from the kitchen, and she tagged along as they went through the routine of every day—work, food, and laundry. She took a spot in the makeshift living room formed of a rug and camp chairs in the dirt, rushing to make it back to Thea’s at a reasonable hour. When she wasn’t with Jonah, she unpacked her clothes, hung Christmas lights in the rafters of her attic, and tried to do homework.

  In the middle of the week, Thea had her weekend. She had a serious-slash-awkward conversation with Rilla about how Ranger Lauren was actually her girlfriend, while Lauren leaned on the counter and tried to look supportive, but kept grinning at them like she found the whole thing hilarious, except she was wearing her glasses and they made her eyes bigger in a way that almost cartoonish, so Rilla kept trying not to laugh when she looked at her.

  Finally, Thea finished her speech.

  “You had to wait to tell me this?” Rilla asked as soon as Thea stopped talking. Maybe that was why Thea was on edge about everything. But, like, how terrible did Thea think Rilla was that she’d be upset about this?

  “I just didn’t want to overwhelm you,” Thea said.

  “Okay. Well. Good to know. Anything else?”

  Thea frowned and glanced to Lauren.

  Lauren shrugged.

  “No?” Thea said, with no confidence.

  “Thanks for updating me on your relationship status,” Rilla said, hopping off the kitchen stool and grabbing an apple before heading back to the attic. It was disconcerting though. To find out something this big about a person she’d known her whole life. Had she missed it? She didn’t want Thea to know how she felt—it might make Thea feel like she had to send her home.

  It took forty-five minutes of getting distracted remembering things from their childhood, given this new information, before Thea was the same old Thea, and Rilla was restless again.

  She finished one unit of trigonometry out of sheer and total boredom; but after she discovered Thea’s laptop had movies, schoolwork didn’t stand a chance.

  •

  “Your sister probably doesn’t want to go back to West Virginia because she’s got a girlfriend. Not because of you,” Jonah said, handing her a coffee a tourist hadn’t liked the look of. He usually worked in the cafeteria, but was covering the shift of a friend.

  “West Virginia has lesbians,” Rilla snapped, exhausted by the constant comments about things West Virginia was or was not, as told by people who had never lived there.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but do they get married and have babies and put those babies in Montessori preschools?”

  “Monta what?”

  “Exactly.” He poured the milk.

  She made a face and took the latte outside.

  By the fifth day, she’d given up—on homework, magic, and hope.

  Guilt and loneliness mired her in misery—where the only cure was more misery and Pop-Tarts from the store in Yosemite Village. She sat in a dark attic on her phone, stalking people at home on slow-ass Internet. Hating herself. Hating everyone else. Making herself sick on Pop-Tarts because no one was around to tell her to stop. Until suddenly, Adeena knocked on the door.

  “We’re going climbing!” Adeena announced as Rilla hid behind the door, blinking and shielding herself from the intense sunshine like a vampire fresh from death. “Don’t worry, I’ll ease you into it. Bring water and wear comfortable shoes. I’ll come back before sunrise tomorrow morning. I need to catch my ride.” Adeena waved goodbye.

  Rilla was so excited she’d been invited to climb with Adeena, she almost forgot it was an activity she’d just spent five days convincing herself she wanted no part of. A pit of nervousness grew in her stomach, but she wasn’t about to chicken out. Before going to bed, she laid out layers of clothes and stuffed her backpack with water and an extra sweatshirt. It took her three hours to fall asleep. She managed to wake up, dress, and slip outside with peanut butter toast before Adeena arrived in the early hours before dawn, Petra in tow.

  “Long story,” Adeena snarled over a granola bar as she glared at Petra’s headlamp light. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she doesn’t kill you.”

  “I am a fantastic climbing instructor,” Petra said as she stabbed a plastic spoon into an open packet of instant oatmeal. “I worked at a gym in Burbank.”

  “No. No, we shall not do this.” Adeena stalked off. “Call me when you lead a team up the Trango Towers.”

  “You didn’t lead it.” Petra’s eye roll was visible even in the headlamp glow. “Come on,” she said to Rilla over a mouthful of oatmeal. “You’re going to like this.”

  Rilla slung her backpack onto her shoulders and followed, afraid to say anything in case it would be wrong. It was hard to tell what she could say to either girl that would endear her, especially when she didn’t understand why they argued or what they were even arguing over. It was like waiting for the beat to start dancing, but always somehow missing it.

  They started across the Valley toward the sheer, shadowed face of Half Dome looking off into the distance—a dark wave, frozen at its steep crest. Her breath hung as a silver cloud and she shivered in the purple dark as she followed the gentle bobbing of Petra’s headlamp. This was it.

  Her stomach flipped in sudden nervousness. She was going climbing.

  “BELAY ON.”

  Between every two pines

  is a doorway to a new world.

  —John Muir

  Nine

  Rilla spent the first two and a half hours staring at the backs of Adeena’s and Petra’s contrasting ponytails as the sun crept high along the mountain ridges. Adeena only came to Petra’s shoulder, but their pace was the same. Fast. Up. So much hiking that Rilla forgot to be worried about climbing, and got pissed she’d been tricked into exercise.

  A huge group of college-age hiking boys clustered on the stone steps carved out of the gorge around Vernal Falls, taking photos of the roaring falls and white water surging down the narrow ravine. Rilla would have wandered off the path and died somewhere in the land of well-defined biceps, ugly-ass wraparound sunglasses, and “brah” if it weren’t for Petra yanking on the shoulder strap of her backpack and pulling her along.

  “Down, girl,” Petra said.

  “It’s just . . . it’s so pretty,” she sputtered, and looked back at the boys. “Sniff.”

  Adeena laughed.

  Rilla tried not to look back.

  Unfortunately, that meant she was focused on how much her legs hurt, how thin the air seemed, and the weird flashes behind her eyes like she was crawling her way into goddamn Mordor.

  The trail wound up a deep gully, and the wind caught great tufts of mist from the falls, dusting the rocks with mist-heavy emerald moss and Rilla in a layer of sparkling, bone-chilling wet. At the top, Rilla slowed, her hand clutching the railing
for support, thinking they’d surely pause to catch their breath.

  Nope.

  The two girls dropped back and matched Rilla’s pace, but they didn’t stop.

  By the time Rilla staggered to the top of a second waterfall, she was somehow pouring sweat and still freezing from the first waterfall. “I’m out of shape,” she wheezed, figuring it was better to admit it than pretend her death wasn’t happening, as if she could hide it. Out of shape and wet. Both Adeena and Petra were dry, she noticed. The bright, technical fabric of their shirts had released the waterfall, while Rilla’s cotton layers clung to it.

  “Yeah. You are,” Petra said, biting into an apple.

  Adeena made a choking sound.

  “She said it. I just agreed,” Petra said to Adeena, then looked to Rilla. “Eat something.”

  Rilla blinked at their arguing, a terrible sinking feeling in her stomach. She hadn’t packed food. Adeena hadn’t said to pack food. Why hadn’t she thought to pack any food?

  “Get something now, before we start hiking again,” Petra said.

  Rilla looked down. “Oh, I’m not hungry.”

  Silence.

  She couldn’t bring herself to look up, pretending she was suddenly super interested in the rocky soil underfoot.

  “Look sharp,” Petra said.

  Rilla lifted her chin and caught the granola bar Petra tossed her. “Thanks.” Food seemed counterintuitive to getting in shape, but Rilla ripped the bar open and demolished half in one hungry bite.

  “I always pack way more food than I need.”

  “Another reason you’re not an alpinist,” Adeena said, peeling an orange as she sat cross-legged on a rock.

  “You just never know, Dee. Don’t come crying to me when you need snacks.”

  Adeena closed her eyes and shook her head as if to say Petra was absurd.

  The dull roar of the foaming Merced filled the silence as they finished eating. Even though it was mid-morning, the sun hadn’t climbed high enough to light the depths of the canyon walls, leaving the bottom still dark and blue in shadow, and the mist of the river like smoke. It should have warmed up by now, but the air was still cold and thin. Rilla subtly stretched her hamstrings against the rock so she wouldn’t maim herself standing up too fast.

  “Holding up?” Adeena asked.

  Rilla’s mouth was too full of granola bar to answer. “Imph mphinnn,” she managed.

  “It’s going to be a long day, but the climbing is easy,” Petra said, screwing the lid back on her Nalgene. “Good conditioning. Want some water?”

  Rilla swallowed. “I have a bottle. Thanks.”

  Petra nodded, with an approving smile. “Let’s get this hiking shit over with.”

  “I like the hiking. It’s so relaxing,” Adeena said.

  “You would, alpinist.”

  Adeena threw an orange peel at her. “You’re lucky to have me, otherwise you might get lost on the way up without a string of bolts to guide you.”

  Petra just laughed and turned off the path, into the rocks and trees.

  Adeena stood off the rock. “It won’t always be this hard. I promise. And even though I would have taken you on something shorter for your first time, this is something you can do.”

  “What was your first climb?” Rilla asked. “Was it like this?”

  Adeena smiled, looking carefully where she stepped. “A mountain near my home in Gilgit, in Pakistan. My brother was a guide. I had been begging to go, so he took me for my twelfth birthday. It was a three-day trip. Our mother was so angry.” She laughed softly.

  Well then. Rilla pressed her lips together. No more complaining to Adeena. “When did you come here?”

  “For school, last year. I have family here, too.”

  “Your brother?”

  There was a long beat. “No.”

  Rilla frowned, but felt like she’d just stepped off the path and she didn’t press. “This is kind of my first time. I never climbed at home.”

  “This is your home now, isn’t it?” Adeena asked.

  Rilla didn’t know how to answer.

  They hiked deeper into the backcountry, around Liberty Cap and Mt. Broderick, both of which Rilla spent a good fifteen minutes thinking were Half Dome until she realized they weren’t. They walked a near invisible course that Petra and Adeena seemed to know—through a boggy meadow Petra called a lake, into more open, rocky land spotted with massive sequoias, firs, and patches of grass scattered with lavender-colored lupine. When Rilla asked how they knew the way, Adeena pointed out the little cairns Rilla hadn’t noticed because she’d been so busy hunting for signs of her impending doom.

  The white-peach granite of Half Dome’s massive shoulder became visible—a looming thing through the trees that seemed to create its own force. They paused for water and Adeena pulled out a scarf.

  “You going to pray?” Petra asked.

  “I’ll keep our asses covered,” she said with a laugh, turning off the trail.

  Rilla wanted to ask—about the stop, the cloth, the way Petra understood. She didn’t know how to ask and Petra didn’t explain. Instead she studied the dome and waited.

  Dread settled into Rilla’s bones like beads of mercury, and though they walked ever toward it, the dome never moved. “How high is it?” she asked when Adeena returned, almost not wanting an answer.

  “From here?” Petra asked.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “The climb itself is eight hundred feet,” Petra said.

  “But that only gets us a quarter way to the top,” Adeena added. “From Valley to the summit, we’ll go a total of almost five thousand feet today. The summit is eight thousand eight hundred feet above sea level.”

  “You’re such a nerd,” Petra said.

  “I forgot sport climbers’ brains were underdeveloped.” Adeena flounced ahead.

  Petra walked faster and passed her.

  Rilla wanted to ask what the difference was between alpine and sport, but she didn’t want to draw attention to her lack of knowledge, so she just tried to keep up, staring at the dome as she trudged behind. The magnitude of what she was about to do hit her in the chest. Even with Adeena and Petra, it felt way too big. Too impossible. Just yesterday, she had held her pee for three hours, because it meant another trip on that damn attic ladder. And she had spent that whole time clicking through all of her ex-boyfriend’s photos and eating a box of Pop-Tarts. This—Half Dome—wasn’t something she could do. Sweating more than she had been five minutes ago, Rilla rushed to catch up with Adeena and Petra, who were—shocker—arguing. This time, about which direction they should be taking.

  “Okay, but I really can’t climb,” Rilla interrupted. “I cried when I did it with Walker.”

  “Girls usually do,” Petra said without missing a beat.

  Adeena cackled.

  Rilla swallowed, her stomach tight. She could literally die doing this—inexperienced, out of shape, and in way over her head.

  As if hearing her thoughts, Adeena turned, shading her eyes. The sun slanted dark shadows on her face. “It looks intimidating, I know. Even if you know what you’re doing, you should always be a little scared.”

  That wasn’t helping.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Petra interjected. “You don’t need to be scared. It looks more intimidating than it is. We’ll haul you if you need it.”

  “Just focus on the trail ahead of you,” Adeena coached. “If you can hike, you can do this climb.”

  Rilla shaded her eyes to look up the wall. “I feel like I’m in one of those rescue-your-teenager programs or something.”

  “You’d be having to walk a lot farther, trust me,” Petra said dryly “Want some gummy bears?”

  “You went to one of those outdoor rehab programs?” Adeena asked Petra. “Those are real?”

  “My parents caught me smoking weed when I was fifteen and . . .” Petra jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “The whole summer. I think they just wanted to go to Corsica alone.”<
br />
  What the fuck was Corsica? But Rilla didn’t ask, taking the gummy bears Petra offered and biting their heads off as the group resumed hiking.

  Rilla frowned and tried not to look at the dome anymore. She could turn around, hike back to the cot in the attic, pull the covers over her head with the Pop-Tarts, and never come out. Maybe even, she should.

  But if she did that, that’s what she’d have to do for the rest of the summer. She certainly couldn’t show her face to Petra or Adeena or Walker, or any of the other climbers ever again. And somewhere inside, she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t grit her teeth and take the chance she’d been given to try.

  Ten

  The wind whipped at Rilla’s T-shirt. She rolled her sleeves up to keep from getting a farmer’s tan, and focused on Petra, who stood with her pack on, sunglasses down, and hands raised to the wall. Petra’s white-blond ponytail fanned out in the breeze and metal bits hung, clinking, off green webbing slung across her chest.

  “Belay on?” Petra asked, as if that should mean something.

  The rope threaded through the Grigri Rilla had used with Walker, clipped to the big loop on the front of her harness between her hips. She grabbed it, but couldn’t remember what to do. “Walker didn’t . . .”

  “That’s because Walker is an asshat and didn’t take you seriously.” Adeena said. “He’s a fantastic climber, but not the greatest teacher. Don’t tell him I said that.”

  Petra stayed quiet, poised to leave the ground while Adeena talked. “She says, Belay on? Now, if you’re ready, you say On belay. You’re the belay. Are you on? Can she trust you? Are you ready?”