Ever Rest

Chapter 4

Before

"You're seriously not going to tell me where we're going? What if you're taking me to your basement to hide me and pluck off my limbs one by one," I say.

We've been in the car for twenty minutes already, and I have no clue where I'm having my first date with this man. After three weeks of texts and Facetime calls – and him asking every other day if I'd go out with him – I finally accepted. My New Year's resolution this year was to stay focused and find myself a job. No dating, no distractions. But I have been very single since my sophomore year of college, and now that I'm twenty-three, I think it's finally right for me to put myself out there again.

Screw New Year's resolutions.

Tanner smiles from the driver's seat, nodding his head to the music. He says, "Pluck off your limbs?"

"And fry them up," I add.

"Gracie, I think you might be a little twisted. I like that."

"Just Grace," I correct.

Growing up, people used to call me Gracie until I decided it was too young sounding for me. After middle school, when someone would use the nickname on me, I started to correct them. I shouldn't have cared that much. Alas, when you've finished puberty and still have a baby face, the last thing you want is to be called a name that sounds younger. That's how "just Grace" came to be.

"I have you in my contacts as Gracie," he tells me.

"Well, then. Change it."

"I like Gracie."

"I don't."

"Okay," he says and pulls out his phone at a red light. I look over his shoulder to see him changing the contact name to Just Grace. It's hard not to roll my eyes. 

 After he tucks the phone away and the light turns green, he takes a sharp left turn into a parking lot. I can feel the blood fall from my face the minute my eyes read the sign on the building he's pulling up to. Rocko's Rock Climbing. The name itself makes me feel ill.

As Tanner unbuckles his seatbelt, I remain frozen in my spot. Outside of the building is a giant rock climbing wall that looks impossible to get to the top of. The assortment of colorful rocks spaced out along the wall shouldn't look so intimidating, but even the idea of stepping foot on that thing makes me lose my breath. 

My date notices my change in demeanor. He places a hand on the back of my seat, turning his body to me.

"What's up?" he asks.

"This is a rock climbing place."

"Sure is," he says, unbuckling my seatbelt for me. "You ever climbed before?"

I was ten or eleven when my mom brought a few friends and me to a rock climbing gym one Friday after school. Mom thought it would be exciting for me, and so as my friends and I ran out of the car, I remember the disappointment flowing through me at the realization of where she had taken us. This was not my version of fun. I spent the day watching my friends race each other, cheering them on from the safety of the ground. 

I am and have always been terrified of heights. 

"No," I say. 

That response seems to brighten Tanner up, thinking he's about to give me an amazing day. He opens the car door, and when he notices I haven't followed suit, he runs around the front to let me out. Chivalry, apparently, is not dead. Even in an old, beat-up Jeep.

Once inside, my stomach starts to turn. The walls are much bigger than I remember. Unlike the gym I went to several years ago, there are no bells at the top. Besides the layout, the rest of the gym is similar to what I pictured.