You Look Different in Real Life

a moment, then Felix motions Rory in a direction away from us. They quickly disappear into the greenery.
    Nate does some swimming-type stretches, circling his arms so he looks like a little boy pretending to be a helicopter, then bends back the palm of each hand. I assume this means he’s going first. And now he looks right at me with those green eyes.
    “How easy do I have to be?” he asks.
    Totally insulted and not thinking straight, I say, “Not easy at all. I’ve done this.” At day camp, years ago.
    He nods, and I wonder what I’ve set myself up for.
    Nate hoists himself onto the face, putting a foot not on the obvious first hold, so prominent it’s like the rock hasa front stoop, but rather a few inches higher in a small bump. And I watch him.
    He climbs until he’s put his hands or feet in three more places, then turns and says, “Got that?”
    “Yep,” I say, although I’ve never said “yep” like that in my life.
    Instead of climbing down, he launches himself off the face of the rock and into the crash pad. Stands up, dusts himself off. It’s my turn to go.
    “Put your right hand over there,” he says.
    I look down and snap, “You don’t have to say anything until I ask you to.”
    “Okay, okay. Just trying to help.” He holds up his hands in defense and starts backing away.
    Next move. I close my eyes and see it in my head. Then I put myself there. The next one is harder. I have to stretch one hand all the way out to my right, even though there’s a hold closer than the one Nate used. His arm is longer. That didn’t occur to him. I take a moment to figure out how I’m going to make it work, and out of the corner of my eye I see movement. The crew changing position, getting closer. Fantastic.
    I will be damned if I don’t reach this. Not on my first turn.
    And somehow I become more elastic and make myself long and my fingers touch the edge of the hold and then my palm is there and I’ve grabbed it. It’s just a tiny littlebump in the rock, but I grip it like a lifeline.
    “Yes!” says Nate, and I jerk my head down to look at him. He seems surprised by his own positive encouragement.
    The other three moves are easier. I pick my fifth move, the move Nate will have to replicate. I decide to get him back by adding a foothold that’s actually a little too close to the one I’m already on. It’s a little tricky for me, but it might set him off-balance.
    “Awesome work, Justine!” says Pam. “Can you jump down?”
    If he did it, I can do it. And I do. The letting go is the hardest part. The landing is soft and actually fun.
    When Nate gets back on the rock, he has trouble remembering the second and third moves so I talk him up the rest of the sequence. He doesn’t complain; surprisingly, he just accepts my help, then adds another move that I can barely see since he’s almost at the top already. When he falls back down to the pad, he lands a bit wrong and lets out an “Oof.”
    “You okay?” I ask.
    “Side impact,” he mutters, then looks up at me from the pad and grins.
    When I’m on the rock, I have no trouble with the first three moves and then my mind goes blank. I just look at him, and he tells me where to go next. By the time I get to my add-on move, I’m practically at the top. All it takesis one well-chosen grab at the ledge and I’m up. I will do this.
    “Yes!” shouts Nate when I finally grip a hold and pull myself to the rock’s “summit.” I look down to see Nate pumping his fist, Pam beaming, both camera lenses staring up at me with their gaping, empty eyes. Now Nate has to make it up the rock with no help from me below, and he does. Quickly. Like now we’ve unlocked some formula for doing this. Got a mountain that needs climbing?
    When he pulls himself up to where I am, I instinctively reach out a hand. Instinctively, I’m guessing, he takes it, and now we’re standing next to each other, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, on top of a rock in the middle of the woods and somehow, it does not seem at all preposterous.
    Pam claps. Leslie claps. Lance nods emphatically. Off in the distance, I hear Rory’s and Felix’s voices mixing in with the hum of the creek.
    “You can actually walk around that way, and just come down the hill over there,” says Pam. “Or, of course, you can jump again.” Nate peers over the edge of the boulder to the crash pad, sizing up the drop. Then he shakes his head.
    “No need to undo the success here. I’m taking the easy way