Free Waking Up to Love by Evan Purcell Page B

though she was an adult now, it still amazed her that Scott’s family had been able to build such a big room way up in the branches.
    She did notice, however, that some of the boards were broken and the curtain had fallen off. Even the ladder looked like it was about to crumble in two.
    “It’s … um, seen better days,” Scott admitted.
    “It certainly has,” Ramona agreed, her mind drifting back to some of those
better days
. If she squinted hard enough, she could see little Scott McInney pulling himself up the tattered rope hanging from its window. She saw herself leaning out the window, shouting, “Come on, Scott. Faster. Faster!” She saw Scott get momentarily distracted, his eight-year-old body tensing, before he lost his grip and fell all the way to the ground.
    He’d come a long way since then.
    “Remember when you fell from that rope?” Ramona asked.
    “’Course I do,” he admitted. “You bet me I couldn’t climb all the way to the top.”
    “And guess what?” she said. “You didn’t.”
    “Yeah, well, I still blame you for that. I don’t think my tailbone ever healed completely.”
    She nudged him playfully. “Shut up. You told me you didn’t feel anything.”
    Scott placed his large hands on the rough bark of the tree. He looked like he was reliving the memory. “Of course that’s what I said. I was a kid. I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”
    “So it really hurt?”
    “Like hell,” he admitted. “I wasn’t going to tell you that. I also wasn’t going to mention that I landed on a pine cone.”
    “Ouch.”
    “But hey, now that we’re back here, I think it’s time that you honor your part of the deal.” A devilish smile spread across Scott’s face, and Ramona knew she wasn’t going to like what he was about to propose.
    “And what deal is that?” he asked.
    “We were both supposed to climb that rope,” he explained. “But after I fell and permanently damaged my coccyx, you conveniently forgot that part. I think it’s only fair that you follow through on your agreement.”
    “Meaning—?”
    “Meaning, start climbing.”
    He was serious! Ramona couldn’t believe it.
    Ramona grabbed hold of the bottom of the rope and looked up. It wound its way around one of the top branches, about twenty feet up. How could they possibly have thought this was a good idea as eight-year-olds? “Naw,” she said. “I’m good.”
    Scott didn’t take no for an answer. He grabbed her around the waist and raised her a few feet into the air. “Grab hold,” he said. “I’m not gonna let go until you grab hold.”
    Reluctantly, she wrapped her arms around the dusty rope. The branch above them groaned audibly. She felt dizzy already.
    “You still do yoga, right?” Scott asked.
    “Uh-huh,” Ramona muttered. Twice a week.
    “Then you’ll have no problem hoisting yourself up. I’ll be down here, watching.”
    Slowly, she reached forward and began to pull herself up. First one hand, then the other. The rope shook underneath her. “What am I doing?” she muttered to herself.
    Before she knew it, Ramona was a good six feet over the ground, high enough to feel queasy. This was about the halfway point:
halfway to the treehouse, halfway to a horrible, splattery death,
she thought darkly.
    “Wow,” Scott said. “I didn’t really think you’d—”
    “What?” she shouted, clinging as tightly as the Jaws of Life. “You didn’t think you could peer pressure me into doing this? Well, ya did. So, congrats!”
    He didn’t respond, so she glanced down at his expression. Big mistake. The minute her eyes caught the ground far below her, her head started to spin and she felt the rope twisting underneath her like a snake.
    She lost her grip.
    For one horrible second, the world blurred into colors and she felt her body whoosh through the air. It wasn’t long enough for her life to flash before her eyes, but it was long enough for a single horrible thought to cross her mind:
I’m going to