Virtue

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The glass house stands on the top of a San Francisco hill. It is fully transparent in the daytime. You can see everything inside—the Lucite appliances, the opulent white furniture, the gleaming fingerprintless surfaces. There is an acute lack of friction in the house. All surfaces are smooth and dynamic. Cutting-edge visuo-sensory research shows that smoothness activates a primal sense of abundance in the brain, because it is associated with all that is effortless, all that is moral, all that is desirable. The house has a simple design, but the lack of walls, corners, nooks, and general substance is not easily noticeable. The house always looks full, because the organizing principle of the house is air. This gives the impression that the house is always well-stocked with the amenities needed for a happy life. This is financially efficient for any seller, who will have to put little effort into the staging of the home, beyond keeping the surfaces spotless. Buyers, unless they are familiar with this design style, will not be able to accurately assess the actual worth of the materials. The design of the house tessellates onto itself, creating a beauty that is ten-fold what it actually costs. This will seem natural even to a discriminate buyer (and the house demands a discriminate buyer). The crisp beauty of the house does not spare those who inhabit it. The house insists that the people who live inside it are beautiful and effortless as well. Buyers will assume that anyone inside must have frictionless, enviable lives. And because the house is transparent, this sense of abundance, which is to say, this sense of envy, is palpable to those walking by outside. When you look at the house from the apex of the hill beside it, you can catch the same ocean view that the residents have—a stunning, crystal blue reverberating throughout the house. This is the blue of vacations, luxury, and nirvana. When you see the view, you know that the people who live inside it have easy lives. They always agree on everything, which makes their lives efficient. They accomplish a lot in the space they don’t take up. 

•

It was September 1, and this was the description I had written over the summer for Yash’s open house. The open house was important to Yash, so I had gotten a head start drafting the pitch all the way back in June. I had to write it in advance because I was naturally unskilled at saying the right things at any given time. But I was working on this, and Yash said he loved me despite my flaws, as long as I was always working on myself. I had been working on myself ambiently since becoming Yash’s girlfriend. They say seven years is the make it or break it mark for a relationship, but it was eight for us two. This summer marked a turn, when “the will to self-improvement” had become a non-negotiable personality trait for Yash’s future partner. He talked about “my future partner” as if this person were some amorphous figure that had yet to materialize. We had reached an inflection point over the summer, where the only two options were relationship permanency or termination. I was gunning for an engagement ring.

Implementation was difficult at first. Start small, they say, so I did. My first implementation was a breakfast routine. Probiotic yogurt every morning. Then I had to think about the skin. Sunscreen, antioxidants, and exfoliants. I began to radiate. Third came style. Anytime I was outdoors, I wore a fur-trimmed white hat. This way, when the sun shone behind my head, the fur turned into a halo. The sun rarely shone in San Francisco, but now I had the potential to appear candidly as an angel at any moment.

The morning of September 1^st held an unusual weight to it. I had a feeling this pitch would affect Yash’s decision to terminate me or not. Nerves billowed through my chest. I wanted approval, yes, but also I wanted to sell the house. The house is sensationally gorgeous, he said. The crystal blue of the ocean makes you feel like you’re the landlord of the ocean! Indeed, the house was so beautiful that it was unforgivably selfish to keep it to ourselves. Yet I found it hard to live somewhere where everyone could see straight inside. It was like living in a fishbowl. When we first got the house, Yash had gone on about installing hedges so at least we could have privacy from people walking directly in front. But the hedges had never materialized, and instead we just added privacy film to the glass around the first-floor shower. You had to change inside the shower if you were feeling bloated that day. The probiotic yogurt was taking care of that.

I recited the pitch out loud to Yash over breakfast.

“What’s that?” he asked when I was done.

“The pitch,” I said.

“What pitch?”

“For the open house.”

“Why do you talk about sellers and buyers?”

“Because we’re selling the house.”

Yash sighed in exasperation.

“The open house isn’t to sell the house. The open house is to confirm that the house is sellable.”

My right eye went dry. Something swelled in me, like a tidal wave. I blinked to keep it all wrapped up inside.

“Why should we get rid of the house, which is a liquidable asset, when I can get rid of you?” Yash asked.

I put a spoonful of yogurt in my mouth, and nearly gagged. It was thick, like a slug that didn’t want to go down my esophagus. I sucked a bunch of spit into my mouth and forced it down anyway.

“Are you talking about the painting?” I asked.

“Am I talking about the painting?” Yash mimicked me in an annoying, high-pitched voice.

I had wanted a painting for our living room, but Yash had been so aghast by my choice that he had yelled himself hoarse, calling me a “tasteless threat to architectural sacrosanctity.”

“Can we forget about that? It was just a blip,” I said, tears gushing into my eyes.

“Just a blip,” Yash said in that same high-pitch voice. “So why should I keep you here, with all your blips?”

This was a question he asked often, and I had a ready answer.

“You should keep me because I suit you and the house,” I said.

“You’re so right, Sonica” he said. “You are so beautiful. Now does that mean I should sell you, my love?”

When he said “my love,” I was so relieved that I began to quake with laughter. I cackled so loudly I made my glass of water shake.

“You WILL keep me, my love!” I yelped like a dog, and Yash smiled. 

I scarfed my last spoonfuls of yogurt jauntily. Everything was clear now! Yash had implemented renovations to the house for five years to keep the house, and I was implementing my own improvements for Yash to keep me forever. Of course we should have an open house. Everyone should know what it feels like to be the landlord of the ocean! Just walking by the house made you feel like you won.

“So, do you think you deserve to be in this house?” Yash asked, as he stuffed a pancake in his mouth. Crumbs fell into his lap.

“I do,” I said, wishing there was a way to demonstrate the internal change I had just accomplished. I didn’t want to sell the house anymore. It had been a personal failure of mine to think this way. But I could change my mind so fast. Did Yash see that? 

He got up for work, scattering crumbs all over his seat and his plate. I bent down to clear them up.

•

Besides implementation, a lot of things in my life were going well, if not perfectly. For example, my job. 

September 1 also happened to be the annual New Hire Day at my lab. I was the executive administrative coordinator at The Parasensory Laboratory. We never used the word “parasensory” with the public, or even “laboratory.” To them we were The Foundation for Scientific Explorations of Inner Peace. Something about that phrasing made rich people eager to shovel money at us. Dr. A ran the lab, and she was a genius, not at science, but at avoiding accountability. Dr. A said we had to be really nice to all our rich clients, give them free parking and buy them sparkling water, because all our projects were funded by private donations. It is basically like getting a huge Venmo transfer from a best friend, she told me. Even if the Venmo transfer didn’t make her pay us more, it was still a net benefit because we didn’t have to file taxes or apply for grants on her behalf. 

Every morning I took the bus to work. Yash took the car, though his job was close, but oh well, I loved riding the bus. It took forty-five minutes in the morning, and sixty on the way home. I always rode in the middle part that swiveled, where I was developing a workout routine that targeted my abdominals. My workout was robust. I stood erect, and every time there was a jolt, I crunched my core to the left and then to the right. When the ride was smooth, I moved my pelvic floor up and down in micromovements that worked my lower abs. One time a woman had shielded her child’s eyes when I did the pelvic floor part. Big whoop. I had a perfect six pack, and that child would never.

When I got off the bus, I took a pill. “Don’t forget your pills,” Yash said to me every morning before he went out for work, including that one. Yash said he got the pills special for me, optimized for my body type and malaise, but I knew they were Excedrin. He wasn’t even sly. He moved them from the branded bottle into an orange Rx bottle with his office door open. The office was the only part of the house with opaque glass, where no one could see in. He needed the room to be tinted, because any breach of his client’s data could “collapse the world economy.” When he handed my pills to me, I played along. I placed them delicately on my tongue, and I made a big show about swallowing them down. After four seconds, I remarked on how much better I felt already, then stroked his arms, purring into his chest about what good care he took of me and also the world economy. 

It was a different ball game when I took them at work. I sloshed them back with coffee, sometimes so eagerly that I left spittle marks like ocean spray all over my blouse. I was only supposed to take two pills every six hours per the bottle, but sometimes I skipped the bottle’s suggestions. Yash never asked questions about why the pills were gone so fast. He just refilled with a smile.

Before I walked into the building, I took another pill and then walked inside. 

The Lab was situated inside an opulent white building. It looked sterile, which is how you knew it was fancy. Only fancy places look so untouched. There was a large atrium, where you could see all the way to the top of the building, all six floors, from the bottom. One time a lab technician had dropped a textbook from floor five, and it fell all the way down the belly of the atrium and landed on a child. Because the child had been a troubled youth, Dr. A was lauded when the injury paralyzed him. He became easy to work with, and the family sent Dr. A a watch that Christmas to show gratitude.

What I loved about the Lab was that it felt like a constant encore. Nothing ever changed, not even on New Hire Day, which was more like a hard reset to factory settings. I had been with the Lab for six years now, when Yash had donated enough to land me a job. He often had dinner with Dr. A, one on one, without me. When people (my parents) gently asked me why I did not think about moving onward and up, I replied, why seek novelty when you can seek perfection? 

New Hire Day was a part of the annual work cycle. It existed because each year, when it came time for contract renewals, most of the Lab left. This was no big deal, according to Dr. A, because we needed fresh new minds to keep our work spontaneous and interesting. Besides, it was easy to recruit. The Lab was a good one to have on your resume because we had blown up after we were in some Netflix series about fringe science groups. Dr. A argued we did real science, but that was beside the point.

Because of the documentary, the new hires expected the job to be sexy and exciting, like we were ghost hunters for conscious capacity. They were disappointed on the first day to find out that we did boring stuff like every other Lab in the world. Once they realized, there was always a steady disintegration of their seriousness, as if they were inconvenienced by having a job at all. If I asked them to pay attention at Science Meeting, they would get touchy about it. Only Dr. A found their aloofness cute. If they really zoned out, she would snap her fingers gaily, like she was making up a jig for them to play-act their participation. 

The new hires loved Dr. A. because she never asked them to do anything (that was my job). In the absence of her management, they found her lunatic instability charming. Her moods tracked exactly with her periods, so everyone knew exactly when to ask her for a letter of recommendation. I couldn’t blame her for the way things were. She was stupidly successful, and it’s difficult to have perspective when your life is that way. The free flow of money into the Lab was splendorous and unprecedented. I had a hand in this success, so ultimately, it was best to not think of it as a problem, but as an exercise of intellectual dexterity and emotional sensitivity. Also, there was no point in gunning for a promotion. Either you liked your job, or you left. In this way, the Lab filtered itself.               

  We always started New Hire Day with Science Meeting. Angeline and I had arranged the room the day before at work to be perfectly orderly. Fifteen chairs with half a foot of space between them. A projector was set up in the middle of the table, already showing the titular slide, “Welcome, Purveyors of Scientific Peace!” Bagels and cream cheese were off to the side, surrounded by fruit, cinnamon rolls, donuts, coffee, and orange juice. 

I sloshed down another pill, though maybe I didn’t need to. At some point, Yash had said something about the pills affecting my libido, but what did it matter, because he never wanted to have sex with me anyway. I took them, these placebo pills, because they allowed me to assert control over my impulses. I had once been a woman domineered by primitive and animalistic impulses, with too many opinions and too much attitude. Yash said Dr. A would take me at the Lab, on the condition I took his pills. The joke was on him though, because I took the pills for myself. I took them symbolically, to showcase my desire to always be good, and to always be deserving. My old self was ever-present inside me, crouched under the thinnest layers of my skin, like a hot spring that could erupt my life. It was a constant effort to stifle her, but this was the work of a lifetime, and I was happy to do it. 

Science Meeting always started with playing our getting-to-know-you-games. We took these games very seriously. I had invented them through rigorous trial and error. Pedro, another long-term coworker, pulled up Lab Jeopardy on the projector screen, a game I had created to teach the historical importance of the Lab. Next we would play Pictionary with a word bank composed exclusively of research-specific jargon. I was proud to have turned insufferable orientation materials into semi-tolerable games.

A new hire picked, “What is ‘Lab Anathema’ for $400,” and I snuck another pill. This one hit hard. The world snapped into focus, like shifting to the right prescription in the optometrist’s chair. There were so many new faces around me, desperately trying to answer in “what is” statements. There were plates of half-eaten food strewn about the table, crumbs everywhere I would have to clean up later. Sigh. Off to the side was an empty chair, which meant someone was late. Oh how I hated lateness. It made me want to scratch my eyeballs out like a lottery ticket.

Just as I was pulling out my list of new names, the doorknob to the meeting room turned. A woman appeared in the frame, but no one else turned around. The game was too important. She slipped easily into the empty seat. She had to be a new hire, but she looked nothing like the others, who were uniformly tan with peeling shoulders and blonde striped hair. This woman was pale as straw, with a powdered sugar dusting of freckles along her reedy arms and neck. Her collarbones thrust uncomfortably out from her chest and shoulders, but she didn’t bother to cover up. There was nothing sexual about her. She had a far-away quality, like her body was irrelevant to her. Her makeup was both excessive and ineffective. She continued to put on more throughout the meeting with a small puff she kept dipping into her leather tote bag.

My brain felt slippery as I watched her. Maybe four pills in an hour had been too much. I floated to the ceiling, from where I watched the meeting end. Everyone got up and filed toward the trash can, throwing away the remnants of their bagels, pastries, fruit, and juice. They all left, except me and the woman, who stayed in our seats. Eventually, even the automatic lights of the room turned off. That’s when the woman made her move, tilting forward slowly in her chair, then slinking vertebrae by vertebrae along the wall of the room. She slithered in the dark on a clear path to the trash bin. When she reached it, she stuck her hand in and began sifting through all the food that had been thrown out. She rummaged timidly at first, then began to muscle her way through. She pulled out chunks of food. A bit of bagel here. A half-chewed cantaloupe there. Everything she pulled out, she put into her mouth, chewing slowly, then voraciously, like a composer gaining momentum. She began to eat a lot, getting bits of things all over her face and hair, and I noticed that I could see the food as it traveled down her throat. She was becoming transparent as her appetite reached a crescendo. There was so much food jammed down her throat, I worried it might perforate. Her arm reached all the way to the bottom of the trash can now, and when she realized it was empty, she stared into it like she wanted to jump in and let it consume her. Just when I thought she might leap, I screamed. Her neck snapped toward me, and I froze like exposed prey. She was nothing but eyes filled with disdain, but our eye contact had electricity to it. Though I was scared, I felt something else too. Seeing her caked in shmear and discards made me quiver in fear and pleasure. She never broke eye contact as she gathered her things and slinked out of the room. When she was gone, I could finally breathe. I was so ecstatic I was woozy. I wanted to see if she had left anything, maybe I could try some too. 

•

When I woke up, I was at home on the couch, wrapped in my blanket like a burrito. I blinked, and suddenly there was Yash, wearing a suit covered in green powder.

“Woo! The Irish team LOVED my pitch. That’s another billion dollars in my account!”

Yash talked about the money he managed like it was his personal inheritance. He seemed to get a promotion every week, but I had no idea how much money he actually made.

“How did I get here?” I asked. My head felt like there was a drum beating inside it.

“You fell into the trash can at work. Some new kid fished you out,” Yash said, like it was no big deal. Everything was either a huge deal to him or not a deal at all. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

I congratulated Yash, and he whooped again.

I wondered if the new kid he mentioned was the one I had seen digging through the trash can, but I was too scared to ask Yash, because he hated when I brought up Other People. Other People fell into one of three categories for Yash: irrelevant, an inconvenience, or a threat. He most often perceived Other People around me as a threat. He was wildly jealous of the idea of anyone interacting with me, assuming they were waiting for a moment of his distraction, when they could finally whisk me away to fuck me into delirious submission and fealty. This was how Yash fantasized I would leave him, with no free will on my part.

“Let’s have dinner and champagne!” Yash said, whooping again.

We gathered at the table. He made a sourdough pizza, which he placed in the table’s center. He popped open a very expensive bottle of champagne with a BANG! which made the drum in my head beat louder. He filled two flutes, and we both sipped on our glasses while Yash put the pizza on our plates. He liked to make a big deal about the moral significance of plating as he arranged the slices this way and that, until he was satisfied and we could eat.

After dinner, we wiped our faces on bamboo napkins, and then I did the dishes. We couldn’t have a dishwasher, because there was nowhere for the hideous wiring to go. Even though my head was still pounding, I kept my posture elegant. I washed with the martial grace and coordination of a ballerina, a show for those walking by outside. 

My whole body hurt when I was done, and there was a tightness in my chest. This feeling happened sometimes, and when it did, I would crawl into our coat closet. That room was stuffed with ski jackets, fleeces, snow pants, boots, glass cleaner, and bags of mittens. It was so quiet in there that when I was inside, I could believe I was dead. 

I waited for Yash to go to bed before I crawled into the coat closet that night. I sat there for a long time. The drum beat in my head quietly hammered away, and the image of the new girl digging through the trash popped into my mind. I tried to focus on something else, like the electric hum of the fridge, the oven, the computer, but I couldn’t hear them inside the closet. The image of her only grew brighter and stronger in my mind, and suddenly, I had an urge to touch myself. My hand flew into my pants like a magnet, and I began to rub. I thought about the girl fisting her way through the trash, gnawing at rinds of fruit, teething on bagel ends, which made my fingers move faster and faster. Just when I thought her throat was going to rip open, I came. Then I pulled out the thickest ski coat I could find.

•

The next morning, I woke up with a deep sense of shame lodged in my chest. Yesterday at work felt so far away, so strange, it had to have been a terrible dream. I promised myself that I would go easier on my pills, and that I would implement even better than before. I exfoliated my skin so hard it turned red, and I added BeneFiber to my yogurt before I inhaled it. On the bus to work, I crushed my abs, left, right, up, down. When I got off, I was covered in sweat. I marched straight to my desk, opened an abstract I had been working on, and began to type type type. I squeezed my eyes three times and told myself if that new girl wasn’t real, then I would work an extra hour today, and even start on the analysis for Dr. A’s paper so she wouldn’t have to think of it herself. I would even submit it to a symposium. New hires walked in and out of my office, asking me questions about how to access the calendar, how to log in to email. I was more productive than I ever had been.

At two o’clock, I went to the bathroom. I had extremely regular bowel movements from the probiotic yogurt, but I found that when I got to the stall, I had trouble relaxing. Something was clamping me up. I tried my usual trick. I imagined I was on a cloud, floating above the toilet. I counted down from ten, expecting gas to pass when I got to one, but nothing happened. I counted down again, and then again. The fifth time counting down, I found myself floating not on a cloud, but above the Science Meeting. There was the new girl, eating from the trash. I instantly loosened up, and my shit came streaming out.

•

When the weekend rolled around, Yash surprised me with wine tasting in Sonoma County.

“What about the open house?” I asked, but he told me he had pushed it off to allow us more time to get ready to not sell the house.

We went to three different wineries and had our drinks paired with cheese and dried meats. I didn’t eat the food, because Yash said unfermented animal products disrupted the delicate balance of my feminine hormones. For what I needed to balance them, I didn’t know, so I just wore my fur-trimmed white hat and looked resplendent under the valley sun. Yash was a member at all of the wineries, and an expert in complaining about every meal until it was offered to us on the house. After the bill was taken away, he bought four cases of Zinfandel for himself and a single bottle of a white I had liked.

On the way home, I got another migraine. Yash said it was my fault for not eating enough. 

“You’re right,” I snapped, “I should have eaten the food you said I can’t have.”

He became red-faced and began to breathe heavily. He jerked suddenly over onto the side of the road and slammed the brakes. I screamed.

“It’s this or I crash,” he said, panting as cars whizzed past.

Eventually he calmed enough to drive us home. As we pulled into our driveway, I could see the couch and our bed inside the house, and I realized how much I wasn’t ready for the day to end. I wanted something of my own within the day too.

When we stepped inside, all Yash’s anger vanished, like a factory reset.

“My love, come watch some TV with me,” Yash cooed, patting the spot next to him on the couch. The image of him red-faced and panting on the side of the road flashed in my mind as I sat next to him.

“Pick a show,” he said, handing me the remote, but I didn’t want to watch. I wanted to have fun.

“Let’s pair your phone to the Bluetooth speaker. I can have my wine,” I said, and put the bottle of white on the table.

Yash scowled.

 “We don’t need more wine tonight, we need to spend quality time together in our beautiful home.”

He took the bottle off the table and put it into storage. I must have made a face, because Yash said, “You’re getting worked up. Take one of these.” He handed me a pill.

I took it from him and felt a buzz of relief move down my body. I swallowed it immediately, without any water.

“I need to sleep now, I’m trading billions of dollars tomorrow. The world economy is riding on my quality of rest,” said Yash. He walked upstairs and was snoring within minutes. 

I stayed on the couch, and felt my body begin to numb, my brain sanded down and buzzing at once. Eventually, I must have fallen asleep because I had a dream. As Yash put the wine bottle in storage, I grabbed it from him and threw it at our glass wall like a grenade. The bottle shattered everywhere, and shards of glass from the bottle and the house rained down on me, stabbing into my wrists, body, and head. In the dream, not a single shard touched Yash because he never felt things the way I felt them.

•

When I woke up, it was Monday again, which meant another Science Meeting. I was running late, and when I got to work, Angeline had set out the chairs without me. I counted out fifteen chairs again, which meant Angeline had to have counted wrong. Unless . . . I didn’t have the brain capacity to think about the new girl at another Science Meeting. I took two pills.

Pedro focused the projector on a slide that said “Wellness at Work: Mentor Mentee Relationships.” I had never seen these slides before. Nothing in the Lab ever changed. I wondered if I was hallucinating. I looked around at Dr. A, then at Angeline. 

Dr. A spoke first.

“This year our lab earned a small grant for mentors and mentees to do a university-sanctioned activity together during work hours. It seems the turnover rate has been…unsavory… and we need to strengthen our bonds with one another. Hold onto what matters most. Each other. So take a moment to decide what activity you might want to do.”

She scrolled through the options: Cooking Class, Weaving, Bowling, Kayaking, Human Knot, and Rock Climbing. 

The doorknob turned, and when the door opened, everyone looked at the lanky figure in the doorway.

“Millie, you made it,” Dr. A said, beaming.

So that was her name. Millie with her pale-as-straw complexion, her bones sticking out everywhere through her lumpy sweater. She smiled shyly. A drop of drool fell out of my mouth, and I wiped it up quickly. No more pills for me today.

“Angeline will make the pairs,” said Dr. A. 

There was a feeling like a furnace turning on inside my chest. I wondered why she hadn’t asked me to make the pairs, but Angeline was already drawing names. Rob with Pedro. Jess with Jan. When she pulled out Millie’s name, I opened and shut my eyes three times. If I didn’t get paired with her, I promised myself that I would work an overnight at the Lab.

“Millie will be with…” 

I closed my eyes as Angeline unfolded the paper in her hand clumsily. 

“Sonica.”

I opened my eyes. Millie’s face hovered right in front of mine.

“Which activity do you prefer?” Millie asked, so quiet and polite it felt sinister.

Another drop of drool dribbled down my chin, but Millie didn’t blink.

“Rock climbing.”

•

We met at the climbing gym at noon the next day. I arrived first, and took two pills to calm my nerves. Millie arrived next, wearing an oversized t-shirt and shorts. I could see the pathways of her veins under her sugar sprinkle freckles, and I wondered why she hadn’t covered up more. Her skin was going to rub raw on the rocks when she climbed.

I popped another pill, and a woman with too many teeth appeared holding clipboards.

“Welcome to Rock Top Heights,” she said, handing us each a clipboard. “We’re going to need you to sign a waiver, pay your shoe rental, and pass our belay test. Then you’re off on your own.”

We each signed the waiver. Millie’s handwriting was perfect, like she had typewritten it. I wanted to do mine over, but it was too late. We were pulling our harnesses onto ourselves. I was suddenly aware of how my butt bulged out of the harness. I felt warm thinking about how she’d see me soon, hoisted above her with my ass dangling out.

“Have you belayed before?” I asked.

“What’s belay?” she said, then laughed. “I’m kidding.”

We both passed the belay test easily, and Millie offered to climb first, to my relief. She clipped herself in and checked her knots twice. Then she checked mine, her hand hovering over my belt strap for a long time.

“You’ll hold me tight, right?” she asked, still gripping my belt.

“Yes,” I said. There was a lurch near my groin. I wanted to take another pill, but Millie was already at the wall, touching it.

“On belay!” she said.

“Belay on!” I replied.

Millie was surprisingly sure-footed and strong. She climbed swiftly up the rocks, pressing her bare knees and thighs into large rocks. They became angry and red as she climbed, but she moved fearlessly. I had to work hard to keep up with her, pulling the rope down and jumping to take away the give, over and over, until my palms were sweaty and burning. Eventually, I began to wrap the rope around my hand, instead of pulling it through the belay loop. It was the only way to keep up with her as she jumped from one rock to another, like some sort of spiderwoman. 

“Millie, are you good?” I shouted as she went up another rock. I wanted to pull down the rope, but she had already moved up another hold. I wrapped another circle of rope around my hand, which was leaking sweat.

“Millie?”

She didn’t answer. She just kept climbing. Up up up. A crowd was gathering around us, well-muscled climbers who were nodding in approval at her acrobatics. She was so high above me, almost to the top. All I could see was the outline of her two butt cheeks held in tight by her harness, like some unwieldy fruit. No one looked at me as I wrapped the rope around my hand one more time. Millie pulled herself up to the very tippy top, and my hand was completely engulfed by the rope. When she rang the bell, signaling she had reached the apex, everyone whooped and whistled. Apparently the route she’d just done was some big deal. 

I wanted to clap, too, but I was holding onto the rope. I was holding tight, despite the fact that my hands were slick and in pain. 

“Millie?” I called, craning my neck up. Her head was so small, it looked like a raisin. “Millie, do you want to come down?”

She didn’t respond, and I didn’t know what to do. I held Millie’s whole life in my hands, but my hands felt like they were on fire. I gripped as hard as I could, and I told myself this was fun. I told myself this was what I wanted to do. Something wet dribbled down my chin, and I wondered if it was drool. Another drop landed on my cheek, and I realized it was Millie’s sweat, drizzling down onto me. 

“Nasty!” I yelled, and tried to get out from under it.

I swear I held on tight even though it hurt. I swear I never let go. Yet somehow, the rope still snaked out of my grip, moving so fast that it burned through my palms. I wanted to scream from the pain, but no sound came. When I looked up, Millie was descending onto me like an angel. She was so pale, like glass, and I wondered if she would shatter when she landed. I could see straight through her, all the way to my house. This should have scared me, but the view from my house was unbelievable. The way the water reflected off the sun, you really did feel like the landlord of the ocean! The closer she got, the better this view. She was an inch away from me now, and I realized that if you looked at the ocean from inside my house, it looked like the world ended where I stopped.