I specifically remember a windy night in early February. My memory tells me that it was very late at night, but I know that it was really only 8:00 or 9:00, a darker night brought on by the winter winds. Jensen and I had been walking the town all evening. I had donned a pair of red mittens that made me feel ten years old again, but I didn't care because I was determined to climb trees with Jensen in the cold wind.
We had been sitting in a tree, resting our sore feet, and watching our city's night life when Jensen pointed to a shadow in the distance. "Do you see that cell tower, Ella?" He asked.
I looked at the shadow more closely and, after Jensen's suggestion of it being a tower, began to form the shape of one. "You've been wanting to climb that for months," I laughed. Typically, whenever Jensen had his eye on a new climbing spot he didn't wait more than a week to conquer it. This tower was different. It was taller than anything he had climbed before, and by far the most dangerous- not to mention illegal.
"Tonight is the night," he decided.
"It's cold out," I complained.
Jensen had already hopped out of the tree. "Let's go."
With a sigh I slid down the tree and followed him back to the sidewalk. We walked a good two miles before we reached the tower. The metal bars that made up the tower creaked and shivered in the wind. We stood at the base, staring up at it. The top disappeared into darkness, illuminating every few seconds with a blinking red light. I looked over at Jensen. "You don't have to climb it, Jensen. Plus there's got to be several police out."
"They're attention will be on the clubs and bars, we'll be fine," he explained. He placed a bare hand on the first bar of the tower.
"It's not safe," I warned.
He looked at me and smirked, "I know." His feet left the ground.
I begged him not to. I had never before told him not to climb something for I had every confidence in him. It was the intimidating, dark, fragile monster that loomed over us that made me doubt his success and confirm my own failure.
"You don't think I'll fall, do you?" He asked.
I didn't answer his question. "What's the point of climbing it? Can't you just stay down here?"
"And live with the fact that there's something out there that I can't conquer? Never," he laughed then proceeded to climb up a few feet.
I let him become a shadow with the tower until I called through the bitter air, "Jensen, please come down!" I couldn't bare it any longer. The wind was treacherous and I couldn't shake the image of his falling silhouette from my subconscious. "You won't make it!" I had broken a vow that I had sworn to myself- I told someone that they were incapable of doing something.
Jensen stopped climbing. After a stretch of what felt like a thousand years he replied, "No I won't. Not unless I have help."
"You're no coming down, are you?"
He didn't reply because I already knew his answer. I rolled my eyes and with a huff I slipped off my mittens and placed a palm on the cold metal bar of the cell tower. Drawing up every ounce of courage I had, I lifted my foot off the ground and climbed onto the first bar, then the second, and soon I had reached Jensen. "Don't look down," he told me. He always told me not to look down but I always looked down anyways. I liked seeing the ground get further away, the world getting smaller and smaller.
Climbing that tower were one of the scariest moments of my life but I had never felt anything like what I felt when we reached the top. Together we had defeated the dark, luminous tower that threatened our confidence and success. Another feeling came when my feet reached the ground again- safety, security, and accomplishment. Truth is, Jensen would have made it up that tower just find by himself but it was scaling the beast together that gave both of us the strength and courage we needed.
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