Hong Kong was different from what they thought it would be. It was not loud. It was dense. The buildings were stacked so close together that the sky was a narrow strip of blue. The heat was around them as soon as they stepped out of the airport.
Eva loved it. She breathed it in like she had been waiting for it forever.
"You feel that?" she asked, looking up at the skyline.
"Feel what? The heat?"
"No. The possibility." She took his hand. Pulled him towards the taxi. "Every city has a heartbeat, Kevin. This one is fast. I like it when things are fast."
He. Pulled their bags behind him. "You are going to get me killed before we even get to the building."
Eva said "You got it backwards."
Their hotel room looked out over Victoria Harbour. That night Kevin stood at the window watching the water reflect all the lights. Eva was on the bed checking her gear. She was touching her carabiner like it was something
"Which building is it?" he asked, not looking from the window.
"The one " she said. "It is obvious."
"Eva " he said.
She looked up. "It is the International Commerce Centre. It is four hundred and eighty-four meters tall. I will climb it in nine days."
He turned around. "Nine days " he said.
"Nine days to get ready check the weather. Wait for the wind to be right. Then I will do it."
Kevin went over to the bed. Sat down beside her. He picked up one of her bags. Turned it over in his hands.
"Tell me something " he said. "What is it like when you are there? I want to know what it feels like, not the stuff."
Eva was quiet for a moment. Then she put down the carabiner.
"It is like the whole world gets small and honest at the time " she said. "Everything that does not matter just goes away. My job does not matter when I am there. My name does not matter. What people think of me does not matter. All that matters is my hands, the wall. If I trust myself to keep going."
"Do you trust yourself?" he asked.
"Yes, every time. That is the part people do not understand. They think I am running away from something. I am not. I am running towards the place where I know who I am."
Kevin took her hand. "I used to think I was scared of you falling " he said.
"What about now?" she asked.
"Now I think I was scared that you would find out you do not need me. That the ground is not your home. I was scared that the wall would tell you something about yourself that I could not."
Eva turned to face him. "The wall will never tell me I do not need you Kevin. It just tells me I am alive. You tell me I am loved. Those are not the thing and I do not want to choose between them anymore."
He kissed her slowly like there was no hurry. Like Hong Kong was not waiting outside with its strip of sky and its four hundred and eighty-four meters of steel and glass.
"Nine days " he said.
"Nine days " she said. "Stay close not because I need you to save me but because I want you there when I come down."
"I will be counting every floor " he said.
"Just do not count loud it will mess up my rhythm " she said.
He laughed, laughed and for the first time he felt something else besides fear. Not instead of the fear. With it.
Outside the harbour lights kept blinking patiently waiting. The whole city was alive, around two people who had finally stopped fighting.