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Jeremy likes climbing.
He’s always been slender and nimble and ‘too skinny’. People always tell him he needs to eat more, but Michael can attest that Jeremy eats far too much - he just has an overactive metabolism.
As he got older, Jeremy got clumsier and more awkward. He trips over his own feet, he drops stuff and he can’t catch things to save his life.
But it’s different when he’s climbing. He’s quick and he knows exactly where to put his hands and feet.
Michael says he was a monkey in a past life. Jeremy reminds him they all come from monkeys. (“Touché.”)
He spent his whole childhood climbing.
His mom used to fall asleep when looking after him as a toddler, so he learned to climb the stairs to the bathroom and to climb on the kitchen chairs to get a juice box.
When he was 7, his toy plane got stuck in the tree in the backyard. After 3 days of his parents saying they’d rescue it and then not doing anything, Jeremy took matters into his own (small) hands and decided to save it himself. It took a few tries and a scraped knee, but he proudly showed Michael with a toothy grin the next day.
By age 9, him and Michael were allowed to play in the woods behind Michael’s house. Michael’s moms gave them an emergency cell to call them if something happened, but they never needed to use it. Jeremy taught Michael how to climb trees and they soon discovered the best ones to sit in. By the summer after their 12th birthdays, they’d build a little den in the branches of the huge oak right behind Michael’s house.
When Jeremy was 15, his parents had given up on trying to hide their arguments, shouting at each other well into the night. One evening, Jeremy was staring out of his window, considering the best route to climb down to escape from the yelling downstairs. That’s when he notices how far his window ledge jutted out. With a deep breath and a white-knuckle grip on the wooden frame, he steps out and looks around. If he puts one foot there and another there...hold there for support… He found himself on the roof. It was stable, hidden and not too cold. So, every time his parents started to yell, he would put on a hoodie, grab his phone and portable charger, text Michael and go sit on the roof for a few hours. Sometimes Michael would call him. Sometimes Michael would walk to his house and sit with him. It became his safe space.
It was roughly 4 months after deactivating the SQUIP that Michael suggested it.
“Rock climbing?”
“Yeah. You used to love climbing on stuff.”
“I… I still do.”
So they go. Michael drives, and they get slushies on the way back.
They start small, with indoor climbing walls. Michael decides he doesn’t like it anymore and sits off to the side. Once Jeremy gets good enough to climb up one wall, around the top and down another, they move on.
Jeremy actually gets some muscle for once in his life - not even the SQUIP managed to help him with that - and even though he’s still skinny as fuck, he looks and feels better.
One night after an intense climb of a rocky cliff, Jeremy is sat in his safe space for the first time since he took that stupid pill, contemplating life.
All things considered, he actually feels happy again. The world might be turning to shit, and he never knows if the SQUIP is truly gone, but there is one thing that he knows for absolute certain:
Jeremy likes climbing.