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“You could climb that,” I said, pointing to the wooden structure.
“You think?”
Doubt had started to creep in at this point. Or maybe it was my intuition warning me, because I looked at Daniel, who was fairly tall, and had a medium to large build, and then at the trellis and said, “Maybe not.”
“I can do it.” Daniel walked over to the trellis, yanked on it to test the sturdiness, and then, feeling confident, put his foot on the bottom of the wooden structure and reached up to pull himself upward.
“I think we could find another way,” I said, feeling slightly panicked.
“I’ve got this,” he said, moving farther up. And to his credit, and I suppose the credit of his pseudoladder, he did seem to be doing it. The anxious feelings subsided. I stood there, arms folded over my chest, watching him as he made his way up.
He was about halfway to the top, where the window was, when we both heard a definite crack.
“Um, Daniel? I think you should come back down,” I told him.
“I’m almost there,” he said, through heavier breathing. Daniel wasn’t exactly out of shape, but he wasn’t exactly in it either.
“Daniel,” I said, my voice a warning, feeling the rush of worry run through me when the structure made another cracking sound.
He stopped and looked down at me. “Maybe I should come back down,” he said.
“I think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m so close, though,” he said, looking up at the window.
“Just come down,” I said. “We’ll think of something else.”
We would later learn two important lessons about trellises. First of all, trellises are not built for humans to climb. Which, in hindsight, seems sort of like one of those things that is pretty obvious. Secondly, climbing down is trickier than climbing up.
Daniel took one step down, and that was apparently the straw that broke the trellis’s back, because in what felt like a split second, the whole thing wrenched from the wall and Daniel and the trellis came tumbling down.
Daniel landed on his back with a very lovely crunching sound. The trellis landed in pieces all around him, but mostly on top of him.
“DANIEL!” I screamed, and running over to him, I started pulling all the wood shards off him, then knelt down, the pebbles from the gravel road digging into my knees.
He was out cold, but I could see his chest rising and falling, so at the very least he was alive. Of all the stupid things to do on your wedding day.
My scream must have been loud enough to be heard over the fans in the room where Scarlett and the other bridesmaids were getting ready, because I heard the window open and looked up to see Scarlett’s curler-clad head pop out. Luckily, it was just as Daniel’s eyes opened.
“Daniel!” she screamed when she saw him on the ground. “What happened?”
“He was trying to climb up the trellis and fell off,” I said.
“I’m okay,” said Daniel. Still kneeling by him, I put a hand on his chest to keep him from sitting up.
“You might have broken something,” I said.
“Why was he trying to climb up the trellis?” Scarlett yelled down.
“To see you,” I said. “He has something to give you.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s so romantic,” she said. Of course that’s where her mind would go. Not to the fact that her almost husband was on the ground with a possible head injury or broken bone, or both.
“You stay here,” I said, getting up on my feet. Then to Scarlett I said, “I think we need to call an ambulance.” At this point, some of the staff and a few of the groomsmen had come out to see what was going on.
“No,” Daniel protested, sitting up on his own.
“You need to at least be looked at,” I said, staring down at him.
