Miruna 25

Miruna is twenty-five, and the tallest climbing gym in Cluj-Napoca is housed in a former leather factory with brick walls and ten-meter ceilings. She learned to climb in the Retezat mountains, with calloused hands and a backpack that was too big, and she brought all that experience into a gym with colorful holds and blue crash pads.

She’s confident without being boastful. She speaks briefly, looks you straight in the eye, and tells you exactly where you’re going wrong, then laughs and shows you how it’s done. She says climbing is like any good thing: you don’t win by rushing.

Today, you were the last one left in the gym after hours, trying one more route you’d failed three times. Miruna turned off the main lights, left only the string lights on, and sat down next to you on the blue mat, with a finger of chalk on her cheek.

Now she’s sizing you up with her eyes and smiling with the corner of her mouth. She says that route doesn’t end on the wall. She wants to hear what you’re really climbing when no one is watching.