Ari Benkler- Why does Gene's "fear" disappear at the end of the chapter? How is it connected to what happens in the tree?

The fear that Gene demonstrated throughout the earlier parts of the book in relation to jumping off the tree was never about falling injuring himself directly, but was really about being upstaged by Finny, or being seen to be less skilled at jumping off the tree. All through the last chapter ever since Gene realized, or at least thought he realized, that there was a continuing battle of enmity between himself and Finny he was comparing himself to Finny over every little subject trying to convince himself of his superiority.  One such instance is when they are studying for their French Exam, and Finny says "Je ne give a damn pas about le francais..." and Gene is thinking about how much better he is at French than Finny. (Knowles 56). After it registers in Gene's mind that no matter what happens he will look better than Finny when he jumps off the tree. He immediately is able to bound off and jump perfectly after he sees "..the first clumsy physical action I had ever seen him make." (Knowles 60). Earlier in the last chapter Gene has a subconscious competition with Finny when they go to the beach, but he doesn't understand it for what it is yet. When Gene doesn't respond to Finny's purported show of emotion just before they go to sleep, he was "...stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth." (Knowles 48). This deeper level of thought, this essential truth, is something that Gene can't quite put a finger on until he realizes he has been in competition with Finny all along on pages 52-53 when Gene exclaims in utter disbelief, "... He hated you for getting an A in every course but one last term..." (Knowles 53). This shows the central turning point of the whole rivalry between Gene and Finny, the point in time where Gene "wakes up" as it were, and realizes that this fierce competition has being going on the whole time without him knowing it. The fear of the tree and of falling off the tree stemmed from a more deeper fear of "losing" to Finny whatever competition their composite lives could be labeled as a whole, and when he saw that Finny was, at least for the tree segment of the larger competition, out of commission, his fears about the tree fell away and he was able to jump perfectly.