Page 286 of Untouchable

And no matter what he's going to do, it's going to be a disappointment.

And maybe—he realizes as the day passes—maybe that's okay.

Disappointing the love of your life sometimes, Harp realizes now, is better than never having anyone to disappoint at all.

It’s been an odd day, and when he gets the message from Parker, he’s standing close to the same ridge where they’d been that night with the coyote. He realizes it’s the afternoon and has no idea when that had managed to happen.

He’s been busy, throwing himself into work, thinking about Parker—thinking about how to fight for his goddamned life, to make sure that Parker wants him and is happy with him. He’s been treading the borders of the property, appreciating the crisp air and the sunlight and even the chapping wind.

Harp loves Storm Mountain. He fell in love with the place the first time he laid eyes on it. It hadn’t been that organic, trustable, beautiful thing he’d created together with Parker. His affection for Storm Mountain was more abrupt and brutal, knowing that he needed this place in his life, knowing that Storm Mountain would never love him back.

But it didn’t matter. It does not matter, now, and never has. In its loveless objectivity, Storm Mountain has never cared about his sins or his lies or his negligence. It has never judged him for his inability to make the right jokes at the right time, his inability to smooth over awkward situations.

It is harsh and indifferent and Harp has clung to it for dear life since his accident.

But goddamn it,Harp thinks: his life on Storm Mountain has not been bleak.

All of those things Parker said about him in the beginning—how lonely he must be, how separated. All of those things Gil said about him last night at the table—about how he would never bounce back from losing Parker.

None of it is true.

Yes, Harp has felt loneliness on Storm Mountain. He’d also felt loneliness surrounded by five people in a too-small prairie home an hour outside of Gainesville, Florida. He’d felt loneliness with four roommates in undergrad. He’d felt loneliness rutting into a stranger in a by-the-hour hotel room.

But Harp is whole—has been whole—and Parker didn’t change that. Storm Mountain didn’t change that.

Even if Parker doesn’t want him anymore, he can still live. Harp’s time here is full of life and love—love of nature, love of his animals, love of his ability to carve something out, just for him, that he gets to control.

Parker leaving wouldn’t break him. It wouldn’t ruin him. None of the terrible things in his life have accomplished that—and though the loss of something sweet is a different kind of ache, Harp knows that in the end he will emerge. Parker has shown him that even the most unlikely dreams can come true—and that reality doesn’t end simply because Parker doesn’t want him anymore.

But, he reminds himself, thinking over the plans he made as he worked today—But I am going to fight like hell for him. I won’t lose him without a war.

He smiles at Parker’s text message and taps in his lame reply, feeling like his love is too big for himself, hoping that Parker will understand why he needs this day to... figure out how to be worthy of Parker to begin with.

>>HARP: A lot less hungover than you'd think. Hope the same's true for you. See you tomorrow afternoon.

* * *

Parker nearly jumpsout of his skin when Harp responds, and it takes him a moment to work up the courage to actually read it. When he does he feels… shitty.

He’s not sure what he’d expected, but it isn’t this. There’s something so neutral about it—cold, cryptic—that leaves Parker feeling hollow and uncertain. He’s already walking back to Rocky Mountain when it hits him.

It sounds like the kind of text he’d send a co-worker he didn’t mind but didn’t feel particularly compelled to be friends with. It sounds distant and carefully scripted. It sounds, Parker thinks, like someone who can take or leave Parker’s presence in his life.

He doesn’t send anything back. Harp’s text message, he thinks, invites no response.

That night he makes a decision.

Tomorrow, he will talk with Harp. He will listen. He will hear Harp’s side of things. But this time, things will be different. He won’t make excuses for Harp. He won’t let things be brushed under the rug. He won’t let himself make the same mistakes he’d made with Cole—he’d been so afraid of Cole leaving him, of being alone, that he’d allowed himself to take whatever meager scraps of an apology Cole gave him.

And he’d told himself that was enough.

He needs Harp to apologize. He needs Harp to mean it. And he needs to know it will never happen again.

And if Harp can’t give him that, then it’s over.

Parker can only hope he’ll have the strength to follow through with this.

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