Page 77 of Into the Mountains
The words I told him. The ones I uttered while looking him straight in the eyes. The words that were a lie.
“Why exactly am I going to this again?”
“Because,” Avery explains, her arm looped through mine as we walk up the gravel driveway to the large house with white paneling and a bright red door no one could ever forget. We walkup the few stairs and I am now standing on the Waters’ porch for Sunday dinner. “You were invited and I’m not letting you bail on it just because Elias is going to be here.”
“That’s not the reason I’d bail,” I lie—something I’ve been doing too much of recently.
She side eyes me with a look that says she sees right through it. And I know she does. After divulging everything from my past I hadn’t told her before, she knows me better now than anyone has for a long time. With the exception of Elias. Maybe.
“Please,” she says, following Hudson inside. “You would be in bed right now hiding under your covers like the boogeyman was coming to get you.”
“The boogeyman isn’t real, Aunt Avery.” Ethan passes from the kitchen to the living room, not bothering to look our way as he sits on the couch with three kittens surrounding him.
“He’s definitely real,” I mutter under her breath just loud enough for Avery to hear.
“What do you mean?” she asks, but I brush her off and make my way to Ethan and his companions which apparently grew over our weekend away.
His form is sunken into the well-loved couch and the two kittens I recognize, Sable and Erebor, are on either side of him, batting at the dangling cat toy between them, an occasional claw getting snagged. And just a few inches above them, crouching on Ethan’s shoulder is another kitten. This one is with bright white fur with no markings or color to them.
I go to his side and the couch dips, Ethan’s body leaning toward mine. “And who is this one?” I ask, scratching the top of the kitten’s head.
“Hobbles,” answers Ethan.
I try to hide my laughter rising to the surface, but how can you with a name like that? “Hobbles is a fantastic cat name.”
“It seems to fit him.”
Sure enough, Hobbles starts making his way down Ethan’s shoulder and moves in a way you can only describe as hobbling, because he is missing a leg.
“It really does,” I agree.
The air in the room shifts and the words from the night before cascade down my back causing me to shiver.
It’s not for me.
I want to groan in frustration. Why did I say that? Why do I have to let the fear of something good ruin my desire to experience it? Why can’t I just let myself have what I want?
Because I don’t feel like I truly deserve it. Before I tell the little bitch of a voice inside my head to shut up, I acknowledge the thought and then promptly flush it down my metaphorical toilet.
Elias’s footsteps sound in the hallway and I don’t even want to admit the fact that I’d have known them from anywhere. Just like Fran did Henry. Definitely not thinking about the meaning behind all of that.
Hudson claps Elias on the back and they make their way outside. “Ethan watch out for the kittens in here, okay? I don’t want anyone to step on them.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ethan calls back, his eyes never leaving the kittens.
“How exactly did you con your dad into going from zero cats to three in the matter of a few weeks?”
He’s either just really good or Elias is a complete sucker. Or both.
“Honestly, I have no idea. I didn’t think he’d even go for Sable and then we met her sibling and I knew Dad wouldn’t be able to resist. And there’s just something about Hobbles you can’t say no to. I played off his pity card there.”
Hobbles looks grateful for it. No longer outside lost in the woods or searching around for his next meal. He has a directionnow, a home. I see a lot of myself in Hobbles. A little broken down kitten born with more challenges already than he deserves into a harsh world that won’t give him any credit for what he’s faced at such a young age.
I keep searching for what I want and wage a war with what I think I need to do. The version of me in the past would scream at me for even thinking about giving Elias another chance. But I also know that in the future I would scream louder for not giving what we could be a chance.
After high school, I changed. I went from the nerdy girl who was quiet, only loud when it came to beating her rival, to a college woman who grew into herself and became more confident and louder when she felt like it, not just at certain times. I let myself be loud. Live my life. But there’s only so much life I can live when I’ve carried too much pain from the past. Bottled it up and threw it into the ocean of other painful memories I relive too often. Maybe it’s finally time to let it wash up on shore and pull the cork free. Release what I’ve been holding onto so I can start again.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Ethan.
