Page 6 of Aim High Mountain Man
“I know, Johanna. But I don’t look like I’m ready for the world.”
“You have wounds, anyone can see that, but you’re still a good-looking kid who is in the prime of his life. Anyone would be lucky to have you, sir.”
Why those words made me feel like preening like a peacock, I don’t know. But they felt good to hear. Even more so that it was said by a beautiful woman.
She gave me a smile before reaching into the box, pulling out a couple of picture frames, her fingers tracing over the smiling faces. And instead of crying like I thought she might do, she laughed.
“What did I miss?”
“This was Johnnie and my mom when he was about ten. It was the last Christmas he had when he believed in Santa. And he didn’t get what he wanted from Ol St. Nick and wrote a rather mean letter. A few days later, he found it in my drawer and asked why I didn’t send it. I couldn’t put the act up anymore and had to share.
“He was so relieved, actually, to not have to yell at a made-up person and understood why I couldn’t get what he wanted. It was just a funny moment with him. In his typical way, of course.”
She sat the pictures aside and then dug in some more, holding up a high school t-shirt that had a black stain on it, one I could never get the story about.
“What was up with that?”
She took a deep breath, holding it up her nose, but after so long, his scent had faded. Her lips lifted in a smile, the tears briefly appearing before stopping altogether.
“His senior year and he had to go out with a bang. I told you he had that teacher that didn’t like him. Well, his science classroom was right next to yours. He was mixing something up that smelled awful as he was going to leave it right by the vent so the smell would travel. However, he mixed something wrong, and it exploded all over him, hence this shirt.
“They wanted to expel him, but they couldn’t. Cause it was the last day and his last prank. They so badly wanted him to get in trouble, but he hadn’t done anything other than to himself. He kept the shirt as a memory.”
“His ass would have been kicked out if he had pulled anything like that while on the base,” I muttered, knowing I had to talk him out of a few ideas.
“That was with the thing with Johnnie. He didn’t go overboard, nothing that would ever really get him into too much trouble. Just enough to bother us, annoy them even, but that was it.”
I watched as she ran her hands over the shirt before setting it aside along with the frames. She pulled out a few other items and each one had me holding back my pain a little more. She looked over them carefully, a smile on her lips, but she never once cried.
While I was on the verge of being a mess.
Her hand ran over my back as to sooth me, and the fact that it was a motherly action when I sure didn’t see her like that wasn’t lost on me. No matter if I knew I was going to hell for the thoughts that had first entered my mind.
Finally, she pulled out the last item; his dog tags, and her breath caught.
I could have sworn those were lost in the flames, but here they were, in her hand. Blackened, of course, and finally, the dam broke.
I crumbled to the floor, the tears falling hard and fast and within the next instant, her hand clutched tightly around the pieces of metal, her arms were around me.
Amongst the cries of my own, I could hear hers.
And right there, right then, I felt a connection with her that I hadn’t felt before.
One I think we both needed.
And though there was pain, there was healing.
And it felt so right.
Chapter 3
***** Johanna *****
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, finally pulling away several minutes later.
“Don’t be,” and I meant it. Because there was no denying that he needed that release. I think he had kept that to himself since the moment of the crash. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine carrying all that around.
Come to think of it, that could probably explain part of his whole grumpiness and roughness. Although, I kind of liked that side of him.
