Page 2 of Grumped By the Mountain Man

She’s been doing that a lot lately and I want nothing more than to suck that bottom lip between mine. My fingers itch to touch her, and they’ve been itching to touch her all year.

It’s simple. Just reach out and do it, that small voice inside of my head eggs me on. Forget about Beau and the Woods brothers and what they may think of you and Ayla being together. Forget about being twelve years older than she is. Forget about being terrified of becoming like Dad. Forget about Ayla morphing into Mom. Forget about every excuse you’ve come up with to keep her at arm's length. You want this woman and it may be the last chance you have to tell her. Just reach out and—

“But some things need more time to figure out I guess.”

Like us?

Her eyes are almost sorrowful. Pained.

Like us.

But why?

Then again, what did it matter? She wants to leave the county. I know this. That’s where her nickname of ‘butterfly’ came from.

I ball my fist to keep my fingers from their trajectory.

Ayla grabs a photo of some blooming bluebells on the forest floor. There’s a tiny copper-red butterfly in the corner that’s barely visible. It’s the same color as Ayla’s hair in the sunlight that’s floating through the window. She strokes the butterfly with her thumb.

“If I win this scholarship, it’ll make me sprout wings. I won’t just be a little caterpillar trapped here in Covet County anymore.”

Trapped.

The word echoes in my skull so loudly and for so long that it rattles my brain.

Trapped.

I heard that word so many times as a kid. It’s the reason why nothing ever went right and why everything always went wrong.

Because my mother felt trapped by us.

Like we’d repeatedly ripped off her wings. First when she discovered she was pregnant with me. Then again with Cali. In between, her wings had started to sprout again, until they were brutally ripped off by Cali’s arrival.

But they grew back. There’s no way to stop them from growing back, at least metaphorically. Caterpillars have to transform, and Ayla is transforming. Just like Mom did and I would never stand in the way of that.

It’s the reason why I’ve never confessed my romantic feelings to Ayla. It’s the reason why we’ve had so many lingering hugs that never progressed to cuddling and groping. And why we’ve had three near kisses, the last one being during the lunar eclipse where my lips just missed hers as I gazed up at the moon.

If I confess, it could alter Ayla’s flight pattern. Maybe it wouldn’t but I won’t risk her changing her plans because I fiddled with her wings like Dad did. I want her to fly where she wants to go. And that’s to California.

“I can’t wait to see what’s all out there but I have to be accepted first, with that scholarship,” she says, chewing on her lip.

“Are you ready to find out?”

She nods slowly but hands me her smartphone. Her email inbox is already opened. “You do it. I can’t look.”

I put an arm around her as she covers her face and curls into my chest, pressing Mochi between us. She’s so tiny that the top of her head barely grazes my elbows.

I don’t know who’s more nervous. Her, me, or Mochi who gazes expectantly at the glowing screen.

Despite my feelings, I want Ayla to get accepted. Heck, I’ve done all I could to help her, spending hours with her at the library researching techniques and lighting and the best cameras. The latter I’d given Beau the money to buy as her graduation gift. If she knew it was from me, she’d turn it down, claiming she couldn’t ‘take advantage’ of me like that. She had no problems taking advantage of her brothers, however, and she was none the wiser when her professional camera showed up in the mail a month later.

It’s essential to me that Ayla follows her dreams. I know all too well what happens when someone is held back. When someone sacrifices what’s inside their heart for the sake of other people. Even people they helped create.

It never ends well.

“Let her go. Your little butterfly,” Dad told me one day without prompting. I never could hide my feelings from him. He raised me and my sister, Cali, alone, once mom left. No one knew me better than he did. “It’ll only cause pain if you try to hold on to her wings. It’ll only kill her. Let her go. Let it go.”

That’s what I’m doing. Letting Ayla go.

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