Page 22 of The Silent Mountain Man

"How?" I force out. "How are you my Princess?"

"My name's not Michael," he begins in a low, gravelly tone. "It never was. My dad really was a criminal. Wasn't kidding about that. We were on the run, hiding out in the mountains until the heat was off."

I reach out and touch the end of a loose strand of his hair. "Your hair is shorter."

"It is. Not as short as it was when I was in the military. I'm growing it back."

"It was lighter, too."

"It goes lighter in summer."

"So, it's really…you?"

He brushes his finger down the side of my face, his expression unreadable but a little softer and less intense than it was a few moments ago. "It is."

"And Harrick is your real name? You're not still on the run, are you?"

A tiny smile. "Real name. No longer on the run. Promise."

"Oh, you promise, do you?" I retort, a receding flame of anger flaring up. "Like I'm not just processing the fact that you lied to me about everything ten years ago. That the person I fell in love with for the first time, the whole experience I had with you, that everything about that was fake. What was it? Just some silly game to you? I was some dumb city kid going through an emo phase that you could toy with?"

"Nothing about us was fake," he growls. "And you're one to fucking talk. You deserted me in the middle of the night without so much as a letter to tell me you were leaving."

"I didn't desert you. I was taken. Dad must've found our letters. He called my mom, and she came to get me and take me back to the city. I didn't know what was happening until she was there, yelling at me to pack my stuff so we could go. I didn't have time to write you a letter. It broke my heart having to leave you."

"Broke your heart, huh? And you were so damn heartbroken that you never came back, huh?"

"I came back." I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing through the pain. "But you were gone."

Our chests are pounding against each other. It's not easy arguing with someone when they're literally lying on top of you, especially when it's releasing years and years of pent-up emotions and hurt.

"Can you get off me please?" I whimper. "I'm starting to feel nauseous."

Harrick rolls off me, and I sit upright. He crosses his legs, remaining a few feet away from me on the floor.

An awkward silence hangs between us.

"Your eyes."

I shake my head. "What about them?"

"They were brown."

"I was using colored contact lenses. I went all in on the emo thing, remember?"

"Right… When did you come back for me?"

"A few months later."

"A fewmonths?"

The raw anguish in his voice makes my chest hurt.

Unable to bring myself to tell him what I need to while looking at him, I turn away. It's still too damn painful, even after all this time.

"Mom didn't take me back home. She took me to a conversion clinic."

I take a break, willing myself on.I'm strong. I can say this. He deserves to know the truth."One of those places where they try to 'cure the gay' out of you."

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