Page 3 of On the Mountain

Cyrus

How could I not fall in love with a town named Tranquility? That’s what I told myself when I sat down and looked at a map of Colorado, trying to figure out where in the fuck I could disappear to. Leaving the state was always a possibility, but I wasn’t sure I could even do that—not alone, at least, and not forever.

It didn’t make sense, when you thought about it. I wanted to withdraw, to fade into nothingness, but I also couldn’t find it in myself to leave the state I’d been born in. The one I’d shared with my mom. Where we had stayed up all night, giggling and talking like the best of friends, eating popcorn with extra butter and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt on top. The state where she told me she would always love me no matter what, and if there was ever anything I needed to share with her, that her love for me would never change, which had given me the courage to come out to her at twelve years old.

But it was also the place where I would come home some days and see her passed out on the couch with a needle in her arm. Where I held her while she cried and told me she was sorry she fell off the wagon again, promised she would kick the drugs and be the mom I deserved. And she tried. She always tried, but it never worked, and one day when I found her, I couldn’t wake her up.

She had never woken up again.

And no matter how much I’d sworn I would never do the same thing, depression and loneliness had led me straight to drugs’ doors, where I’d busted the thing down and had taken my fill…until I’d woken up from my OD, lucky I wasn’t dead too…

And after a year sober from drugs, sex, and an ex-boyfriend who liked to provide me with both, and liked me to provide his friends with both, I’d landed in Tranquility.

But, unsurprisingly, there had been no magic fix. After a few weeks there, I still felt as alone on the inside as I always had. People were friendly enough. They waved on the streets, and held the door open for you, and all those things you heard about small towns, but at twenty-five, I was starting to believe I was the problem. That something inside me was broken and maybe it would never be fixed.

Like I did most things, I buried that inside me and got into the shower to get ready to go to work at the hardware store.

On the way, I stopped by the local coffeehouse to get my iced, extra-shot latte. I might have given up cocaine and heroin, but I could never give up caffeine. A guy was allowed to have one vice, right?

“Hey, Cyrus. How are you this morning?” Melody, the barista, asked. I heard she was the owner too, but she worked the counter every time I was there. She was kind, really kind. Probably too kind for me, and though it seemed like she might be trying to be my friend, I was hesitant. I had a knack for hurting people, and for getting hurt myself.

“Hello! I’m doing great. Just needed my daily pick-me-up.” I gave her a wide, fake smile that no one ever recognized wasn’t real. Sometimes it was scary how easy it was to fake it, to pretend you were happy and life was great. Most people didn’t take the time to look, not really, because if they did, they would see most of us were barely hanging on. But my shit wasn’t any more important than anyone else’s, and it wasn’t their responsibility to make sure I was okay. That didn’t mean that sometimes I didn’t just…wish someone would ask. That they would truly care if I was okay.

“Daily? Come on now,” Melody teased, starting to make my drink without me having to tell her what I wanted. “Twice a day’s more like it.”

“Why do you gotta air all my dirty laundry?” I volleyed back to her, and Melody laughed.

While she did her magic, I went to the end of the counter and browsed the internet on my phone.

It was a hot July—hard to believe that in a few months’ time snow would cover the ground and I’d spend my days bundled up and wishing I had a fireplace. Mom had always loved them, and she used to talk to me about the one in her house growing up.

Melody chatted with me for another moment after I got my coffee, and then I made my escape. I got to Harry’s Hardware store early and sat on the bench outside. We were right on Main Street, all around me people walking their dogs and going into shops. Does she feel alone too? What about her or him? It was a game I played as I observed the people passing by. I felt trapped between this place of not wanting anyone to know my loneliness, but also feeling less that way if I knew others experienced it too.

I’d drunk about a quarter of my coffee, when two older men came out of the store and stood on the other side of my bench to smoke and chat. Half of my coffee left, when I heard them say, “Oh, it’s that time of the month. Crazy Crow Jackson comes down the mountain.”

I looked up from my phone. They’d piqued my interest—of course I wanted to see what they were talking about. I followed their gazes across the street, where I saw a tall man with dark hair that hung past his shoulders. It was loose against his back, some hanging around his face like a curtain shielding him from view. He was getting out of an older pickup truck, wearing a pair of threadbare jeans with paint on them, work boots, and a tight black T-shirt. Whoever the fuck Crazy Crow was, it was clear the man spent a lot of time either working out or doing manual labor. Even through his clothes I could see how incredible his body was. Not too bulky, but enough to grab my attention. He was long, lean, and incredibly cut, the sleeves of his T-shirt almost too tight on his muscles. Yeah, his chest and arms were definitely broader than mine. I’d been called a twink often for a reason.

I watched as he pushed a lock of hair behind his ear. He had a scruffy beard and strong hands. I couldn’t make out his eye color, but his jaw looked square and strong, even under the hair.

Inexplicably, my stomach tensed. Not in an uncomfortable way, just…a different one. I wasn’t sure how to explain it other than that.

One of the men said, “He needs to get the hell outta here and go somewhere he belongs.”

“Who is he?” I found myself asking while he went into the post office.

The two men looked at me like I’d grown a second head, probably because they didn’t recognize me and I was talking to them. And apparently, everyone knew who this man was.

“I’m new in town,” I explained.

They gave me that look that said they wished people would stop moving to their small town, and while I got it, that wasn’t really the way the world worked.

“His dad was the leader of that cult, The Enlightened. Bunch of wackos, if you ask me. They secluded themselves in a community up the mountain, up higher than the other houses. His dad lost it one day, killed his mama, then tried to kill him. His dad went to prison, everyone in the cult left, but he came back. Been living up there ever since.”

“Alone?” I asked, heart pumping overtime.

“Far as anyone knows,” the second man replied. “Probably lures women up there and does all sorts of unspeakable things to them.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” the first agreed. “He comes to town about once a month, except when the snow comes. Then he’s stuck up there, doing God knows what for months on end.”

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