Page 7 of On the Mountain

My eyes jerked open, but I didn’t move. My reaction was always different when it came to having a dream about before. Sometimes I was angry, others I felt nothing at all. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t change anything I’d been through. The only thing that ever hurt was when I thought about her. My mother. She had given up her life for me. She had wanted something more for me. Not more than the mountain, I didn’t think. If so, I couldn’t give her that—couldn’t leave this place I loved so much. Did it matter that my life was different? Would she at least be happy that I didn’t spend my life getting hit with a switch, spending hours alone in isolation, or carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders?

My eyes were wide open, and I knew I wouldn’t sleep again tonight, so I did what I often did in moments like these. I got out of bed, went to my safe, and plucked out my mother’s journal. She’d told her story within these pages, some notes to me specifically, some just writing out her feelings. I’d never known it existed until the lawyer had given it to me.

She had been alone when she’d met my father. She’d grown up in a very wealthy family, with parents who traveled often. She was raised by nannies. When she was eighteen, her parents died in an airplane crash. She’d been searching for love, for community, and had found it in Chosen. He was older than her and charismatic. When he’d spoken, people had listened.

I opened the journal, eyes scanning the sometimes neat, sometimes messy handwriting. I didn’t read in order, just picked over certain things, even though I knew the whole thing by heart.

When my parents died, they left me everything, but money was all I had. No self-confidence, no self-esteem, had never known what it was like to be loved, and I wanted that, so very badly.

It was only a few months after my parents passed away that I met Chosen. I was nineteen, naive to the world, lonely. I didn’t have many friends. He was handsome and charismatic. All the women wanted to be with him, and all the men wanted to be him. He just had that electric kind of personality. When he spoke, people listened, they believed, they wanted to be a part of whatever he was.

For some reason I couldn’t understand, Chosen wanted me, picked me, made me feel loved for the first time. I had never known anything like that before.

I see now that he picked me because he knew he could manipulate me, that I was so needy for love, he could take advantage of that…

You deserved better than the life we were giving you.

That’s when I started my plan of escape, but I think I knew even then that it was too late for me. But I swear to you, Crow, it’s not too late for you! It is never too late for you.

I closed the book and locked it away again. While it helped me deconstruct the things Chosen had taught me, it also filled me with guilt, because now she was dead, and I would never be able to give her so many of the things she’d wanted for me.

CHAPTER THREE

Cyrus

I was counting the days until Crow might come down the mountain again. Was it every single month? Did it happen on the exact same day? Did he always go to the hardware store? So many questions I didn’t have answers to, and I didn’t know who to ask, or if I should ask. This obsession I’d had with him over the last few weeks probably wasn’t healthy, but I held on to it just to have something.

Today was exactly a month since the day he’d come down the mountain, and of course I was off work. I didn’t ask for much in life. Couldn’t I be working the day my new fascination came back so I would have an excuse to talk to him? Instead, I was searching for my keys, which I kept losing. The plan was to head downtown and linger around all day in hopes of spotting him. What I would say to him if I did see him was a mystery.

It was still early in the morning when I made my way to Tranquil Brew so I could get my coffee. Melody was working like always. I swear the woman never had a day off. She smiled when she saw me in a way that made warning bells go off inside me.

“Hey, Cyrus. You’re a little early today.”

That’s because I’m trying to stalk a mountain man.

“I’m off work but felt like getting out of the apartment early.” Which was unusual but good for me. I tended to sit around all day when I was off. Depending on my mood, I could stay home for days, weeks even, while other times, I had to get out or I felt like I was losing it.

“Well, lucky me.”

That warning inside me grew. I stuffed my hands in my jeans pockets and tried to avoid making eye contact with her. Did I just spit out that I was gay? If I was wrong about what she was doing, I’d look like an asshole, and if she was a homophobe, that would suck. But then, it had been a long time since I’d hidden my sexuality from anyone, a long time since I was ashamed, and I didn’t plan to go back into the closet now. People in Tranquility didn’t know, but that was only because I wasn’t friends with anyone. I hadn’t been here long enough to hook up with anyone either, if there was even someone I could hook up with. I had no idea.

She charged me for my usual, while I racked my brain for what to say. “I moved here to get away from my ex-boyfriend,” I spit out like an idiot. I’d left Eddie over a year ago, after my OD and before going into rehab, but I’d run into him a few times after that, and he always tried to get me back. I couldn’t figure out why because when we were together, he was never happy with anything I did.

“Ugh. I have an asshole ex too,” she replied. “And I thought you might be queer.”

She had? “I thought…”

“You thought I was trying to hit on you? No. I just thought we might be on the same team. I guess I should mention my ex is a woman.”

Oh…oh. “Well, now I feel stupid.”

Melody chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. You are cute, just not my type. But I do know how hard it can be to find your people, so if you need a friend…”

That was even harder to wrap my head around than her hitting on me. I hadn’t had friends since I was sober. One might argue I didn’t have friends when I was using either. It was all about drugs or Eddie or being high and fucking Eddie and his friends. Gangbangs were his thing, and I was usually the center of attention. Not that it had bothered me. I loved sex and chased the feeling it gave me. While the high never lasted, for a moment or two it felt good. Not the deep, real kind of good. I wasn’t sure I ever felt something real in my life, but temporarily it gave me something.

“Thank you,” I replied, which was probably not what she’d been hoping to hear. “I’m not good at that…friendship. I tend to…” Fuck it up? Get lost inside myself? Drop off the face of the earth? Get high and forget about someone? The list was endless.

“No pressure. I just thought I’d put it out there. How about I give you my number just in case, and if you feel comfortable, you can give me yours?”

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