Page 69 of On the Mountain

“This is what you do? When you come out here? Paint me?”

“I painted other things before I met you…nothing but you since.”

My heart… I couldn’t put into words what it did. The truth was, I didn’t have a heart anymore. Not one that belonged to me. I had given mine to Crow. It was his, in his possession, and always would be.

“Do I really look like this? Am I really this beautiful to you?”

I heard Crow move behind me, until he was right next to me. “I keep painting because they never turn out as beautiful as you are.”

I didn’t know what was happening to me. One moment I was fine, the next tears spilled down my cheeks, loud sobs pulling from my throat.

Crow sat beside me, pulled me into his arms, tugged me to his lap and held me, hands touching me everywhere, like he was trying to make sure I was okay.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought—”

“You didn’t hurt me. You…you’re healing me.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around it, how Crow could see all this beauty inside me, but I did believe he was the most beautiful person I’d ever known…so if he saw it there, I had no choice but to believe it.

He kissed my tears away, taking them on his tongue, making them a part of him.

I dropped my head on his shoulder—and noticed something against the wall on the far side of the room. Hidden between all the canvases of me was another one…something else.

Crow didn’t stop me as I climbed off his lap, but he didn’t move either, continued to stay there with his back to me as I made my way through the maze of art. I felt the heaviness in the air, the stillness that could only come from being in a room with Crow. When he wanted, he could be completely silent, not making a sound, just like the most vicious predators.

But Crow was no predator. He was more human than most people could hope to be.

There was no doubt in my mind he knew what I saw. If he didn’t, he would turn around, would watch me, would say something. In this situation, his silence was permission. I knew Crow well enough to understand that.

My hands shook as I pulled the painting out, holding in the shocked sound that tried to slip free.

It was The Enlightened. All of them. Standing in a group like one big, happy family, with Crow’s father right in the middle.

There was a woman to his left. His arm was slung around her shoulder. She had Crow’s same dark eyes, the same knowledge in them that said they’d seen a lot, been through a lot, lifetimes’ worth, like the two of them were old souls and had walked the earth for hundreds of years.

Crow stood in front of her and his father, his dad’s hand on one shoulder, his mom’s on the other.

They all smiled and looked happy despite the horrors I knew happened here…knew there were even worse things I didn’t know about. You would never guess that. Never guess the pain the man had caused, but most monsters were like that. They made you believe they cared, that they wanted what was best for you, made you believe they were the only answer, the only ones who could help you, when really, they were the ones who would break you. Monsters hid in plain sight, slowly chipping away at your choices, at your possibilities, and that was what the monster in his painting had done to every single one of them.

Some had escaped. Crow had in some ways, but not others, and his mom had been a casualty of Chosen’s cruelty. I wouldn’t call him Crow’s dad—not anymore.

“It wasn’t all bad,” Crow said, beside my ear. I jumped, not having heard him move. “He got into your head…made us think we were happy, that we were doing good work, that this was our destiny and we should be thankful for it. Sometimes he’s still in my head.”

“That’s not your fault.” I turned to look at him.

“Is it not? I keep this. Sometimes I want things to be how they were.”

“That’s because it was all you knew, Crow. And then you were thrust into a world you didn’t understand. You want to go back because you had your mom. There are times I wish I could go back too. My mom was in pain every day. She hated herself. She would pass out in her own vomit. But I would go back because I had her. Being alive is so complicated. Feelings are complicated. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”

And I guessed that meant I wasn’t a bad person either.

“She was going to escape with me.” He looked at the painting, eyes hitched on his mom. “I didn’t learn about that until she was dead, and for a while, I was angry with her. He’d killed her because she wanted more for herself, and I was angry with her for that.” The self-hate in his voice ripped my heart out, shredded it into a million pieces.

My poor, wounded, bighearted Crow. He took the weight of everything that had happened—to The Enlightened, and even to me—and carried it on his shoulders. Made it his fault. For the rest of my life, I would do everything in my power to ease his struggle.

“You were a child—one who’d been brainwashed. You lost everything that night, then felt abandoned by everyone else leaving you. This mountain is the only real home you’ve ever known. You belong here, Crow. Even I see that.” He felt like he was a part of it, like he had roots stronger than any of the trees, holding him here. Like Tranquility Mountain lived off Crow’s heartbeat, and him off the mountain’s. “You were scared and alone. You love her. You closed yourself off to all the teachings engrained in you and became the best man I’ve ever known.”

He leaned in, dropped his forehead to mine, then rubbed his scratchy beard against my face. “Thank you for giving yourself to me.”

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