Page 76 of Into the Mountains
“Really?” His eyes light up and I can visibly see the worry drain from his muscles as he relaxes next to me.
“Of course. But we do need to take him to Uncle Jacob to make sure he’s healthy and gets whatever shots and medicine he might need, okay?”
“Okay,” he says loudly and turns to collect the other two kittens. Running off to an open spot in the yard a few feet away, he sets them down and starts to play with them, batting at their paws and commentating as they wrestle with one another.
I turn to George and Isabelle who are both watching their grandson with smiles brighter than the sun. “Thank you for taking care of him this weekend.”
“You know he’s welcome any time,” George says.
“For any purpose,” adds Isabelle and the look she gives me, eyebrows raised, head slightly cocked, makes me wonder if she has some intel from the camping trip already. Would anyone have actually told them about Charlotte and me? How wouldthey feel knowing I have feelings for someone who isn’t their daughter? Would they be angry?
I swallow and am more conscious than ever about my Adam’s apple sinking down and settling into my skin, a lump forming I wish nothing more than to ignore. Push it down and suppress it like I have everything else over the last few years.
“I appreciate it. See you later for dinner?” Since we had the camping trip, Sunday brunch turned into Sunday dinner this weekend. George and Isabelle would rather jump into the lake nude than miss a Sunday meal with their family. And now I’m going to have to scrub that image from my brain.
“Dinner,” they confirm, and Isabelle has a smile on her face that I’m not so sure I want to know the meaning behind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHARLOTTE
“You know, Henry and I broke up once.” From her place in the passenger seat, I can feel Fran look over at me, examining my reaction.
“You did?” I ask, surprised. I’d heard stories about the two of them and their love story, but that is one element that has always been left out or skimmed over. One either no one knows or it’s a detail people simply forget to mention, because in the end it doesn’t really matter. In the end, they lived happily ever after and nothing in the past made any difference to their future.
“We did.” She lets the anticipation hang in the air for a moment, the suspension of a hummingbird seemingly floating in midair, before she continues. “When we were younger, sometimes it was hard. We fought left and right, pushed each other’s buttons on purpose. The banter, the back and forth, was always the foundation of our relationship and it’s one of the things I miss the most. If you can’t joke around with each other and you’re serious all the time, there’s no fun. But one time and one time only, our fight escalated over something I don’t even remember now and we broke up.”
I think about Elias and me and the way we push each other similar to how Fran described her and Henry.
“You’re leaving out the part of the story where you were only broken up for barely even a whole day,” Cordie chimes in from the back seat.
“It still counts,” Fran tries to argue, but with the way she’s smiling, her argument doesn’t hold up very well.
“For a day? Really Fran?” I ask.
“It was the worst day I’ve ever had.”
“So, how did you make up then?”
“Without the dirty details this time,” Cordie begs and I want to know what makes her of all people desperate not to hear the rest of the story.
“Wait,” I argue. “I want the dirty details.” Who wouldn’t? An epic love story and an epic make-up?
“You’re going to regret that, red.” The nickname bleeds into my skin, catching the flow of my blood and seeping straight into my bones.
“Well, we both realized we made the biggest mistake of our lives. But he realized it first. He found me in our spot, a small spring a mile away from a trail no one really knows about, or didn’t at the time. I was sitting on one of the large rocks, watching the water ripple from the little waterfall off to the side and I could hear his footsteps come behind me. He always had heavy feet and we had been together long enough, I could pick out the sound of him from a group of people. We could both sense each other in a way that people always thought was strange, but I never did.”
I think about Elias and the way he slightly turns my way when I’m walking into the same room he’s in or when I can pick out the sounds of his footsteps creaking down the stairs during Sunday brunch. There’s a part of me always aware of where he iswhen we’re within proximity of one another. A sense that is only for him.
“We both apologized and knew we couldn’t stay away and well, long story short since Cordie doesn’t want to hear it, the ground beside that spring and the spring itself has been well-loved.”
“More than well, I’d say,” Cordie mutters, her voice going from soft to strained from her making an attempt to hold back her laughter and failing.
I think about the spot Fran is talking about and am not sure I’m happy I know they’ve been there and taken liberties in a place I’ve visited a lot or if I’m traumatized. Or both. Probably both.
My mind drifts back to Elias and wonder how he felt waking up to me being gone. The guilt of leaving lurks beneath the surface, waiting until I’m vulnerable enough to strike. I push it down, drowning it until the water is calm again. I had to go. I couldn’t stay and face him in the morning after.
It’s not for me.
