Page 14 of The Gift
He turned to face me, licked his lips, and took a deep breath like he was about to finally tell me something important. “It’s a hill,” he said. “Not even a bigone.”
I exhaled and forced a laugh. “Right.” I walked past him, hoping he couldn’t see the disappointment on myface.
A second later, he spoke. “People in O’Leary think I’m a serial killer or a mafiahitman.”
Right or wrong, I was too put-out to give him a bunch of platitudes about how that couldn’t possibly be true when we both knew it was. “Well, they wouldn’t, if you’d just give them a simple answer. Provide a vacuum of information, and they’re gonna fill it.” I gripped the straps of my backpack tightly. “Someone tried to find you on Facebook but got overwhelmed by the number of people with yourname.”
“Do you think I’m a secretcriminal?”
I snorted. “You’re fascinating, but not that fascinating.” I bit my lip. “But given that you’renota criminal, and presumably not in the witness protection program, why themystery?”
He walked a bit faster until he was alongside me again, and we climbed in silence until we reached the peak. The air was warmer here, the silence more profound. The sky was bright blue and full of puffy clouds, and all of Herriman-Sizemore State Park lay in green-fringed glory at our feet. Bob Ross couldn’t have painted happier trees thanthese.
I imagined Daniel would be in a hurry to get down the mountain again, if only to get away from my curiosity, but he surprised me by sprawling out flat on the rocks and scrub grass, using his backpack for a pillow. He stared up at the sky, not moving ortalking.
After a second, I sighed and copied him, my head at a forty-five-degree angle to his. We couldn’t see each other at all this way, but there was no way I could forget he wasthere.
It was restful, but then being with Daniel the past few weeks generally had been. I could talk as much as I wanted and he didn’t mind, but we could be silent, too, and I didn’t feel the same compulsion to fillit.
“You see that cloud?” he said suddenly. “It looks like afrog.”
I twisted my head, trying to see what he saw. “I think it’s more like a teddy bear? Look, the bumps areears.”
“The bumps areeyes,” he corrected. “Or maybe we’re both right and we can just enjoy them as clouds without reading too much intothem.”
I snorted. “If that’s your attempt atmetaphor…”
“Not particularly insightful? Not Pritchard-worthy?”
“A little heavy-handed,” I said. “Eight out often.”
He chuckled, but I kept my eyes on the sky until they watered at thebrightness.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” Danielquoted.
I turned my head on my backpack, even though I still couldn’t see his face. “Thoreau?”
“And also me. I left my old life because there was nothing true in it anymore. No crimes, no running from the mafia. No missed child support—no childrenat all, no broken hearts left behind.Okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But…”
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want or need him to confirm his innocence to me. I’d already pretty much decided that he was a good person the night he appeared with Trixie the owl. I just wanted to know more about him. I felt like I shared so much about myself, mostly because my fucking mouth wouldn’t stop running, and I wanted to have some piece ofhim, so it wasn’t all one-sided.
Instead, I finished simply, “I wanted to get to know you better. I wanted us to befriends.”
He inhaled so sharply I could hear it, and then I swear he held his breath for a minute. When he let it out, he said, “What does it mean to know someone, Julian? What are the essential truths about a person? You know I love pepperoni and sunsets and reading and a random Scottish folk band. You know how I take my tea, and how I feel about injustice. We’ve talked about books and plays and politics. You know I like scrambled eggs, and that I keep my cabin tidy while my truck is amess.”
“That’s a random assortment of trivia,” I said. “That’s notknowingsomeone.”
“Those are my truths,” he argued, his voice almost pleading. “Those are the things that make meme, way more than anything you could find on the internet. Right now, you literally know me better than one hundred percent of the planet.Congratulations.”
I huffed out a laugh. But as I looked at the clouds, I realized that maybe he was right. Here in O’Leary, people knew my history, so they assumed they knew me—quiet, reliable, passive old Doc Ross, middle-aged before my time. With Daniel, I could be myself—the Julian I wished everyone could see. A little more confident, a little more sarcastic, a little weirder, but happier too. And if I could be that for Daniel… well, why wouldn’tI?
“I’m tired of lies, Julian,” Daniel continued. “I don’t want to pretend to be someone ever again. And that’s why I’m not making up some story about my life just to assuage the curiosity of the guy at the hardware store or the lady at the Gas n’ Sip. But there are things I don’t want to talk about. Can you be okay with that? Can we just be friends who are honest with each other about everything, butnotspill our guts all the time? Can we just be Daniel and Julian, and have that be goodenough?”
I could tell from the tone of his voice, half persuasive and half defiant, that he wasn’t really offering me a choice—not if I wanted to keep this friendship. I could respect his boundaries or walk away. And I really couldn’t stand to walkaway.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “Yeah, Daniel and Julian is plenty goodenough.”
