Page 30 of On the Mountain

He climbed onto the couch with his book afterward to read, but it was different. There was a heaviness to him, a sadness that seeped off Cyrus and into me. I felt it, felt weighed down, but it wasn’t all from him, was it? It was my pain too, at the thought of taking him back.

I ate and washed my dish as well, then sat across from him. Time trickled by, but I didn’t pay attention to how much. I wanted to slow it down, something I’d never experienced before.

“I’m tired,” Cyrus eventually said. I was pretty sure it was early to go to bed, but still I nodded.

We did our routine together, and then he stripped and climbed into bed. I turned off the light, then sat in my spot on the floor to watch him one last time.

*

“You don’t get to throw me away and then try to take care of me. You can’t pretend you care if I eat, then want to send me away.”

I stood beside Cyrus’s bed while he slept. His mouth was partly open, small puffs of breath slipping out.

He was naked, and I wanted to strip the blankets from him, wanted to take him one last time, rut into him hard until we became one, but then, I was fooling myself about that, wasn’t I? One more time would never be enough.

If that were the case, I wouldn’t have my shoes on. I wouldn’t be dressed to leave.

My fingers itched to touch him, to feel his soft, warm skin against mine. I wanted to feel it on top of me in a way I never had. Hillary was the only one I’d looked at when I fucked, but I hadn’t wanted to. But then, I hadn’t wanted to be inside her at all.

Not like I desired him, everything about him, and now…now I was going to keep him.

I was quiet as I sneaked out of the room, as I locked it from the outside, then the house when I left.

It felt wrong. The hairs on my neck stood on end. Everything inside me screamed to go back because I was leaving him in my home, the place I’d built just for me, but I worried if I didn’t do this tonight, I would change my mind tomorrow. Because I knew I shouldn’t keep Cyrus on the mountain with me. Still, for once in my life, didn’t I get to keep something I wanted? Didn’t I get to have him?

The drive into town felt never ending.

I parked down the street from Cyrus’s apartment. I knew where he lived because people talked around me—they thought because I chose not to speak, I couldn’t hear either.

I took the keys I’d stolen from his jacket and unlocked his apartment. It was small but clean. It smelled like old trash instead of Cyrus, though, so I took that out first. He had a few dishes in the sink, so I washed them.

The box in his closet was right where he’d told me it was—the only box there. It didn’t weigh much as I picked it up and took it out to my truck.

The pills proved slightly harder to find, but eventually I found a drawer with numerous bottles of various medications. I had a bag and put them inside.

I took some of his clothes out next, then almost put them back. I liked Cyrus in my things, wanted him to wear something that smelled of me and for my things to smell of him too, like I could scent both of us on them. I was getting more obsessed with him, wanted him to belong to me, though what I would do with him, I had no idea.

I took a few things along—jeans because mine were large, and if he was out in the snow, he should have pants that fit, underwear, and a sweatshirt that lay on his mattress and looked like he’d worn it a lot.

When flashing red and blue lights spun around the room, I froze. No. No, no, no, no.

My heart lodged in my throat. I had to get out of there. Had to run. I rushed for the door—just as the officers approached.

“Hands in the air!”

Officer Paulson. He was better than Dirk. My gaze caught on the other officer, whom I didn’t recognize, as they frantically looked around.

My chest tightened, breath hard to control.

I tried to push my way past them, but they grabbed me. I immediately began to flail, fighting to get out of their hold as the two officers tried to cuff me.

“Crow, settle down. We’re just trying to figure out what’s going on here,” Paulson tried to soothe me, but it didn’t work. The other officer tased me, and I immediately went to my knees, electrical currents shooting through me and feeling like they fried my insides. It numbed me enough that they were able to put the cuffs on me.

We were outside Cyrus’s place now, a neighbor watching. A few other people had crowded around to see the show, though I didn’t know what they were doing out here so late. Was it still late? It had to be, but it felt like my brain wasn’t working.

Paulson sat me in the grass as I struggled to get out of the cuffs. My heart was beating too quickly, head throbbing, throat closing, words swimming in my brain like piranhas getting fed, too fast and vicious for me to catch them.

“Crow, what were you doing in Cyrus Evans’s apartment?” Paulson asked.