Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
He was trying to rile me up, to get a reaction out of me because…because I’d made him feel like a whore. Because I’d used him and then walked away, and all that had done was reinforce the negative feelings he had about himself. “Shut up.”
“It’s true!” he shouted at me.
“Shut. Up!” I slammed my hands down on the counter. My breathing came out in hard, quick puffs, chest rising and falling rapidly. Words chased each other around in my head, making it hard to capture any of them. I wanted to tell him he was strong, that he’d been through a lot and he didn’t hide himself on a mountain. That he didn’t nearly break people’s hands or fight children in foster care. He hadn’t let his mother die for him. I’d watched him when I’d gone to town, saw him return a wallet when a man dropped it outside the coffeehouse, heard him speak to customers in the hardware store. He was kind and bighearted. Brave and… “You brought my food,” was all I said.
“Jesus, with the fucking food,” Cyrus cursed. “I did that because I was curious about you, because I’m actually a little obsessed with you, if I’m being honest. Not because I’m some good guy.”
“And I am?” fell softly and brokenly from my lips. He didn’t know how I’d worshipped Chosen, kept his secrets and put him above my own mother. He didn’t know that I would have blindly followed him anywhere, done anything, hurt anyone because I needed him to be proud of me.
That a part of me had wanted to be Chosen one day too.
My gaze tilted down toward the chicken, and I turned it. “I’ve never fucked without a condom.” My words were coming easier now, if for no other reason than I knew he deserved them. “I’ve never…seen a doctor, but I take tests at home.”
“Are you shitting me? You’ve never in your life seen a doctor?” he asked, and my gaze shot to his in warning. “I’m sorry. That’s just scary.”
“I have kits at home because there’s a man I fuck.”
“I didn’t mean just that. I meant as a whole. You should really see someone just to make sure you’re healthy.”
What I’d said to him was a partial lie. There had been a physician who’d believed in Chosen’s ways. He helped with things we needed and sterilized the men. I’d seen him a few times when I was young, but Chosen didn’t want me to go to a doctor often.
I couldn’t say those things out loud, though, couldn’t talk about The Enlightened to anyone.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “I can take a test. There’s still enough time to get down the mountain to send it off before the snow comes.” The results came by email.
“It’s okay.” He fiddled with the end of the shirt he wore—my shirt. “So you can’t leave here when the snow comes?”
I continued to cook. The desire to ignore him, to keep my voice inside me was strong, but I fought it for him because I thought he needed it. “Depends on how much we get,” I said roughly. “It’s dangerous. There’s a point I won’t test it.” Maybe on the snowmobile, but I didn’t tell him that.
“Do you ever get lonely?” the brave little lamb asked.
My gut twisted. It was a complicated answer, and I feared that my response would show him even more that something was wrong with me. In some ways, yes, I felt loneliness, I had my whole life. It lived inside my bones, inside my head, but then, there was another truth too. “It’s lonelier down there…than it could ever be up here.” Being around a large group of people didn’t make anyone less alone. This would always be my home. I would always belong to this mountain.
Cyrus’s gaze shot up, colliding with mine. “I feel that too,” he said quietly, then walked back to the couch and sat down to read.
I watched him for a moment, tried to imagine him up here with me for the winter…maybe longer. Forever. Because I didn’t want him to go.
“I know…I see it in you. The sadness. It clings to you even when you smile.”
Cyrus’s chin began to shake, his gaze darting away. “No one else sees it. I can fake it well.”
Not to me.
We didn’t talk after that, words difficult for both of us, I imagined. I finished dinner, and we ate in silence, Cyrus on the couch and me in my chair. When he had to use the bathroom, I allowed him to go by himself, my heart racing the whole time. When I had to go, I hurried as much as I could, worry clogging my airway that I would come out and he would be gone.
It was late when he yawned, and I stood. I went to him, held my hand out to him. Cyrus stared at it for a moment before he took it, and I helped him to his feet.