Page 52 of His Country
As he walked away, shoulders hunched, he called back, “You should fix things with Ethan. He’d never accept your silence, either.”
Eagle snorted as he climbed the icy hill, head down and ears pressed flat to his skull. The sun was setting over the hills, bleeding a sorbet of colors like a final stand before the night eventually stole them all. Covered the colors with a blanket so impenetrable, even the stars seemed subdued.
Aiden rubbed the back of his nose with his gloved hand, looking up the trail to see how much farther they had to go. Even Sugar seemed tired, tongue lolling out with her breath fogging out in front of her in great gasps.
It had snowed a little last night but melted during the day. For the time of year, it was fairly warm. Maybe not warm enough for most people to want to camp out but Aiden wasn’t most people.
He hadn’t asked permission; just told Isaac he was going and packed his saddle bags. Eagle looked mildly alarmed when he tacked him up, snorting pointedly as if to remind Aiden that it was too cold for him.
Aiden had never gone out this late in the year, but he needed space. Needed the clear air above everyone’s bullshit to fill his lungs. There was a part of him that thought if he sat down on the ground, opened his jacket, and let the cold air it, it might freeze his bleeding wound.
He tried to keep his mind blank as they rode, determined to get to a wooded section of hill that was protected from the wind by a sheared off piece of granite that had been blown off by dynamite during the gold rush.
The creaking of leather, the rake of icy wind across his skin, and the quietening of birds and other animals as night fell kept him company. With each step away from the farm he felt his chest easing, breathing becoming easier.
By the time he had gotten Eagle settled and made camp, he almost felt normal.
Though, really, he wasn’t sure what normal was. A few months ago, he would have said normal was keeping his head down and putting one boot in front of the other. And while that might have been true, it didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to return to that.
In the privacy of the trees, with nothing but the fire crackling in front of him, he could admit that he didn’t want to go back to that Aiden. It was a hard truth. One he wasn’t sure he could have admitted even two or three days ago. But talking to Everett had changed things.
He couldn’t say why Everett had sought him out. It certainly wasn’t to fight for Billy’s honor or get revenge for the pain he caused. If Aiden hadn’t known better, he would have said that maybe Everett missed him.
Because so much of Everett was tied up in the heartbreak, it was difficult to remember the good parts. The reason the heartbreak hurt so bad to begin with. Hanging out with him after practice, sitting on the curb of the school parking lot so he didn’t have to go home. Talking trash about the other boys on the team or playing their own version of fantasy football. They even had some movie marathons—watching B sci-fi movies until they couldn’t take it anymore.
All of that had seemed more important to him than talking about his parents. Looking back, with all the benefits of knowing what he knew now, it was obvious just how little they actually talked. It was all surface level. Banal chatter to keep his mind off the things he didn’t know how to face.
For years, Aiden was just trying to survive, and Everett was his only reprieve. Everett had made it seem like he was selfish, but Aiden didn’t see it that way. That’s what Aiden had needed at the time, much to Billy’s frustration. He had tried to get more than what Aiden wanted to give.
Aiden poked the fire with a stick, watching as some of the wood crumbled in a shower of sparks.
It might not have been much, but that short conversation with Everett had been freeing. It was like he had been given permission to move on. That Everett might not have understood, but he accepted it. Aiden had always thought that Everett was a train barreling toward greatness and he was just a stop along the way. He’d been bitter about it.
But now he felt like he could step back, wave as the train moved past him, knowing he was never meant to board. Everett had always been temporary and accepting that didn’t make either of them a bad person.
With a sigh, he reached for one of his saddle bags. Just beyond the light of the fire, Eagle was pawing at the cold ground, looking for something good to eat. Aiden clucked at him, snorting when all it elicited was a grumpy ear flick from his favorite gelding.
Flipping open the bag, he traced the leather stitching until he came across the glass mason jar. The moonshine was clear, distorting the light of the fire when he looked through it. So innocent. It was hard to believe just sniffing the stuff was enough to curl your nose hairs.
Aiden scraped his fingernails along the ridges of the cap. He’d had alcohol since his littleincident,but not moonshine, and he felt guilty for even considering drinking it. Like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. Except he wasn’t a kid, he was a grown ass man. Even if he didn’t feel like one.
He might have felt some closure when it came to Everett and Billy, but Ethan was still a thorn he’d yet to pull from his side. Thinking back to the last couple of months, he sometimes wondered if he hadn’t died that night. That all of this had been a dream and he was really six feet in the ground, buried under a flimsy wooden cross no one would remember once it rotted away.
Over and over, he’d told himself that the thing with Ethan didn’t mean anything. That it was just two guys who needed something from the other. Because that was easier to manage than understanding what Ethan loving him meant.
It was one thing to lie to someone else and just pathetic to lie to himself.
Ethan wasn’t justsomeguy, he probably never was. From the day he pushed past Aiden’s hissing and biting and then stayed when he tried to play dead, Ethan was so much more.
He’d never accept your silence.
No, he wouldn’t. And as incredibly aggravating as that had been, it had also been nice. Ethan hadn’t so much slipped into his life as kicked in the door and sat beside him, and at some point, that smirk had changed from something annoying to the doormat in front of his door. Something welcoming him home.
Ethan had done the impossible. He’d made Aiden stop hating himself. Showed him the good in life. Praised him for surviving while showing him how tolive.That it wasn’t enough to be fine, and to ask for more.
He’d given him so much and all Aiden had done was retreat, fall back into his shell. Because that was safe. That was what he’d known. He thought he’d run from Texas and left it all behind but all he’d done was carry it with him. Packed it away so deep he didn’t have to look at it, but he felt it. Every damn day. Dragging him down until he didn’t even realize he’d been walking on his knees until Ethan came along and helped carry the weight.
The bank might have taken his farm, and his parents might have taken his childhood, but Aiden had stolen his future. Snuffed it out before it even had a chance. So focused on all his yesterdays that he never considered his tomorrows.