Page 53 of His Country
He thought he couldn’t do anything but be angry. Hold onto his resentment and bitterness until he was buried with it. His parents wouldn’t apologize, and the bank didn’t care.
So why did he?
Why did he care about a farm that was never really home? Why did he care about a childhood he could never get back? Why did he care about what strangers behind some stained glass said about him?
There were brief moments with Ethan when he stopped caring. Stopped thinking and justdid.He thought it was Ethan, and maybe he was the inspiration behind it, but it was Aiden who leaned forward and kissed him. Aiden who, for a shining moment, lived in his own skin and liked it.
And he could do it again.
Not alone. But then, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to do anything alone ever again. Aiden wanted to go grocery shopping with Ethan, drink beer under neon lights, play old pinball machines, maybe even tease him across a pool table. He wanted to touch Ethan without second guessing himself, love him without shame.
But to get that, he had to let go of his past. Let go of the farm, his parents, Everett, Billy, and that little dusty town where the gossip was whispered behind hymnals and judgement fell from lips pretending to pray.
Aiden tightened his fingers around the cap of the mason jar, twisting it until it clattered to the ground beside his knee. Inhaling the acrid fumes, he lifted it to watch the fire writhe behind distorted glass before taking a long swing. It burned.Napalm flooding his throat to ignite once it hit his stomach, flames licking across his ribs until they reached his heart.
With every beat the warmth crawled through his body until it felt like there were two fires crackling against the icy mountain air.
Aiden let the alcohol sting his lips as he reached deep to grasp at things he’d never dared to bring into the light. And then he twisted his wrist to pour the drink into the ground beside him.
He poured one out for the little boy who tried so hard to protect his father from a villain that looked like a mailbox.
He poured one out for the confused tween who didn’t get why the other boys liked watching the girl’s gym class.
He poured one out for the teenager who experienced love and loss for the first time.
He poured one out for the young man who didn’t know how to love but was ready to learn.
They were part of him. And despite the pain they caused, he would grieve them. Wail to the heavens while he let them burn on this little funeral pyre. He’d cry for that little boy who still thought his father was indomitable and loved when his mother shared her love of horses. Cry for that awkward tween who didn’t have anyone to ask for help. Cry for that teenager who was so unused to feeling anything that he grabbed onto heartbreak with both hands and refused to let go.
And he’d cry for the young man who was still trying.
From their ashes, he would rise. But first, he had to feel the burn.
Exhaling, he righted the jar and saw there was still a little bit of moonshine sloshing around the bottom.
Lifting it up to the sky, he toasted to tomorrows. To the long journey he was about to undertake, one full of more peaksand valleys than a mountain range. Full of fear, and hopefully, triumph.
Aiden closed his eyes, tipped the jar back, and swallowed the last of the moonshine. As it seared down his throat he felt like a sinner as they lifted their head from the waters, opening their eyes on a cleansed soul and a new day. One full of change and possibility.
Tears filled his eyes as he dropped the jar, falling back onto the ground with his arms spread out. Sugar joined him, resting her head on his shoulder, eyes bright in the night. And as the tears slipped down his cheeks, and his dogs wet nose pressed into his cheek, he thought that just for an evening, this was his country.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Big Sky Veterinary clinic sat squat at the end of a narrow road. The sign had long since faded from the weather. Not that it mattered. Everyone knew where it was. And if they didn’t, they probably didn’t need to be there anyway.
The posts on either side of the rusted gate were crumbling, patched with tape and wire from where yahoos who had no business driving a trailer clipped it on the way in or out. Dr. Groves had stopped replacing it after the fourth or fifth time, figuring if people wanted a pristine looking clinic, they should learn how to drive their rigs.
Snow hung off the fences, white and powdery from where it had fallen earlier in the morning. Aiden’s breath fogged up the windshield as he turned Frank’s old truck into the drive. Tire tracks had already cut through the fresh snow, snow chains digging deep as whoever had driven in earlier this morning blazed a trail for the rest of them.
Numb fingers tapping on the wheel, Aiden braked just through the gate and stared down the small hill at the clinic. Beside him, Sugar whined, eager to get out of the truck. Aiden wished he felt the same. His throat was dry, and he had to resistthe urge to throw the truck in reverse and peal out so fast he took the rest of the fence with him.
His foot remained planted on the brake and he took several deep, cold, breaths to try and still his stuttering pulse. It didn’t really work, but he did it again. Just to be sure.
Aiden wanted to do this. He needed to do this; he just didn’t know how, and while that might have stopped him before, it couldn’t now. Not when it was this important.
Exhaling all that cold air he’d just filled his lungs with, he lifted his foot off the pedal. The truck rolled forward, crunching through the snow as he drove toward the clinic.
Dr. Groves built the place at an indeterminate date. If you asked anyone, they’d say the clinic had always been there. Almost like Dr. Groves and Big Sky Veterinary clinic were made of the same stuff as the mountains around them. Popping up between the firs like it belonged. Maybe one day someone would scrape one of the bricks from the side of the clinic and officially date it.