Coming Around the Mountain

There wasn’t much use in flagging anybody down. Only two or three cars had passed by at full speed in the last ten minutes, momentarily illuminating the sad little patch of grass where we stood, hands on our hips and solemn looks on our faces. 

“Still no service,”  he announced as she shoved his phone back in his pocket and examined the blood and fur on the headlights. 

I said nothing and stared at the black night. I’d never seen so many stars in my life - it was like an enormous wet paintbrush had been shaken out across the whole sky. 

“I guess we could always walk back to the campsite.”

“How far is it?” 

“Probably only a mile or two. We weren’t very far out.”

“We don’t really have a choice then, do we?”

“Unless somebody wants to stop their car in the middle of nowhere and pick up two strangers who haven’t showered for a couple days.”

“Fat chance.”

He tossed me a can of Coors Light from the cooler, locked the car twice just to be sure, and we started off for the campsite without much more discussion, keeping just along the edge of the road. For some reason, time immediately seemed to move very slowly - probably something to do with the feeling of walking alongside a road where you’re only meant to drive fast. You’re forced to look at things a different way. Like a clump of pine trees or a lopsided hill in the distance. Or the particular period of life you’re going through. You just think about them more intensely. 

I was in love with him, I decided after about five minutes. There was something in the way he absolved my apologies for hitting the deer and fucking up his car, how his presence eliminated that constant sense of guilt I would get so often, almost like he was the cure to all of my problems and insecurities. Of course, I knew that he couldn't fix everything, that my problems didn’t all have solutions, and that the possibility of us ever actually being together was extremely, extremely thin. But yeah, I definitely loved him. It’s a strange feeling when longing isn't returned, sort of like falling over backwards with no one there to catch you.

He was kicking the gravel with his Chalcos and balling and un-balling his fists as he hummed a song I didn’t recognize. I heard the crack of his beer can opening in the dark.

“Hey, you remember what I was saying earlier,” he said, turning to me, “about letting people love you?” 

I tensed and rolled my eyes. This again, our dinner conversation. “Yesss, but-” 

“Well there’s just something I don’t understand.”  

“What?”

“I don’t really know,” he replied. “You just don’t make sense sometimes. No, a lot of the time actually.”  

“Welcome to my world.” 

“No,” he said, frustrated. A pause. “I mean really, like I said, I think you’re such a kind, interesting person. Genuinely. I’ve always thought that, even back when we…well, you know, but I just don’t get how you can’t see that, how you seem so determined to shield yourself from seeing the best parts of your personality. You really don’t think people value your presence? Why do you think I’m here right now? Why would I invite you?”

I hated that he was the only person I knew who could see through me. He thoroughly absorbed me. “Because you’re bored and lonely?” I scoffed.  “I don’t know.”

“I have plenty of friends, you know that.” 

“Ha, thanks.”

“I’m serious,” he said, looking at me. The moon lit up his face. “Anyway, I don’t do this shit with all of my friends.” 

His tone told me that I should stop joking around with him, that he was trying to say something meaningful, but some part of me was so uncomfortable with allowing myself to be vulnerable that I just couldn’t face it. And why couldn’t I? I always told everyone how much I valued and craved emotional intimacy, yet when it came down to it I would desperately weasel my way out any chance I got. 

So all I said was “aww that’s sweet.” 

“I don’t think you’re getting the point. You’re being avoidant, I can tell.” 

“What do you mean?”

He looked straight ahead. “It doesn’t matter.”

I started to say something, but instead sipped my beer and we both became silent for a minute. The road ahead was going to curve sharply around a large rock formation. In the dark it looked tall and demented, like it was guarding something. I imagined it wouldn’t let us pass, that we would be rendered helpless and have to go back to the car. Poor abandoned car, I thought. Poor deer. Or lucky deer, depending how you looked at it.

“My mom always says I like being unhappy,” I said.

“I always say that.” 

“Then you two would get along,” I laughed. The closer we got to the column of rock, the more sinister it looked. “Do you think maybe we should turn around soon?”

“What, why?”

“We can’t even see around that bend, what if it’s another two hour walk?”

“What, you aren’t having a good time?” he joked.

“Well I am,” I said, “but it’s like you’re trying to get in my head or something.” 

“I’m not trying to get in your head, I just care about you. Can’t you tell?”

I sighed. “But why?” 

I wasn’t trying to throw myself a pity party or anything; I simply couldn’t wrap my head around why he would care, or why anybody would for that matter. To me, some people deserved love because they were generous, selfless, or just needed it to survive. Or maybe because they were trying real hard at something. I didn’t think I was any of those things. All I was doing was getting by, taking life as it came to me. Isn’t everybody supposed to question whether or not they’re a good person? Whether or not they’re worthy?

But on the other hand, it felt so easy for me to love him, like knowing that if I threw a rock in the air it would come back down. For some reason I trusted him with all of myself, and no aspect of him ever seemed to take anything away from me. If anything, being around him made me better. 

“Why does there have to be a reason for everything with you? It’s like you can’t accept that…that I love you simply because I love you. What else is there to it?”

I finished my beer and fiddled with the metal tab. He had never actually said it like that before - so bluntly, those three words strung together that way. It was always alluded toward. Of course I knew he loved me back in some way - a part of me could tell that he had all along - but it hurt because I knew deep down that a different love was going to somebody else. The kind of love I needed from him was reserved for another person, and that was the most miserable part of it all. But why couldn’t this be enough, this platonic love or whatever you’d call it? Why did I need him to be mine? Maybe nothing would ever be enough for me.  

“It’s like it almost pains me to hear that,” I said, though I didn’t quite know what I meant. 

“That I love you?”

“Not in the way you think it hurts I guess,” I mumbled and put the tab in my mouth, ignoring the painful zaps I felt when it touched my cavity fillings. “But I mean, I love you too.”

“I’m trying to make a point. You don’t believe that anybody loves you. Or maybe, maybe you just don’t want anybody to love you, is that it?”

“I don’t really know,” I said, “what kind of person wouldn’t want anybody to love them?” But truthfully, I thought, how did anybody ever know what they really wanted? Sometimes it felt like everyone else had this secret voice in their ear whispering to them everything they were supposed to desire, but all I heard was silence.

“Probably the kind of person who doesn’t know who they are or what they want,” he replied, smirking.

Of course he would say that. I hated how well he knew me. Come to think of it, I hated that giant rock we were approaching too. And I hated the deer we killed. I hated his boyfriend. I hated how they talked on the phone like we used to. I hated that he got his chance and I didn’t. I hated that I knew his faults and weaknesses. His fears. His nightmares. I hated myself for fucking up and never telling him how I felt. I hated the road and the sound of my feet on the ground. And somehow I loved it all the same. I’d never been so thrilled in my life. With him, life felt brilliant and perfect. But nothing was ever enough. It didn’t matter anymore. Everything was over before it even began. 

“It’s all useless,” I replied, “trying to figure out what I want or what people think of me. It won’t help.”

“Why not?” he said, frowning. I could feel his eyes on me even in the darkness. “Maybe if you figured out who you are, then you’d finally understand why people like you. Why I like you.” 

The problem was whenever people complimented me or told me meaningful, heartfelt things, I just didn’t want to believe them. It was as if my own experience and self-narrative constantly undermined what anyone said about me, no matter how nice it was. Oh thank you so much, I wished I could say, but if you could see how I perceive myself in my own head, then you wouldn’t say that. It’s not all that important. It’s nothing really. I’m not a big deal, you really don’t have to say anything. That’s not to say I’m ungrateful or that I don’t appreciate it - I just always chalked it up to them not seeing the whole picture, not seeing the real me. Sometimes people only see the good because they can’t see the invisible bad within. At least that’s how I thought. I never blamed them.

“Maybe,” I said. “But the way I see it, it’s just so easy to talk to you. To be myself. You leave the space for me to do that and I’m never left feeling drained or anxious about how I acted or whatever. I appreciate that. It’s not like that for me with most people. I wish I could be like that for everybody. It comes so naturally to you.” 

“But you do,” he insisted, “You are like that. I’ve told you before. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always felt like I can talk about anything with you, seriously, even from the very first time we spoke.”  

It’s a strange feeling, when you hear exactly what you want to hear and yet it still changes nothing. At the end of the night, I would still be alone in my own tent, staring at nothing while he calls his boyfriend on the phone, just a dozen feet away from me. I was always lacking something. But how are you supposed to figure out what you’re lacking when everyone else seems to have it so naturally?

The rock tower was looming right in front of us now, and I could make out the jagged indents and shadows from the moon. I tried to determine whether I’d be able to climb it without a rope if I wanted to. Probably impossible. The road’s angle tilted slightly to the left as it curved, something I wouldn’t have noticed going fifty miles an hour in a car, but I suddenly hopped up on the pavement and ran over to the middle marker line and started to walk on it like it was a tightrope. 

“But what’s the point in anything?” I asked him, feeling brave. “Knowing that we’re really good friends doesn’t change anything.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well it doesn’t make me sure of myself. It doesn’t tell me who I am or give me an identity. Our friendship doesn’t necessarily define me, or you either. Does it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes scanning the rock face. “It’s still pretty important to me. I feel like I gain a lot from our relationship. A lot more than I’d care to admit, probably, but I think you know that.” 

“Me too. It makes me feel more real, I guess, if that makes sense.” 

“That must be something then?”

“I guess you’re right,” I whispered. “I don’t know. Maybe all I am is what’s important to me.” 

“Exactly.”

I thought about it for a second and rejoined him on the side of the road. As we came around the bend, I started to make out the opposite face of the rock tower. It was smooth and sloped down gently to meet the pavement. I realized I could scramble up this side.

“I’m gonna get up there and see if I can see any lights from the campground,” I told him. 

I climbed, and as I neared the summit, searching for the best handholds in the moonlight, I could see above the pine trees, all the way back toward where we had come from. Just barely, I could make out the battered white Land Cruiser pulled off to the side of the road which snaked its way back and forth through the valley. The light looked odd and ghostly, and the silence felt heavy and significant. For a moment I had to catch my breath . 

I turned around, looking forward and letting my eyes adjust, trying to focus on something. The stars ignored me and I ignored them. Slowly, I followed the road and its slight shininess further and further away. I pictured us walking and walking and walking. Maybe I would say something, maybe something would happen, but maybe it never would. Not now, not ever. But I guess in the end, it wouldn’t really matter. I saw the lights of the campground in the distance and they didn’t look too far away.