12. From Drowning to Mountaintops #2
“Quit running away,” Coop stated. “We don’t care if you’re gay.”
“Yeah. Gus is cool.” Avery shrugged his agreement.
“I just want my skateboard,” Bennet chimed in.
“Shut up, Bennet!” Avery splashed him.
The three boys went silent, waiting for Bridger to speak. They had weirdly calm expressions on their faces that Bridger struggled to understand. They were being nice to him. They genuinely wanted to know how he was feeling.
“So,” Coop broke the silence, “you like guys?”
“I mean, I still like girls…” Bridger admitted, his voice shaky. “I just also… like Gus.”
“Wow,” Coop breathed.
“Okay.” Avery nodded. “Cool.”
Bennet pumped his fist. “More girls for me.”
Coop shoved Bennet and burst out laughing. “Fat chance!”
“Better chance at least!” Bennet gestured at Bridger.
Bridger watched his friends, his eyes wide. They were still acting like the same old idiots. They weren’t even laughing at him, but at each other.
They don’t care…
Bridger smiled.
“So, what happened with Gus?” Avery inquired.
“Did you hook up?” Coop asked.
“No! We made out sorta.” Bridger turned red. “We also almost kissed this other time.”
“That’s it?!”
“Lame!”
“I don’t know.” Bridger wiped water from his face. “I do like him, but I think I may have screwed it up.”
“How?” Avery pressed.
Bridger sighed. “Running away.”
Coop shook his head. “Stupid.”
“Hey!” Bridger retorted.
“Well, shit, at least you have someone.” Bennet smacked the water. “I can’t get any girl to look my way.”
“Yeah. Go fix it, B,” Coop nudged. “Or you’ll be a virgin like Bennet forever!”
“Hey!” Bennet protested. He and Coop started a splash fight.
As Coop and Bennet floated off, ruthlessly trying to dunk each other, Avery stayed quiet by Bridger’s side. Avery nodded slowly at his best friend and put his arm on his shoulder.
“Thanks for telling us, Bridge.” Avery smiled. “I know it must have been hard.”
Bridger felt his eyes start to moisten. He fought back the tears and nodded with a quivering lip.
“It was,” Bridger slowly confirmed, the only thing he could say in response.
“Well, don’t worry.” Avery squeezed his shoulder and smiled. “We got your back, dude.”
A wave of relief rushed over Bridger, this sense of freedom that he had never felt in his entire life.
“Just go talk to Gus,” Avery suggested gently. Then he nodded at Cooper and Bennet, still roughhousing in the background. “And finish up our boards already, yeah?”
Bridger snorted. Avery smirked. The longtime friends shared a smile.
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I’ll do that,” Bridger responded.
Avery fist-bumped Bridger and swam off to join in dunking Bennet. Bridger shook his head with disbelief as the weight of what just happened left his body. He chuckled to himself. He never felt more grateful for these bozos than he did right now.
~
Gus lay alone in his bedroom, zoned out, staring at his ceiling.
He was baking in the sweltering attic. It was his day off, and he had nothing to do.
His skateboard sat unused in the corner.
He no longer had a sketchbook to draw in.
All he wanted to do was move on with his life and start college in a new state.
Maybe, over there, things will finally work out for me. Maybe, for once, I won’t screw everything up.
Footsteps barged into Gus’s room and a backpack landed on his stomach with a painful thump.
“What the—”
“Get up. We’re going for a hike,” Dan announced from the doorway.
“What? Why? I don’t want to,” Gus protested.
“Too bad. No more moping around,” Dan stated. “I’m getting you out of this funk.”
Gus groaned, propping himself up on his elbows. “Do I really have to?”
“Yes. We’ve both been invited,” Dan said.
“Invited?” Gus asked, confused. “By who?”
Dan pointed downstairs. “Go check outside.”
Perplexed but intrigued, Gus swung his legs over the side of his bed, stood up, and made his way out of his room, passing his father without a word.
About to close Gus’s door, something caught Dan’s attention.
On the bedroom wall hung an image he hadn’t seen in years but recognized instantly.
His wife’s bitterroot flower painting. He stepped back into the room to get a better look at it, recalling too many lost memories.
He shook his head and moved backward. His heel hit something.
Peering down, Dan’s gaze fell upon a tipped-over trash can. He reached to fix it and saw, discarded and torn up inside it, his son’s sketchbook.
Dan slowly sat on Gus’s bed and lifted the trash can to his lap, pulling out the shredded book. His shoulders dropped with gloom.
He sifted through all the torn scraps of Gus’s Minnesota nature sketches and of his last two months in Montana. Seeing the minute details of black-and-white scenes he hadn’t lived, Dan realized this sketchbook hid a whole secret life Gus never shared with him. He released a deep sigh of sorrow.
Dan fished out a few ripped strips of paper and, putting them together, connected the puzzle pieces of Bridger’s young face. His gaze lifted to the cabin window. Shaking his graying head and closing his tired eyes, his mind filled with freshly rooted regrets.
As Gus made it to their cabin’s mudroom, he opened the front door and was taken aback to find Bridger standing there. The sight of him after not seeing his friend for days sent Gus’s stomach spinning.
“Hey.” Bridger said softly.
Gus stayed silent.
“I made a mistake.” Bridger’s face was mournful as he looked up at Gus from the cabin’s front steps.
“About what?” Gus asked, slow to show any sort of reaction.
“Ditching you. I was a bad friend,” Bridger confessed.
“So now you want to… hike?” Gus was unsure of what Bridger’s sudden appearance was supposed to mean. He was reluctant to even be standing here, risking something else bad happening. He just wanted to go back to his room and be alone.
“Your dad said you needed cheering up,” Bridger explained. “And I know why…”
Bridger’s gaze, full of sincerity, met Gus’s. Gus searched between Bridger’s oddly shy eyes for meaning. He was still confused and hurt, but Gus couldn’t help but deflate slightly. A small smile touched his lips.
Dan drove both Gus and Bridger far from his property in the red 1969 Chevy up to the base of Mount Blackmore.
Bridger and Dan had both hiked Blackmore Trail and seen Hyalite Lake before, but it was Gus’s first time.
Bridger dashed up the trail as Gus and Dan followed behind, all of them enjoying the lush scenic views.
Bridger started picking up the rarer off-colored stones and placing them in his pocket.
He threw one as far as he could. A flock of fluttering sparrows abandoned some trees in the distance, squawking in protest.
“Oops! I scared your bird friends.” Bridger winked at Gus.
Gus reluctantly smiled, rolling his eyes, but still took a few strides to catch up to Bridger. Dan let the boys climb ahead as they continued hiking.
Eventually, Dan found a rocky clearing where they could stop to cook dinner.
All three dropped their bags. As Dan pulled out some supplies, Bridger leaned down and plucked free a small wildflower.
He admired the tiny blossom for a moment, loving how exquisite it was up close.
Bridger then held it out to a surprised Gus.
“Here. Bring this home and draw it for me.” Bridger smiled gently, catching Gus’s gaze.
“Really?” Gus asked, suspicious of all this behavior. He tossed a glance his dad’s way, but the man was laser-focused on the supplies.
“Yeah.” Bridger’s hand reached to confidently tuck the flower behind Gus’s ear. “I wanna see how it looks through your eyes.”
Gus blushed. Bridger never spoke to him this way. It was strange and new.
Gus liked it.
“Gus, can you get us some firewood?” Dan asked his son without looking up.
“Yeah,” Gus replied as casually as he could manage.
“Can I come with?” Bridger offered.
“Sure. I guess,” Gus responded, still wary of Bridger.
The boys headed off together toward the nearby wood as Dan organized the food he had brought from the cabin.
They weaved through the forest’s lodgepole pines and quaking aspen trees, scanning for small dry logs to pick up.
They weren’t speaking. The burbling creek, trilling bugs, and calling birds filled the air around them.
Occasionally, one of the boys would lean down when they found a suitable broken branch on the ground for kindling.