15. The Same Mistakes
The Same Mistakes
The next morning, Gus woke with his arm dangling off the side of his bed. He yawned, stretching wide to rouse all the sore muscles he used last night.
Last night.
Gus’s eyes flashed open. He gasped, thinking.
Was it all real? Or did I just dream it?
Gus didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to know the colorful magic of last night may have just been another picture he’d drawn in his mind.
A loud snore sounded behind him.
Gus flipped to his other side. There, lying next to him in bed, shirtless and cloaked in the golden light of sunrise, was his handsome Bridger.
The skater boy snored again.
Gus smiled contentedly, scooted farther down beneath the covers, and laid his head on Bridger’s warm chest. He inhaled Bridger’s tangy night sweat and crisp deodorant, and exhaled a deep, calming breath, finally at home in this Montana cabin.
He draped his arm over Bridger’s torso and lifted his leg over his lover’s thigh. Beneath him, Gus felt Bridger slowly stir awake.
“Good morning,” Gus greeted with a smile of relief.
Bridger smirked with sparkling eyes as he found Gus. “Morning.” He yawned happily.
Grinning, Gus kissed Bridger’s forehead as two happy birds chirped outside.
“Your bed’s so cozy…” Bridger spoke gently. “I’m glad I stuck around.”
Gus and Bridger eventually got dressed and walked downstairs to the kitchen. As Gus went to grab some food, the phone rang. Dan rushed in from outside with a clipboard in hand and a pencil tucked above his ear, befuddled but delighted to see the boys in the kitchen.
“People have been calling all morning mentioning flyers? Saying they’re excited to buy boards?” Dan studied their pleased expressions. “What did you two do?”
Last night flashed in Gus’s head. Lots.
He and Bridger shared a charged look, then chuckled.
Oh, he means the flyers…
“Somebody’s good for business,” Gus finally said, pointing to a smiling Bridger as the phone rang again.
“Okay. Well, you gonna get that?” Dan inquired.
Still laughing, Gus scrambled to answer.
Gus talked with the new customer on the phone while Bridger handed him a notepad so he could take down their first public orders. The entire rest of the day, the three men collaborated on a new round of skateboards. At dusk, Bridger put down his tools, hugged Gus goodbye, and headed home.
Dan watched them part. He crossed his arms in thought.
Something was different between the boys.
Later that evening, Dan and Gus sat down for a meal of grilled venison, roasted red potatoes, and cheddar creamed corn.
Mid-dinner, Dan raised his beer to Gus.
“You did good today, kid,” Dan praised. “You earned the weekend off.”
“I thought we were finishing more boards?” Gus asked.
“They can wait until Monday,” Dan said.
Gus nodded his delight. “Okay! Sweet!” Already, he began wondering how he’d spend the extra days of freedom.
As Gus downed a few more mouthfuls of venison, Dan continued to watch his son.
“So, from today, I gather everything’s patched up with Bridger?” Dan asked.
Gus snorted. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“Glad you were able to make a good friend before the summer ended,” Dan commented.
At the word friend, Gus paused. He nodded slowly, poking a potato.
Tell him, something inside him urged.
Gus watched his father as the man drank his beer.
“Uh… Dad?” Gus started tentatively. His leg bounced under the table.
“Humpfrh,” Dan acknowledged while still eating.
“I… have to tell you something,” Gus said, taking a deep breath.
“I’m all ears.”
“I—I think I wanna be with Bridger.”
“You should,” Dan agreed, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Bridger is a good kid. Hard worker.”
Gus shook his head. “I… don’t think you’re getting it.”
“No, I fully understand,” Dan said.
“We’re… more than friends now,” Gus confessed.
Dan went silent for a moment. He regarded his son quietly.
“Well, say something,” Gus urged, a hint of desperation in his voice.
A long, still pause hit the table. Dan was unflinching, almost as if paralyzed with indecision.
Gus had never seen him like this.
“Dad? Please don’t be upset,” Gus pleaded softly.
Dan took a deep breath and put his silverware down.
“Gus… life can be… lonely,” he began, his voice slow, choosing each word intentionally.
He cleared his throat and looked off, lost in contemplation. Then his glance came back to a nervous Gus.
“When I met your mom, I was still at the mill. She always came in asking us for scrap wood to make canvases, but my boss said no. Even after she offered a landscape painting in exchange.” Dan slowly grew a grin full of happy memories.
“This gorgeous view of an elk drinking from a brook.
It reminded me of home, of peace. So I snuck her a wood bundle for the painting.
She was back the next week with another, and it… became our thing.
“Months later, I got the courage to ask her over for dinner.” Dan smiled at his son. “She loved my pot roast and garlic potatoes, just like you do.
“We got married. But working at the mill… my body was breaking from those twelve-hour days. Your mom inspired me to open my own shop.” Dan laughed.
“It was a rough start. I worked twice as much. I didn’t sleep.
I’d drink. We would fight,” he revealed, adjusting in his chair uncomfortably.
“And then you came along. I had no other way of providing for both of you. I knew Mom would stay with me, keep us together, even when times got tough.”
Dan tapped the table as so many regrets flooded back to his brain.
“But then one day… she left. Your mom left, and she took you with her.” Dan’s gaze shifted to his empty walls. “And I couldn’t stop her. I lost her, I lost you. I was alone. And I realized then, that I have zero control over… anything.”
Gus had stopped eating, the weight of this conversation too heavy to move beneath. His stoic lumberjack dad never wanted to talk about his mom. Yet here he was, sharing all of these things Gus had never known. All because of him and Bridger?
“Then she got sick, and I didn’t have time to fly out and help her… I can never take those mistakes back.”
Dan looked at Gus, trying to stay strong.
“She was my person,” Dan concluded, his eyes damp.
Gus averted his eyes as if it could stop his own tears from falling as he thought about his mom.
“I’m not blind. You and Bridger. Don’t let me stop you. Enjoy it, now, while you have it. Or you’ll always regret the days and years you missed out on… and wish you could do it all over again,” Dan advised, his voice dripping with lost time.
Gus took a deep, shuddering breath. His dad did understand. He understood about Bridger, and it meant more than Gus could ever have thought it would.
“It’s hard to find someone.” Dan’s shoulders sank in sadness. “So… you’re damn lucky,”
Gus looked at his father, finally comprehending why the aging man had stayed so lonely.
Dan nodded with the weight of so many lost chances as he looked at his own reflection in his son. “Even love can end.”
Gus leaned forward and put his hand on his dad’s arm. Dan closed his eyes and finally let his buried tears fall.
“Mom needed to be on her own, but I know… she never stopped loving you,” Gus said softly.
Dan looked up at his son as a reluctant tear slowly dropped. He stood up and pulled Gus in for a deep hug. Their first real hug in years.
Gus squeezed his dad tight beside the dining room table.
They held the hug for a rare, long time.
“I’m proud of you,” Dan said finally.
Teary Gus grinned in his father’s embrace.
Dan turned to look again at the empty nails on the walls.
That night, Gus drove out to the skatepark to meet up with Bridger.
They sat under the same streetlight they met under, chatting, skating, laughing, and kissing.
Telling his father even just the smallest inkling of his relationship with Bridger had given Gus a sense of freedom and peace he hadn’t known he’d needed.
With Gus out with Bridger well into the evening, Dan had the cabin all to himself. He was used to this, but tonight it felt more mirthless than ever. So many good memories, tainted by his old mistakes. Instead of watching television before bed like every other night, Dan walked upstairs.
Dan opened the door to Gus’s bedroom. He gazed at the mattress no longer covered in the adorable childhood blanket of horses and cowboys.
He remembered the late nights, checking in, when his young son slept there as a little boy.
Dan walked through the space toward his locked wooden trunk he had hid here thirteen years ago.
He sighed deeply and lowered to his knees before it. His eyes went distant with thought.
Dan took the keys from his back pocket and undid the trunk’s padlock.
With his hands shaking, he lifted the lid to reveal what was inside.
The box was stuffed to the brim with his late wife’s unfinished paintings, sketches, drawings, and art materials she had left behind.
The sight of each item brought back vivid scenes and Megan’s favorite inspirations—brought back the stories she’d tell him through her creations.
A fresh gash of pain sliced open as Dan remembered Gus’s torn sketchbook.
Dan moved some papers in the chest to find the elk painting that brought him and Megan together, and lifted it up to admire it.
It caught the light in just the right way that the image looked real.
Like he was seeing a distant elk with giant antlers peacefully watching him through the painted forest.
Still just as beautiful.
He set the canvas down. He picked out some wood-bound books he had put together for his wife over a decade ago and set them on the nearby end table.
Stacked between other keepsakes stored in the trunk, Dan spotted a photograph. He stared into the forgotten image of him with his arm wrapped around Megan’s shoulders. Beneath it were many other photos of the couple and some of them with baby Gus, each moment happy and full of love.
He stared back into the preserved past: him, his wife, his son.
So much time I lost.