Mark’s death had hit me harder than a meteor could have. Nothing, and no one, can prepare you for the reality that your person is there one day and gone the next. Even though Mark and I had been in a rocky patch after he’d admitted to cheating on me—again—I’d felt we’d get back together like we had the last three times he’d gone astray.
“Why should he respect you, Blake?” Monica had asked after my reveal that he had cheated again, for the fourth time in less than eighteen months. “You always take him back. Shit! I’d cheat on your ass if I knew you were so spineless.” Monica was my older sister, so there’d be no cheating on me where she was concerned. Monica happened to be the person I ran to every time Mark cheated. She’d heard all the excuses before and was resigned that I’d be welcoming him back to our shared condo in downtown Seattle, three blocks west of the Space Needle, for a fourth time.
But that didn’t happen. In fact, that very day, when I’d gotten home after crying on my sister’s shoulder for an hour or so at Starbucks, I received the call.
* * *
I concentrated on the trail in front of me, trying to keep the sadness at bay. I wasn’t sure what level of grief I was in after the tears dried up as fast as our friends abandoned me. I was too clingy, too sad, too angry—always too something according to them. Focus on the trail. My weekend hikes were my escape and I had embraced the solitude a bit too much. The farther, the deeper, the quieter the hike and the location were, the better. A person could scream in the forest, and as the old saying goes, did other people hear you if there was no one there?
Trees grew in abundance in Washington state. We were named The Evergreen State for a reason, and the western side of the state, the half to the west of the Cascades, the mountain range where I was currently hiking, was greener and wetter than the eastern half. People thought Washington, particularly Seattle, was extremely wet, but that wasn’t entirely true. Seattle had plenty of nice weather, and the natural beauty was the result of that supposed rainfall.
The trail became a steep increase of grade, and I began to feel the effects of being away from my at sea level existence in Seattle. My strength was holding up due to the amount of hiking I did, but my breathing was labored as I dug into the slant of earth before me. At the top of the switchback I stopped and dug for a bottle of water, second-guessing my supplies once again. The trees were too numerous for me to gauge where I was as far as elevation. I’d hoped to find a clearing with a view of a neighboring peak before I set up my meager camp, but every step still held no better view.
The gut-wrenching agony hit when I least expected it. I sat on the ground and placed my head between my legs. Breathe, Blake. Nice and easy. Focus on what you can control. I couldn’t control shit. I was lost. I was pissed. “I hate you, you cheating fucker!” I screamed. “I fucking hate you!” I added, yelling as loud as I could in case the neighboring county had missed my pain.
That was why I disappeared. Nobody ever heard you if you hiked far enough into the wild.
CHAPTER SIX: Dirk
Iwaited and hid in the dense brush. My first thought was to head immediately back to the tower after meeting the very unpleasant stranger, but I had to admit, he fascinated me. He was the son of an elected official, my boss actually, and he was extremely handsome. The combo made me want to know more about him, but unfortunately, he was about as warm and cuddly as one of the local brown bears waking up from hibernation.
Once out of sight thirty minutes earlier, I’d kept pace by moving quietly alongside him, just far enough in the trees to not alert him to my steps as twigs crunched beneath my boots. I wished I had a chance to speak with him in a situation where he wasn’t already angry about me being there or him needing a permit. The state forest at these elevations got infrequent visitors, with most of them being my peers, so the son of my superior was a welcome sight. An attractive man was an even better sight. I realized I’d been out of practice for far too long if I hid in the trees ogling a random dude on a hike.
I was attracted to men slighter than me, and with a preppy but outdoorsy look, Blake Jensen fit the bill to a T. The outdoors and men that appreciated it were my kryptonite. I’d spent my entire life in nature, enjoying the outdoors from when I was a toddler and my folks would pack us deep into the woods and we’d live off of the land for long periods of time. My parents were crunchy granola types; in fact, they lived in Fremont, a neighborhood within Seattle that many ex-hippies loved. Fremont was where you found quirky art, weird people, and a solstice tradition where people biked through the main business district completely naked, their body parts painted vibrant neon colors. I’d seen my first cock there when I was seven. It had been painted bright purple and was shriveled up, but it was dick and I was thrilled. I knew I was gay that day.
Blake took a break and a long draw out of a water bottle. It pleased me to see he’d at least packed drinking water. I was surprised when he sat down and put his head between his knees. His sadness was palpable from fifty yards away. However, the heart-wrenching sound he made when he screamed in agony shook me to my marrow. He tilted his head back and yelled profanities at the top of his lungs. I guess I’d gotten the pre-show in the parking space because this was angrier and wilder, with true pain coating every word in horrifying sorrow.
My heart ached for a man I knew was troubled by something. I could have thought he was basically just nuts, but he was too put together for that assessment. He was angry about something—that was clearly evident in his rude behavior—but he appeared to be put together as well. His overall demeanor tainted what I felt was a better man inside. But what could the anger be about?
He stood and leaned into a tree, his arms embracing the massive cedar, the substitute for something or someone, and he wailed. Pure, unadulterated agony ripped from his lungs. This man was wrecked. This man was destroyed by something bigger than his pain had an answer for.
I wanted to soothe that pain. That was who I was. I wanted love more than anything in the world, but love had not found me. I hid in the forest too. Just like the shell of a man mere yards away.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Blake
Like the sorrow in my heart, I marched through the forest, no true destination in mind. I’d paraded through the trees for many miles, their presence the monuments to my pain. Forests were good cover for people like me as I wandered from peak to valley, never really seeing the true beauty that may have cured my disease. There was no cure for death though.
“But you didn’t die,” Mom had pleaded, herself broken at witnessing my steady decline. I’d stared into my coffee cup. The reflection from the black tar displayed my heavy-lidded eyes. “Honey, you wouldn’t harm yourself, would you?” She’d read my mind in those early days after the memorial service. “No, Mom,” I’d whispered, my voice a husk of its former depth. Even my voice had died that day, and I felt I could lie to her if I needed to. Yeah, of course, I’d thought about it. Who the hell wouldn’t have, at a minimum, entertained the thought?
I froze on the trail when I heard a loud crack. Motionless, my eyes scanned the area thoroughly while my heart raced. “Come and get me,” I whispered. “Here kitty, kitty. Make your move, fucker.” I stared through the undergrowth at imagined beasts like cougars, bears, and other possible foes, hoping they had the solution to my misery. Nothing.
The sun moved over me as it continued its journey toward a sizzling daily death in the Pacific. The shadows kept time with the movement of light. My day was fading along with the daylight so I knew it was time to set up the barest of bare camps. All I needed was two strong trees to hold a tarp at a slant and my trusty Sears sleeping bag. One more night of an empty bedding substitute. My bed at the condo hadn’t been touched or slept in for a year. I’d been too busy sleeping on the couch by the front door, praying against all odds.
Another snap alarmed me but the noise was further away in the distance. Even the beasts had given up on me. I listened to the silence, if that was possible. Could you hear silence? How did we know when it was silent? Yep, I was cracking up like ABBA with their big hit from the eighties. I hadn’t been alive in the eighties, or the nineties, had I? I thought about the math and realized I was wrong. Ninety eight was part of the nineties. My twenty-fifth birthday had just passed. Mom, Dad, and Monica tried their best, but no Cheesecake Factory meal would heal what was ailing me.
A break in the canopy of trees made room for a sunspot to appear about a football length ahead, so I decided the circle of warmth would host me for the night. I’d try to light a fire with wet wood to keep me company. I couldn’t remember if campfires were allowed in May on forest land, but the only person who could stop me was nowhere to be seen. Then I remembered that Cadet Dirk was a stickler for rules. Narc!
The Forest Service employee was one gorgeous hunk of a man, and his attributes hadn’t escaped my dull libido. Tall and buff like I would have ordered from a sex menu if I was shopping for that sort of thing. Brawny was one of those underused superlatives that most people didn’t use to describe men anymore. The days of swarthy Robin Hood-esque men were long gone and that was a shame because I fancied myself the Maid Marion type when I’d been among the living.
Feeling something stir in my pants was a surprise when I laid eyes on Cadet Dirk. He wasn’t a cadet, I didn’t think, but my shitty label was too fun to let go of. Most likely, my snarky personality had done enough to scare him away before the two days I’d be invading his territory were up. I ran my hand over my chin and felt the smooth skin where a beard might look good. I was jealous of men with beards that were groomed as if they always grew to one length only. I couldn’t grow a beard to save my life, so I looked to men who could, hoping they could save my life as well. Maybe that was the reason Mark cheated. Perhaps he knew I needed saved, or loved, or desired, a whole host of needs, but he wasn’t that kind of person. Mark was a doer alright, as long as it was for himself.
Cadet Dirk looked like the type though. Too bad I hated him already.
CHAPTER EIGHT: Dirk
My binoculars were high powered and it didn’t take me long to spot the small clouds of white smoke about a quarter mile west of my tower location. I wasn’t alarmed because I knew the source of the smoke. Mr. Sunshine had set up camp in the small open canopy just over the highest ridge to my right. Seeing him and his camp was impossible, but the wisps of wet burning wood and the white puffs the damp timber gave off were an easy visual from my vantage point.
He must have felt the drop in temperature and attempted to build a fire because my thermometer on the wraparound deck read just under freezing and it wasn’t even 8 p.m. yet. Dark clouds had rolled in from Seattle and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Seattle would get rain dumped on them, but a late spring snowstorm was heading for me and the lone guest on the mountain. At my elevation there was no chance the rain would stay in liquid form. Crystal Mountain, south of Seattle and east of Tacoma was still open for skiing, so it wasn’t unusual to have snow at these heights until June some years.
