The late-May evening breeze was cool against my skin when Bobby and I stepped outside, full to bursting after all the food we’d eaten. I zipped up my jacket against the chill.
Cheery bistro lights lined the awnings stretched along Main Street. Colorful window art advertising sales and specials decorated each storefront, ready and eager for peak tourist season. Gas-lamp style street lights were dotted along the brick-paved road and sidewalk, brightly lit and welcoming against the inky night.
It all looked different, though, once I noticed the missing persons posters.
Alex Alonso,39, male, 5’10”, last seen at Sockeye Trailhead on May 3rd
Tony Donalds,23, male, 5’8”, last seen at Salmon-Challis National Park Visitors Center on May 14th
Haley Thomas,27, female, 5’7”, last seen at Dead Man’s Creek Trailhead, May 22nd
If you have information regarding these missing persons, please call NOW. No tip is too small!
Now, the quaint, touristy mountain-town backdrop looked less inviting and more desperate.“Nothing bad ever happens in Ponderosa—Gateway to Nowhere! We promise!”it said with a clenched smile.
The spring evening wasn’t cozy, but cold, like the difference between watching a blizzard through a window, warm and safe inside, and being lost in it.
Dad and Leonard left a few minutes before us and stood a few blocks down, talking. Hopefully, settling the tension between them over my lookout posting. Bobby and I meandered a few paces before we leaned against the corner of the building.
“It was great to see you. Tell me when you’re heading into town for a supply run and we’ll get together,” he said.
“You, too.” I pulled him into another hug. “Really, I’m glad to be around more, at least for a few months. Thanks for coming out tonight. Give my love to Jade and Molly.”
Bobby stepped back and smiled, his eyes soft. “Will do. And how about you? Anyone catch your eye lately?”
I scoffed. “I think that’s a long way off for me.”
“Why do you say that?”
It was hard to explain to Bobby. Jade was his high school sweetheart—neither of them had ever really had to confront the horrors of adult dating.
“It’s difficult,” I went with. “I’d rather walk into traffic than download another dating app, and as shitty as Josh was in the end, I wasn’t great to be around either. And that’s before the, well,” I waved my hands around vaguely, “complications.”
“Complications?” he asked, voice pitched in anger. “Did that sack of dicks say you werecomplicatedafter your diagnosis?”
I laughed. God, I fucking loved my friend. Ihadbeen an emotionally unavailable ass to Josh, but Bobby was ready to kick down his door and pour all of his hair products down the drain when I’d told him how things had ended anyway.
“No,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m still working through shit leftover from that relationship, but that’s not where this comes from. I just don’t know how I’d ever feel like anything but a burden with everything that comes along with me now.Ican’t even stand it most days, how can I expect someone else to?”
Talking to Bobby was so easy. Sometimes I shocked myself by the things I said and how true they really were.
His eyes were glassy. “You’re my best fucking friend. You’re hilarious when you’re not being a grump, you work hard, and you take care of the people you love. When you’re up in that tower all alone, you remember there are so many people who need you here. You’re not a burden. And you never know when you’ll meet someone who sees everything you are and loves you more for it.”
Well, shit. How was he the same kid I’d watched eat a worm on a dare when we were eleven?
I looked at my boots, scuffing one against the ground. “Being a dad has turned you into a walking Hallmark card,” I said, wiping at my eyes.
Hey, we couldn’t both completely fall off the deep end.
He chuckled. “Your farts after eating all that cheese tonight are going to burn a hole in your dad’s couch, and you snore like a freight train. Is that better?”
I laughed. “Better. But I don’t snore.”
He rolled his eyes. “Alright, I really gotta go. Oh,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, leaning in. “I think he wants to talk to you. He’s been standing there this whole time.”
He jutted out his chin, gesturing behind me. “We’ll talk soon,” he finished, before heading for his car.
“Yeah, talk soon,” I said before turning to see who he meant.
