Status: yes, it's slow-paced. sorry//new layout??//not on hiatus, I'm just depressed and busy

Brothers/Sisters

9/little city looks like it bleeds out from a low mountain

Pain lances through my neck from the sudden movement. Evidently I turned my head so fast that I gave myself whiplash. Or, well, intensified the existing whiplash.

“What?” Jason glances down, at the leather holster on his belt. “Yeah? A Glock. It’s pretty cool.”

“Why?”

“Chill, Gar,” Carina mumbles from the back, her voice muffled by the map that she’s holding in front of her face again. “You live in the wild west, remember?”

I step back on the gas, but not much. I shake my head, more at myself than anyone else. “You’re right. But…why?”

The car's at a crawl by this point; the sight of the pistol—the same one, the same type—flings me back a little over eight months, and I have to shake myself out of it.

Jason nonchalantly glances at his hip. “They call it Wyoming bear repellent. Or I do.”

Carina looks up from a tic-tac-toe match on the back of the map. They've gotten as far as one X. She addresses Jason: “Garrett doesn't like guns, babe.” She puts a quick O on the map and hands the pen to a stunningly quiet Ask.

To Jason's credit, he removes the magazine and hands it to Carina. "Feel better?" he asks, though there's no hint of patronization in his tone.

I roll my shoulders, but the pain is still there. “No—I mean—yeah, but—sorry. Sorry. I didn't mean to—”

“Car behind us,” Ask says. I'm so mentally disjointed that I slam on the gas, throwing us all forward and not helping my neck pain at all. Carina loses her sunglasses. Jason grins and stuffs the magazine into the glove compartment, putting the emptied Glock back into its holster.

“Sorry,” I breathe again, trying to drive normally. The mountains are growing with each passing mile. “Must...uh, must be the San Francisco in me.”

“San Francisco?” Jason asks. “Am I the only native Montanan here?”

“No,” Ask says, and looks back down at the tic-tac-toe board.

“I've lived here since I was, like, six,” Carina adds as she hunts for her glasses on the floor. “I think that counts.”

“And I've lived in Wyoming for most of my life. I used to visit my grandparents in Cali, though.”

I drive in silence for a few minutes, watching the fields go by and almost crossing over to the wrong lane in a fit of daydreaming.

Jason says, in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, “Guess my life has been pretty boring, then.”

I don't know him well enough to refute him. Even if I did, I wonder if I would say actually something. He's a bit more than a heavy-handed golden retriever with a gun, I guess. The other two don't seem to hear.

Again, I drive. We're up high, elevation-wise, but the land around us looks flattish, painted in oranges and yellows. But the mountains are there, partially shrouded by the clouds; they're blue in the shade and more russet in the sunlight. There's some classic rock on the radio that I hadn't noticed before, and it somehow—for no apparent reason—Deep Purple just seems right for the place and time.

When we get too close to Cody for my comfort, Carina takes the wheel. I sit in the back again, squashed behind Jason of the Long Legs. Ask wants to, but he likes to lie and I don't trust his driving skills. Alleged driving skills. Sitting next to Ask again and pretending to sleep, I listen idly to a conversation between Carina and Jason over the palatability of seafood (Carina maintains that it's "kinda gross," despite being half Puerto Rican; Jason is incredulous).

It doesn't help take the edge off.

That's not to say that Cody isn't beautiful. The little city looks like it bleeds out from a low mountain; downtown is relatively flat, but go past the historic Irma hotel and the ground begins to slope. Opposite the Irma and downtown, it's pretty flat, but in the distance—past rows and rows of pasture and ranch fences—is a mountain that looks like the profile of a sleeping man. The Sleeping Giant has a bit of a cleft chin and a strong—somewhat beaked—nose. Everything else bleeds into low snowy slopes, but it almost looks like he's got a wild mane of hair.

I'm hunched over uncomfortably, unconsciously trying not to be seen, I guess. I notice this at the same time I notice Ask giving me a weird look. I straighten up. Most of the stores downtown try to act all western, to cater to tourists; you can't walk into a place without seeing the stuffed head of some dead thing or another. Hell, they'll even stick antlers on a dead rabbit put it on display as a jackalope.

Carina slows down.

“What’re you doing?” My voice sounds high, almost strangled.

“I thought we might eat at the Irma.” Putting her sunglasses on the top of her head, she catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “They won't recognize you, Garrett.”

Jason looks at us, brow furrowed, and I guess Carina hasn't told him. But Ask is smirking in a near-triumphant way, and I wonder what Dave told him about me.

There’s no arguing with Carina, though, who pulls in front of the already-crowded two-story brick building. And in case an unlucky tourist happens to forget where they are, THE IRMA is written near the top, underneath an American flag that's busy snapping in Cody's horrendous wind. There's a white-pillared awning in front of us, true to the hotel's turn-of-the century origins.

When we get out of the car, Jason stretches jumps up and down a few times. He takes a little longer than necessary, so Carina just leaves us standing by the car and goes into the restaurant. After doing a few stretches myself, I follow, pushing my way into a dark entryway ringed with pamphlet stands that advertise stuff like the Devil's tower and Old Faithful.

I stand there for a minute, recoiling and reaching at the same time. God, it's all so beautiful. Even the air here tastes like home. But it's tainted. It's wrong. And soon, we're going to be headed over the very same bridge where my life almost ended less than a year ago.

Ask and Jason break this trail of thought when they enter. Ask is still chatting about something or the other when the door opens, but Jason stops when he sees me. His chin tilts up just slightly, like he's scrutinizing me. And he is. He knows.

Damn it, Ask. As if guessing my thoughts, he goes quiet. I find something to look at on the floor and I leave the two in the entryway, my chest twisting into little knots.

Silverware clangs, the breakfast anthem echoing off the high stamped metal ceiling. Tin, I think. It sounds nice when it rains. The substantial room is full of round tables with red tablecloths, all ringed by vintage red leather chairs. Wood paneling meets green floral wallpaper halfway. Gilded portraits of Buffalo Bill and his various associates and compadres adorn the walls, as well as the severed heads of dead things. There's an elk, a bison, a moose, some antlers.

Carina waves from a table, menu in hand. I almost trip over a baby carrier trying to get to the table.

Wooden booths line one wall; on the other the famous bar, a cherrywood giant gifted to the place by Queen Victoria, an enormous three-part mirror built into the back. The mirror's frame is carved in that swirling, symmetric Victorian style, but a carved bison head adorns the top, near the ceiling.

And it smells like Wyoming: greasy, meaty, dusty, with a hint of tobacco in the air, despite the fact that smoking is technically banned in the Irma; I would know, since my dad got kicked out for it, years and years ago.

“Sir?” The waiter says. I jump, much to the amusement of Carina. The other two are just now taking their seats.

“Just water,” I say, hoping I've guessed the correct answer to a question I didn't hear. I'm heave an internal sigh of relief when the waiter just nods and goes on to Jason, who shrugs and asks for a Coke.

I don't hear what Ask says, and I only vaguely hear Carina when she says something like, “And we'll do buffet, thanks.”

Because he's here. One of them, at least. Sitting in a booth, eating happily with a girl we both went to highschool with. Just months ago, I should've walked the stage with both of them, but I'd transferred to some online school the second semester. A diploma's a diploma, I guess.
I slowly scoot my chair back.

Someone says, “Where are you going?” But it feels far away. I need to—I need to—

And I'm standing. No one's looking at me except my tablemates—why would they? But I'm standing, and I can't just sit back down, so I leave. He's between me and the exit,so I don't go there. I can't. I walk at first, but run when my hands begin to shake. I have to go another way, maybe through the hotel proper or maybe I'll just excuse myself, go to the bathroom, but I have to—

I only make it as far as the door that leads to a foyer of the hotel proper, where a carpeted staircase leads to a hallway somewhere above me, where a couple struggles with their bags against the stairs because there's no elevator because we're in the goddamn wild west, Garrett. They don't even look at me, even when I have to find the wall for support, then the railing, and then I'm on the floor and just slumped against the stairs. That's when they look, but maybe I look drunk because they just look away. I can smell her perfume, can still hear a murmur of conversation through the high musty walls. But it bleeds together.

And I break.
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