On the Mountain

by Riley Hart

I thought there was something wrong with them, talking about him the way they did. It was always so damn easy for people to judge others if they didn’t live the exact same way they did, to judge people for addiction or mental illness or, hell, the color of their skin or who they loved. I’d seen it a million times. I wasn’t surprised anymore. All it did was make me feel even more intensely this heaviness that lived inside my bones.

“I like the way your laugh sounds,” Cyrus told me. “I appreciate your sharing it with me.”