When I Was Young In The Mountains

My dad is a fan of tough love parenting. When I was a kid, there was a time when I obtained full marks on two subjects. But he told me, "Your grades don't mean anything in life. If you were a true man, you'd leap down five floors without batting an eyelash." Some time later, I was awarded for my act of bravery. But Dad scoffed in my face. "Not even a hair is harmed on your head. Why should you be awarded anyway?" I thought Dad wanted me to go through more training in life. On Christmas Eve, he ditched me on a snowy mountain under the guise of wanting me to go through more training. He didn't give me a tent or a lighter. Later on, Dad even brags about his parenting method to his relatives and friends. "A real man should survive and thrive in a desperate situation! I told Julian that he can forget about being my son if he can't even make his way back to the summit!" But the red dot on the GPS tracker installed in his phone hasn't moved for the past three hours. The truth is, I've already frozen to death in the mountains. Trapped in my fist is a crumpled, torn scrap of paper. Meanwhile, my soul is currently floating above the dining table while watching Dad brag about his tough love parenting.

My fiancé's first love was taking photos on a cliff before the landslide. To save her, he actually left me behind on the crumbling edge. I pleaded with him to save me. "Lucy isn't physically strong—she can't handle this alone. You've always been resilient. I'll get Lucy to safety first, then come back for you." Their silhouettes vanished over the ridge. After a brief commotion, everything went silent. Including me, with my freshly sprained ankle. When he saw the news of my death, he completely fell apart.

Every year, the village had to choose a girl of age to become the Blossom Bride. The girl who was chosen would be sent into the cave as the village god’s wife. She would spend the entire night with him. If she came out alive, she would be honored for the rest of her life as a village elder. Any child she bore was said to be blessed, destined for a life of effortless fortune. If she died, the village would simply wait for the next year, when another Blossom Bride would be chosen. The blessing of the Blossom Bride was believed to pass on to her parents and elders as well. However, no one wanted to be chosen. To escape the ritual, families quietly left the village, one after another. I was the only one who volunteered. I had a lust problem, and I had always wondered what it would feel like to be with a god.

That winter, the Silver Moon Pack holds its annual ski hunt. An avalanche strikes without warning, and the three of us are trapped in a lift pod. There's only one thermal suit left. My mate, Ryan Mercer, gives the thermal suit to me. I survive, but his childhood sweetheart, Eve Hurst, is buried forever beneath the endless white of the mountain. No body is ever found. However, he gazes at me with devotion and says, "Celine Bartlett, you are the love of my life." I soak in those words, believing them. But I have no idea this is the beginning of my nightmare. For the next five years, he speaks to me only with cruelty. "You killed Eve. You're a murderer!" He locks me in the basement and whips me with lashes soaked in wolfsbane. Then, he pretends to show pity and feeds me with a silver fork. When I refuse, he stabs me with silver nails across my legs, carving deep red lines into my skin. "This is what you owe her, and you will repay it!" When I ask for a reject, he stabs a silver dagger into my chest, dragging me into death with him. When I open my eyes, I find myself back on the day of the avalanche. This time, I hand the survival gear to Eve without hesitation. This time, I owe her nothing. And now, I want to see whether they will get their happy ending without me around.

On my 20th birthday, I called out toward the living room out of habit, "Chester, Milford, Collin... I'm 20 today. You promised you'd celebrate my every birthday." All that responded to me was silence. On the sofa sat the plush dolls of my brothers and my childhood sweetheart. They sat there with their round eyes open, quietly keeping me company just like they had on so many nights before. Only then did I remember that they had abandoned me long ago. When I was ten, I was diagnosed with kidney disease. My eldest brother brought home a girl from the orphanage, saying that her kidney matched mine and that she was the sister who came to save my life. But before she ever made it to the operating table, she became everyone's new favorite. After chemo, I couldn't eat spicy food, yet my eldest brother cooked spicy Thai and Mexican dishes for every meal. "Lena is going to lose a kidney. What's wrong with letting her eat what she likes now?" When she took a liking to my coming-of-age necklace, my second brother took it off me on the spot and gave it to her. "She's giving you a kidney. Giving her a necklace isn't too much, right?" My childhood sweetheart promised to accompany me to my follow-up appointment, but he broke his word to take her to a concert instead. "She might not have opportunities like this in the future. You can handle one night." Even my life-saving surgery was delayed again and again because she wanted to see the ocean, go skydiving, and chase the Northern Lights. And just because I mentioned that living in a massive house by myself made me scared and that I wanted to go out and play with them, they used it as an excuse to send me away to a rental apartment. The night I moved in, I made three dolls modeled after their appearances. They accompanied me to eat, sleep, and listened to me talk through every bout of pain. Today, I used the last of my savings to buy a second-hand car. I wanted to go see Lake Tahoe, the place we once promised to visit together. And after that, I'd never look back.

My brother, Charles Raymond, said he wanted a family mountain climbing trip. So, Mom forced me to go, completely ignoring my raging fever. Halfway up the snowy peak, Charles and I got severe altitude sickness. But Mom didn't care if I lived or died. She insisted on giving the very last oxygen tank to him, even though his symptoms were mild. When the rescue team finally arrived, I begged her to save me first. Instead, she looked at me with pure disgust. "There isn't enough room in the vehicle," she snapped. "Stop faking sickness just to compete with your brother. You're delaying his medical treatment." In the end, I was left behind. I died a brutal death in the endless, freezing snow. And my unloved life finally came to an end.