Beasts Trapped in the Mountains

This is a forbidden love born amid mud and scars. It grows slowly, but takes root deep.

“He pulled me into waist-high weeds. His sleeping father was behind us. He said he would take me to see the mountains, but in the rafters of his house, I saw the bloody welts left by a belt.”

“When I was twenty, I fell in love with a boy, then personally sent him down the road south from which there was no return. He served seven years in prison for a crime he took upon himself for me. On the day he was released, the first thing he asked was, ‘Big brother, is that old bastard dead?’”