than my basic resources, time, and energy. Her presence interferes with everything I come out here to find. My entire life, livelihood, and future depend on me having this escape, and her interference could have devastating consequences.
She can’t be here.
She has to go.
I need to get rid of her.
Five
Jordan
For the next few days, I sleep more than I’m awake.
Grizzly Adams wakes me with one-word demands and minimal eye contact.
“Pills.”
“Eat.”
“Outhouse.”
I dutifully obey so that I can slip back into dreamland, with the hopes that I’ll wake up healed and ready to hike out of here. The passage of time becomes irrelevant and only measured by the contents in my bowl.
Having swallowed the last bite of thick oatmeal, I know it’s morning and try to fall back to sleep. For the first time in days, I can’t.
Sick of being on my back, I push to sit up. Moving is easier on the ribs, but my muscles ache from sleeping on the unforgiving wood floor. I sit against the wall and stare at the books that line the nearby shelf. Catcher in the Rye. The Great Gatsby. Lord of the Flies… I haven’t read the book, but I saw the movie, and yikes. I take a peek at Grizzly, who is, as always, sitting at the small table with his back toward me. I wonder if he’s read it.
Moby Dick. Paradise Lost. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Now that one surprises me. Grizzly reading Shakespeare?
“Have you read all these?” My voice sounds like gravel dragged over broken glass. How long has it been since I used it?
His big body remains still, but his muscles tense as if hearing my voice grates his nerves. Silent seconds stretch between us before he grunts affirmatively. Or at least, I assume it’s affirmative.
“Shakespeare, huh?” I go back to reading the spines from his tattered library. “The Last of the Mohicans. Now that’s a book that belongs here. The Mohawk tribe lived in these mountains, I think.”
Another grunt, this one sounding more irritated. “The Iroquois.” His voice is so deep and grumbly that I wonder if I misheard him because…
“Who?”
He clears his throat, and his shoulders tense around his ears as if it pains him to speak to me. “The Iroquois were in these mountains. That included the Mohawks. Not the Mohicans.”
“I thought they were the same. Like how people who live in Canada are called Canadians.”
“No.”
“Huh… learn something new every day,” I say, mostly to myself, and note that I get a response from him when he feels the need to correct me. “What day is it?” I wait for an answer that never comes, and I wonder if he doesn’t keep track. After all, why would he? It’s not like he has a job to get to or a plane to catch. “How long have I been here?”
“A week.”
That answer came fast enough. He’s clearly counting those days. He’s not the only one looking forward to the day we part ways. “I feel a lot stronger today.” I hope to reassure him that we share a common goal—getting me the hell out of here.
More silent treatment bullshit. I go back to the books. “Can I read one?”
He doesn’t answer.
I reach over to slip The Last of the Mohicans from the shelf. After blowing off a thin layer of dust, I crack open the cover.
Alexander
I still can’t look at her. Especially while she’s wearing my shirt.
The morning after her first experience with the outhouse, I thought walking in with fresh rabbit meat would distract me from seeing her in my clothes. I was ignorantly unaware of how seeing her in both my sweatpants and shirt would affect me.
What started as the familiar rage of seeing another person in my things, using my limited resources, morphed into a quiet irritation. I suppose that because she mostly slept, I was unable to argue and force her to give me my shit back. What did I expect her to do, walk around naked?
I spent that afternoon making a rabbit stew and washing her muddy and bloody clothes so that she could have something to change into. I had every intention of making her change into her own things. But then I caught a glimpse of something pale and delicate tucked into her clothes. Pale blue lace panties. Something about seeing the soft, feminine fabric shifted the way I thought about the woman on my floor. She was fierce and annoying, and she was using my things, but she was