It certainly is.
I nod and pretend I don’t mind being talked to like a child. I remember how often Meg would tell me that she was just as bad as he was. I say mean things too. I start arguments. I’m not innocent here.
No. No one is innocent. But Steven escalates a thoughtless moment into deliberate cruelty every time. That was how he’d learned to respond to hurt: Accidentally bump into my emotions and I will punch you as hard as I can. It makes his pain go away, maybe. At the very least, he can feel as if he’s won the interaction, and, boy, does he like winning. He needs to feel powerful to feel safe. Hey, I can understand that but I can’t sympathize. That’s not an emotion I can tap into.
He comes in close behind me to help me position the rifle correctly. His groin is pushed right up against my butt, of course. “You’re not going to be able to cover your ears, you know.”
“I know.”
“I’ll hold on and keep you safe,” he murmurs, sliding his hands to my waist.
I sight through the scope and deliberately miss, letting the stock smack into my shoulder as the shot rings out. “Ow!”
“You need to keep it braced tightly against your shoulder or it’s going to kick back. Try again.”
“I don’t think I want to.”
“You have to try at least one more time, baby. I brought you all the way up here.”
I sigh and shoot again, keeping it snug to my shoulder this time but purposely missing the can. “Steven! I did it!”
“Well, you shot a round, that’s for sure.”
“I think I got real close.”
“How does it feel?”
“Fun.” That’s the truth. Maybe I’ll find a shooting range in Malaysia and make this a hobby.
His hands slide a little higher, until he’s grazing the bottoms of my breasts through the coat. “It’s hot watching you shoot.”
“Stop it.” The words leave my mouth too sharply, but he doesn’t notice. He just chuckles and I shoot once more, aiming a little closer. On the fourth shot I hit a can and whoop with joy. “I did it! I did it!”
“Good job, babe. But that doesn’t mean you can hit a moving animal.”
“No, but I can hit one that’s not moving!”
“It’ll be moving pretty fast by the time you get that fourth shot off.”
“I just need to practice.”
“Sure.” He takes the rifle from me and loads a new magazine. “There you go. Try again.”
He finally steps back and lets me shoot on my own. I take six more shots. On the last shots I’m really trying, and I hit the last two cans with no problem. If I do shoot Steven, he’ll likely be pretty close. I’m not concerned I’ll miss.
He takes the rifle from me and goes to set the cans again, apparently not trusting that I won’t kill him while he’s down there.
Smart move.
I could shoot him as soon as he gives the gun back to me and get this over with, but not here. A shooting accident in the woods would be better. I’m inexperienced and I saw movement and thought he was a deer.
If I just accidentally kill him standing right in front of me in this clearing, I could be charged with manslaughter or criminal negligence.
And if I’m going to bury his body somewhere and make him disappear, I can’t have his guts and blood all over the yard. Even I won’t be able to playact my way out of that one.
I fire off another ten shots or so, picturing Steven’s face as the cans. Then he wants a turn. His turn goes on for a while. I shoot another few rounds, but he gets bored with sharing and suggests we stop for lunch. “It’s almost noon already.”
“Yay, weenie roast!” I yell. His face spasms in irritation, but I laugh because, come on, it’s funny.
Steven makes a big show of cutting a couple of sticks off a nearby maple tree and whittling each end into a forked point using a pocketknife.
“Won’t these get tree stuff on our hot dogs?” I ask as he hands me my stick.
He rolls his eyes. I imagine poking the stick in them.
“They’re not, like, poisonous or anything?”
“No, Jane, they’re not poisonous. Didn’t any of the men your mom brought home ever take you camping?”
I shoot him a narrow look and he holds up his hands. “You know what I mean.”
“No,” I grumble as I stomp up the stairs to the cabin door, “they didn’t take me camping.”
“That’s why women shouldn’t have kids outside of marriage. Your real dad would have taught you this kind of stuff.”
“Maybe. But men have kids outside of marriage too, you know. That’s kind of how it works.”
“But women should know better. They’re the ones left with the children.” Lucky men and stupid, irresponsible women. A tale as old as time.
Steven has done his whittling work, so he grabs another beer and puts his feet up on a rough block of wood that sits between the couches. I get the hot dogs and buns and condiments and paper plates. The fire has warmed the place up, at least, and I shed my big coat and boots.
“There are potato chips too,” he calls out. I retrieve them, and he moves his feet so I can fit the chips on the makeshift table. Steven hands me his cooking stick. I kneel in front of the fire and cook our meal.
“This is nice,” he says.
“The first dinner I’ve made for you!”
He laughs and chugs his beer. I grin with happiness as my cheeks flush from the fire. A tiny flash of movement catches my eye. A spider drops frantically from a high hearthstone to escape the heat. But it’s hotter near the ground, unfortunately for the spider. It drops to the floor right in front of the flames, and I watch its legs curl in until it’s just a little ball of drying meat. I don’t squeal with fear once. I don’t even blink.
When the weenies are roasted, I slide them onto buns and serve one to my man. He eats it quickly and asks for one more, but he does get up to fetch himself a beer from the doorstep. He gets me one too. As soon as our meal is finished, he announces that he’s going out to get in a few hours of hunting before dusk.
“Hold on!” I cry. “Let me just get my coat and—”
“No. You stay here.”
“But, Steven—”
“Not today. I need some peace.”
He’s out the door before I can think, stomping down the steps with his gun in hand.
Damn it. I shove my feet into my boots and scramble into my coat, but as I run for the door, one of the overlarge boots slides off and trips me. I have to stop and tie them to keep them on, and by the time I burst out of the front door, Steven has vanished.
I sprint around the back of the cabin to see if he’s still somewhere here in the clearing, but he’s gone and I don’t spy any trailheads.
“Shit!” Maybe I’m not a jungle cat after all.
I walk down the dirt lane, one of my boots clomping sadly against the packed ground. I hope to find an obvious trail he might have taken, but all I see are a couple of narrow gaps in the trees. Even if I can make the right guess, it’s not a great idea to silently stalk an armed hunter through the woods. Shooting me might make his life miserable for a while, but that’s really not the way I want to go about it.
Okay, this is fine. I’ll talk him into taking me with him tomorrow morning and I’ll kill him the first chance I get.
But damn I hate making mistakes.
Don’t believe the movies about us. Being a sociopath doesn’t automatically make someone a genius at killing. I’m learning on the job here.
The good news is that I’ve made a decision. I’ve lost my chance to make this fast, so quickly making my way back to the city undetected will be too difficult. Option one is out. And option three—accidentally shooting my boyfriend in the woods—puts me under too much scrutiny and could result in charges.