The following day, I went out to check the fishing line and the snare traps; brought back one large catfish and cleaned it before Thais woke. I never wanted to see her cry the way she cried that day. I didn’t know what could’ve caused her to break down the way she did, but I knew she wasn’t ready to talk about it, and so I never asked.
More every day I saw that Thais and I weren’t as different as I’d thought. She was fighting her own demons, just as I was. She was trying to forget the things she had witnessed and experienced and had been torn apart by, just as I was. She was trying to put the past behind her, to forget her sister’s death, the death of everyone she had ever known and loved—not accept them, but forget them. Just as I was. She told me these things one day, but, as always, she was vague. Thais was strong, but she hurt as much as anyone. As much as me. Probably more, I decided. Because she was stronger than me and she rarely ever showed her pain or talked about the things that caused it. I envied her. I could never be as strong as she was. She was a soft and kindhearted young woman who often fell into the ‘girly’ stereotype, grossed out by things and skittish by other things and startled easy. But Thais was anything but a typical girl. Thais was anything but a typical anything.
“I can’t watch you skin it!” she said one afternoon, her eyes were screwed shut, and she shook her head at me.
I looked up at her from the bottom step of the back porch; a rabbit I’d caught in one of my snare traps dangled lifelessly by its feet from one hand. I hadn’t meant for her to see it.
“I’ll do it on the side of the house,” I told her, and stepped around George.
Days blended into weeks—two weeks must’ve passed since we’d found the cabin, and instead of keeping my distance, I only grew closer to her.
THAIS
And the closer he got, the more my heart ached for him.
I had always sensed his struggles, listened to him mumble curses in his sleep, toss and turn and sweat the way I used to after my mother’s death. Atticus did everything to hide his pain from me, I knew, and he fought every day to distance himself from me, but I couldn’t understand why. I wanted to know, more than anything. I wanted to understand him, but he only gave me a little of himself at a time. And when he held me and kissed me and touched me, I always felt a wall built high between us.
I was determined to chip that wall away.
I was fixated on finding the weak spot.
I ached inside that it was taking so long.
The July heat was unbearable. It must’ve been one hundred degrees. Atticus and I traded modesty for comfort to endure the heat, wearing less each day. We often looked at each other privately, but it was so hot that even looking took a lot of effort.
“Where are you going?” I asked as he walked down the creaking porch steps.
I sat on the rocking chair; sweat dripped from my face; my hair was pulled into a ponytail; I fanned myself with a plastic dinner plate.
“To check the line.”
“I’ll come with you.” I set the plate down and got up.
“No, you stay here in the shade. I won’t be long.”
“Atticus, put on your boots.”
He stopped, sighed, looked down at his bare feet, blades of grass poking between his long toes.
I got up and grabbed his boots from the porch railing, dipped my fingers into the tops to hold them together.
“The last thing you need is to step on a snake and get bitten.”
He took the boots from my hand.
“At least we’d have something to eat,” he joked.
“How are you going to eat it if it kills you because it’s poisonous?” I offered him a sweet smile.
Returning it, he said, “I’ll wear the boots” and then he put them on, leaving the long strings loose, tucked them into the boots rather than tying them.
I chuckled as I looked him over.
“What’s so funny?”
I pressed my lips together to tame my smile, and I shrugged.
Atticus looked down at himself—he looked ridiculous in only a pair of boxers and combat boots.
He pointed at me.
“Well look at you,” he said, trying to keep a straight face. “That dress really leaves nothing to the imagination, y’know.” He grinned.
My mouth fell open and my eyes grew wide. I looked down at my thin yellow dress, could almost see my breasts through the fabric, and I felt my face turn two shades of red.
ATTICUS
It drove me crazy to see her everyday parading around in that dress. Did she have any idea what she was doing to me? No, she didn’t, and that’s what got me the most. She never tried to be seductive—it nearly drove me over the edge. Her vulnerability. Her sweetness. Her seemingly inexperienced nature with all things intimate. She would smile at me and her eyes would tell me: You make me so incredibly happy, Atticus Hunt, and, Will you kiss me again? I love it when you kiss me. And sometimes they would tell me: Oh, Atticus, I trust you wholly—I know you’d never hurt me, or let anyone else hurt me. And sometimes, though on rarer occasion because Thais was so shy, her eyes would say without realizing: Please take me into your arms and fill me with every part of you. I wanted to do it, oh how badly I wanted to fill her with every part of me.
I stepped onto the porch. She stood to my chest, the top of her head just barely reaching the center of my clavicle. She was getting so skinny, I thought as my eyes swept over her.
“Thais,” I said, placing my hands on the sides of her neck, “if there’s nothing on the line or in the traps today, I’m going to have to go hunting.”
“But the gunshots,” she said, looking up at me nervously. “What if somebody hears them?”
“It’s been over two weeks, and no one has come through here—we haven’t heard gunshots, either. But you’re losing a lot of weight and I need to feed you.”
Her smile fled. She reached up and touched my chest.
“I’m just afraid,” she said in a far-off voice. “It’s been so nice here, us not having to run, just relaxing and…living for a change.” She raised her eyes to mine again. “I like it here.”
I cupped the back of her head with my hand.
“I know,” I said. “So do I, but we have to eat.”
There was no fish on the line, or small animals in the snare traps, and so I dressed more appropriately for travel and set out with a rifle over my shoulder.
“I’m going with you,” Thais insisted.
I didn’t like leaving her alone in the cabin, so I agreed to take her.
Four hours later and we still had no meat.
We saw an armadillo.
“Why not?” Thais asked when I refused to take a shot at it.
“I don’t want you getting leprosy,” I told her.
Five hours.
Six.