Page 68 of Such Sharp Teeth

“Because I can’t!” she screams. “I can’t!”

I’m too mad to stay in the car. I don’t trust myself.

Because I’m imagining what it would feel like to make her stop. To make her stop talking. Stop crying. Stop moving. To just stop.

I could. Easily. The violence is there, always there, waiting for me.

“All right,” I say.

I get out.

It’s raining, but I don’t care.

I walk back to Scarlett’s, cutting through the woods. The same woods where I was bitten.

Try me now.

—

By the time I get home, both my car and Scarlett’s are in the driveway. I’m soaking wet, my blazer ruined, but I don’t really give a shit.

No one’s around except Reaper, who is, naturally, not happy to see me. I bare my teeth at him. He whimpers and backs off.

I change into a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt that smells like teriyaki beef jerky and wet dog. Like me.

I take shelter under a mountain of covers and attempt to sleep, but I’m not tired. I’m not calm enough. The anger is still there. It’s receded; the walk helped. But it’s not gone. It’s like I can hear it murmuring under my skin.

I walk into Scarlett’s room. The door is open, but she’s not there. That’s when I hear the whirring. A drill.

It’s coming from the baby’s room.

I open the door, and there she is, assembling the crib.

“Hey,” she says. “Close the door behind you. Mom’s sleeping.”

I do as I’m told.

“She was hysterical,” she says. “She relayed what happened.”

“Where were you?”

“I needed some time alone. Listen, she can’t take responsibility because she couldn’t live with herself if she did,” Scarlett says. “Here, can you help me with this? Or would you prefer to watch?”

“I’ll help—geez,” I say, holding up a side of the crib.

“You do understand that, right?” she asks, a screw between her teeth. “It’s too hard for her. She couldn’t live with it.”

“I have to live with it,” I say.

“I know,” she says. “I know it isn’t fair. I know, and I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. You were eleven, too.”

She takes the screw out of her mouth. “Still . . .”

She puts the screw on the drill bit. It whirs for a few seconds. She looks up at me. “I think about it. What I could have done. Should have done. Why it wasn’t me.”

She and I have had a few conversations about it, and they’re all like this. Short. Because they never feel how I want them to feel. There’s no relief in them. Just hurt.