Page 19 of What Rough Beast

It’s a scattershot litmus test that I’ve used for guys online before. If they’re honest, it filters out incels, misogynists, and dudes fishing for minors.

averageamericanmale: Eighteen. I live with my mom and dad, but not in the basement.

averageamericanmale: And I’ve never had an abortion.

“Ha,” I say, the one word echoing in the bathroom stall.

averageamericanmale: My turn. How old are you?

My hackles go up slightly.

burnedoutgirl: Why?

averageamericanmale: Because dudes have to be careful sometimes too.

I consider it for a second before responding.

burnedoutgirl: Fair. I’m also eighteen.

He thumbs-ups my answer but doesn’t say anything else. The bell rings, and I jam my phone in my pocket, grab my backpack, and walk out of the bathroom.

Right into Micah Harding’s chest.

“Shit,” he says, almost dropping his phone. I react instinctively and try to catch it; he does the same and we end up tangled together. He freezes and so do I, our gazes meeting. The pit in my stomach opens again, like the one at Widow’s except it isn’t filled with dead animals. It’s just the remnants of me in there, a little more tumbling in each time.

“Hey, sorry,” Micah says quickly, even though I’m the one who ran into him.

I yank my arm back, rubbing where his hand was—the inside of my elbow, where the bruises were. Bruises I’m pretty sure he put there. People are passing around us, splitting like water around stones, looking back over their shoulders and wondering what the hell Ava Germaine and Micah Harding have to talk about.

Because there’s really only the one thing.

“Get the fuck away from me,” I say, low and growling.

“Ava,” he says, dropping his voice low. “Can we—”

I shake my head, backing away from him, tongue plastered to the roof of my mouth, heart beating rapidly in my chest. I have nothing to say to Micah Harding. And when I tried to say things about him, no one would listen.

Fifteen

Micah

Hunting is not my thing.

Worrying, freaking out, and ruminating are my things, and being in a deer blind before dawn with nothing to do for hours only aggravates them. So far, I’ve convinced myself that the lump I felt on my dog’s ear this morning is cancer, then googled it, trying to remember if it was hard, soft, or larger than a marble. My stomach had flipped when I didn’t like the answers, reminding me of the Saint Bernard we had who died because his stomach twisted into a knot, so I googled that. It’s called gastric dilatation-volvulus, it’s life-threatening, and deep-chested breeds are the most vulnerable. I ended up studying my own chest, trying to determine how worried I should be.

But worrying about my dogs, both past and present, and if their afflictions can species-jump isn’t the biggest problem. I never have control over my brain, but I allowed those thoughts to barrel down a hill, gaining momentum and becoming bigger, in order to distract myself from a real, actual problem. One that breaks through the noise the second there’s not enough to cover the signal.

Ava Germaine remembers.

I’d almost managed to escape the little flicker of panic I felt in the hallway after we ran into each other, and I saw an echo of the same thing in her eyes—fear.

“Shit,” I say.

“What? You see something?” Dad asks.

He’s next to me in the blind, still and stoic. Easily sitting out the cold, empty, early-morning hours, even though his conscience is anything but clear.

“No, it’s nothing,” I say.