Page 8 of Animal Tamer
Wren nods. Picks up her kit. Walks toward the tent flap. Stops. Doesn't turn around.
“The other animals.” Her voice is careful. “Can I see them before I go?”
I blink at the back of her head. “Yes.”
She nods again, still not turning, and pushes through the flap into the evening light.
Logan waits until she's out of earshot. Then he leans against the tent pole and crosses his arms.
“Well,” he says.
“Don't.”
“I wasn't going to say anything.”
“Yes, you were.”
“I really wasn't.”
I look down at Peanut, his small body finally still, his breath evening into sleep against my chest. I look at the tent flap she walked through.
My pulse is loud in my ears.
“Logan.”
“Yeah?”
“I'm not joining you if you find a woman tonight.”
A long pause.
“Alright, brother.”
I don't look at him. But I can tell he’s smiling anyway.
4
WREN
The canvas flap drops behind me, and the evening air hits like a glass of cold water in the face.
I make it five steps before I stop. Then I set the kit down, press both palms flat against my thighs, and try to remember how lungs work.
It's not you.
His voice keeps replaying in my head, low and rough. The worst part is the way he said it, like he could read the script running through my skull and wanted to shut it down before I got to the chorus.
I tug the hem of my jacket. Tug it again.
He flinched. That's all. He flinched, and then he explained, and I shouldn't be standing out here with my pulse in my throat, replaying it.
Except I am.
Tasha Brennan flickers up the back of my brain again. Sixth grade, the locker room, the way she'd shove past me to get to the sink and then wipe her shoulder like she'd brushed against something contagious. The boys laughed.Don't touch her, you'll catch it.And I don't even rememberwhatitwas supposed to be. Acne, glasses, the wrong jeans. Anything.
But that's not what happened in there. Right? He didn't recoil because it was me.
I exhale through my teeth and pick the kit back up.
