30. Jack
30
JACK
W hat the fuck was the fucking brat thinking? How goddamn dare he. The front door shuts with a satisfying slam behind me. I grabbed my jacket off the hook but I’m so hot with rage I don’t bother to put it on as I circle around the house and storm out to my workshop.
“Little fucking prick ,” I fume out loud. I reach the shop, turn on the light and toss my jacket onto the workbench. There’s more force than I realize behind my movement, because the jacket slides along the smooth surface, falling off the far side.
“Fucking shit,” I mutter with an annoyed sigh. As I pick it up, I notice a couple of birch twigs on the floor. The jacket must have caught them and swept them off the workbench.
I feel myself frown as I pick them up. I don’t want to think about that birch right now, or the hours I spent making the bookcase, hurrying out here in the cold mornings after Bunny left for work in the pre-dawn twilight because I didn’t want to be disturbed or have him come looking for me, which would have ruined the surprise.
I also don’t want to think about the conversation we had that day he came out here. Try as I might, the memory sneaks back in anyway: Bunny, twirling this stupid twig between his thumb and forefinger, getting more on my nerves with every big-eyed blink he aimed in my direction until he rolled his eyes and threw out some snark. My frayed patience ripped straight down the middle and I snapped at him.
He had it coming with his brattitude, but the dejected expression he gave me right before he slouched back to the house gave me a pang. I did not like the way that made me feel.
My superpower is not giving a shit, and I’d prefer to keep it that way, fuck you very much. Especially because Bunny just proved to me that my reluctance to open up to him was entirely and one thousand percent justified. Good thing I haven’t gotten emotionally entangled or anything.
Son-of-a- bitch .
It’s almost a relief to realize I’d better hustle to finish getting this insulation installed if I expect to be even a little comfortable sleeping here tonight. I unbutton my flannel and strip down to my T-shirt. I’m still pissed-off enough that I’ve got plenty of energy to burn. I work fast, and the detail-oriented boredom of installing insulation is a good distraction.
But the thoughts slip through anyway, like a draft between cracks in the boards, cold and unwelcome. Seriously, where the fuck does he get off, thinking it would be even the slightest bit OK for him to contact Sarah? I told him flat-out I didn’t need or want him interfering when he pushed me to consider reaching out to her. I was pretty fucking unambiguous.
I wasn’t about to tell him I did try to contact her, too. It was after I spent some time turning over all the things I’d buried in my mind, things that resurfaced the day of that field trip. I surprised myself when I decided that maybe Bunny was right. Maybe a decade’s worth of water under the bridge would be enough, and the idea of reestablishing some kind of connection or relationship wouldn’t be as crazy and hopeless as I had believed.
It wasn’t that I was holding back because I was afraid of her responding with a dismissive not interested or a curt fuck off ; or worse, the same mixture of vitriol and disgust in her words and voice the last time I spoke to her. I just really, really didn’t want to deal with it.
But I hadn’t been prepared for how empty I felt after I sent her a text and got no response. I could see that the message was received and read. And then… nothing.
Never knew how fucking loud silence could be. So when Bunny started up again with his stupid ideas about a goddamn family reunion, I was in no mood to listen. It took serious effort to push all those bad feelings back down and re-bury them. Needing something to fill that vacuum, I instead focused on this nameless thing I had with Bunny. There was something strangely comforting in the thought that he was willing —that he wanted —to go with me down the dark, depraved rabbit holes that scratch my itch and fulfill my desires.
I glance out the window a couple of times as I finish installing the insulation around it, half-expecting to see him walking across the yard. But there’s just a gray fox that skirts the firepit and trots off into the woods. Normally, that would have lifted my spirits at least a little, but today, those pointy ears and fluffy tail just bounce off the hard shell of my don’t-give-a-fuck.
It’s just as well he stayed inside. I don’t want Bunny — Adair , I correct myself harshly in my head — here.
I stupidly had started thinking that things were going well between us, and that maybe I could trust him. Fuck that. I should have known better. That feels even worse than being furious at him: Being furious at myself for believing this might have been different. For believing that this thing we can’t name might still have had a chance at becoming something real.
I was so close to saying fuck it, to giving into the hope that fluttered in my chest and believing this thing could be the real thing between us. I trusted him. And then the little shit went and yanked the rug out from under me.
I want to storm back into the house and chew him out again, but my anger still feels radioactive. I’d want to hurt him. Or touch him. And neither of those are safe thoughts right now.
Because I don’t know what the hell he was trying to pull back there in the house,trying to goad me into unleashing my anger on his pliant body. I might have a temper, but I’m not stupid. I’m not about to let him tempt me into becoming the worst mirror image of myself I could be: The violent, thuggish brute I’ve been accused of being already, and the entire fucking reason I’m in this estranged situation with my family in the first place.
My phone buzzes. It’s Adair, saying he’s going to be heading out to run some errand that’s probably a bullshit excuse. I don’t care. I’ll be able to grab my shit —sleeping bag, heavy long underwear to throw on under pajamas if it gets cold and the rest of it. I’m glad I thought to buy a small space heater to keep in here. Of course, that was because I figured I might be working on a project when it was cold out, not because I expected to be in self-imposed exile from my fucking house because there’s an infuriating, impertinent bunny living in it.
A second message comes in, telling me what time he’s leaving for work tomorrow morning. I know what fucking time he leaves for work in the morning, but this is a lot earlier. As I start to write him back, a hollow whisper comes from somewhere deep inside of me: Why bother?
Yeah. What’s the point? I delete the half-typed message. Instead, I gather up the rest of the birch twigs that remain around the workbench and snap them roughly into oversized confetti. I open the door to fling them out and watch them scatter onto the ground.