When we got back to the cabin, I went to my room and lay on the bed. It was a little past 12 o’clock. William was making lunch. I was reading a book off the shelf. I tried to forget about our walk in the snow. I tried to forget the way that he had held my hand; any feelings that he had for me.
He was crying, begging for my forgiveness. I felt guilty, in an odd way, I felt guilty that he cried like that, that he said all those things and I rejected him. But, how could I forgive him? The thought of going out to the kitchen and telling him I forgave was very strong, but I wasn’t sure if I could.
I did something that day. I prayed.
Laying on the bed, I put my hands together, and I closed my eyes, “Hi, God? Um, I’m not sure how this works, but that’s not important right now. Um, I was thinking, that people pray to you, they usually pray to you when they are feeling hopeless, and I thought, hey, why not give this a try?
“You know, I think it’s worth it because if you are out there if you are listening to me, I need you right now. I’m sorry for everything, I’m sorry for making fun of you, and not believing you were real. And right now, I just need your help. Please, if you can help me, I need you. I know there are seven billion people in the world that you need to help, but I am here too. Please, if you can, please, help me.”
I waited for something to happen. I waited, but it was so quiet in that house, so cold. It was so still, and nothing happened.
I sighed. “Thanks anyways.” I got up from the bed and went out to the living room. William was almost done with lunch. I saw that the bow and arrows were next to the front door.
“Hey Tavi,” he said. “After lunch, you want to practice some more?”
“Okay . . .What’s for lunch?”
“Deer,” he told me. “Just caught it a few days ago.”
I shook my head, “William, it all tastes . . . the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“All the meat, taste the same, why?”
“Well, we only have so much deer here-“
“And chicken, and sheep, what we ate the other day . . .” I trailed off. “William?”
“Yes?”
“That’s not deer, is it?”
“It is, now stop questioning it, please.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He looked at me. Something in his eyes was off. I could tell something was wrong, and I know it was much more than our walk. He didn’t respond. He just finished cooking. I got up and walked around the house. I went to the fireplace and stared at the fire until my eyes hurt. Hope was wandering around. I went to my bedroom, and he followed me.
He got up on the bed and started to go to sleep. I petted him. He was named Hope for a reason. He was my only Hope while I was up there.
So I put my coat around him and let him sleep in peace. I went out to the living room, and William was done. He had lunch ready on the table for him and me.
I started to cut into the meat. I told myself if you get the bad stuff out of the way first, then you won’t have to worry so much about it later. William had his eyes on me, refusing to look away.
“Um, what?” I asked.
“Name me three types of fast food,” he told me.
I thought about it for a second. “Um, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and KFC.”
“Now name me three types of leaves.”
“Um, well,” I started. I looked around. I couldn’t name a single leave. “Um, is oak a leave?”
“Shit,” he mumbled. “You don’t know how to hunt or grow food.”
“Well, sorry for not knowing about trees and leaves.”
“It’s more than that,” he snapped. “You’ll die without me here. If something happens to me, you’re screwed.”
“Well, I could just take your car, and go to town.”
He frowned. “Seriously thought, what would you do, if I died and there was no town, no family to go back to, what would you do?”
“I don’t know,” I stared at the plate.
“For years, I had no one, and I had to learn how to survive by myself. I was homeless for many years, and that’s why I rented out that place, from your mom. After I found you, you gave me hope, that maybe not everything in the world is bad.” I gulped down my drink, waiting for him to stop talking. He didn’t, he went on. “I had to do so much just to survive for you. I starved a lot, but found a way to keep going.”
“Where did you go after you left my parent’s rent house?” I asked.
“Here, fixed up this place. I lived in my truck for a few months though, in the mountains before I found this place. Your parents were unfair. They kicked me out before I could find another place. I did a lot in the forest to just live,” he said, lost in memory.
“Well, I guess you just had to do what you had to do.”
“You know how much I love you?” he asked, cold eyes burning into me.
I was scared to ask. “How much?”
“There was this little girl who had gone missing. I stumbled upon her body. She was dead. She had been dead for months, and everyone knew that. Having no money, not able to get a job, living in my truck, I had no food. For about seven days I starved. And when you are starving, when you are in the state of deprecation, you do what you have to do to survive.”
I held on to my seat. “William, what did you have to do?” He didn’t answer. He just looked outside, to the falling snowflakes.
He was watching them falling from the top of the world, falling so slowly to the dirty, horrible earth. I asked again, “William?”
He was still looking outside. “I ate her.”
A moment passed. I got up from the table and hit the wall. “What?” I whispered.
He looked at me. “Tavi, I ate her to live. So I could live for you.”
“William, you . . . you can’t be serious,” holding on to hope that he was just telling me a sick joke, or lying. Something in his eyes, they had truth to it. When he didn’t say anything, I started to shake. “Oh my god . . . Oh my God!”
“Tavi, if I didn’t do that, then I wouldn’t have had you.”
Tears were running. “You ate a little girl?”
“I had to eat it-”
“It? It was a little girl!” I screamed at him. “She had a mom and dad! She had friends! She had a life that she would never live, and you just call her an ‘it’? As if she didn’t have a life, a family, as if-”
“Tavi, stop it, I didn’t kill her,” he said getting up. He put his glass and plate into the sink. He started to wash his plate as if nothing had happened. As if he didn’t tell me his deepest, darkest secret. Had he told anyone else? Was I the only one in the world that had known about this?
“William,” I cried, my voice shaking.
“She was long gone. God, I just wanted to express the links I had to go, everything I had to do to live, just for you.”
“Did . . . you ever tell the parents?”
“No, why would I?”
I felt a wave of vomit in my stomach. “That’s . . . that is, William, I have no words to express . . . oh my God.”
“Why are you freaking out?” he turned around, red in the face.
“Because you ate someone!” I screamed. “I mean, you can’t tell me this is normal. No one just eats people and not act like it’s anything. You ate someone, William!”
“Yeah, well, so have you,” he slipped out.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
