Page 39 of Stags

“I don’t want to go out and do that in the woods,” said Rora, giggling. “You were right about not doing it that way my first time,soright.”

“You don’t want to see the stag again?” said Tawny. “You seem to have liked it. Was there something not good about it, though?”

“Did he end up being low-key, old-guy creepy?”

“No, no,” she said. “He made me feel… it was like he worshiped me.”

Tawny smiled, nodding. “Good.”

“But I ran off in the middle of the night while he was asleep, and I couldn’t find a pen to leave a note, and I know I need to find him, and tell him I’m sorry for running off. I mean, I know I should. It’s just that I realized that I could leave and never see him again and that seems so much easier,” said Rora.

“Why’d you leave?” said Eiren. “I mean, something bad must have happened.”

“I couldn’t sleep in the bed and he was taking up all the room, and I tossed and turned in this teensy sliver of bed for two hours, but then I just had to leave,” said Rora.

Eiren considered. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“Why didn’t you just shove him over onto the other side of the bed?” said Tawny.

Rora shrugged, looking miserable. “I know, I know, I just couldn’t.”

“I get that. I don’t like to inconvenience people,” said Eiren.

“Whatever, you two are both insane,” said Tawny. “First of all, he’s been way more inconvenienced by waking up alone with no idea where you are than he ever would have been if you just shook him awake and told him to move his huge ass, and second of all, no one likes inconveniencing other people, andhewas inconveniencingyou, and if you would have told him that, he would have stopped.”

Eiren nodded. “You bring up very good points.”

“I know I was being irrational,” said Rora. “But I just couldn’t do it.”

Tawny pointed at her. “Were you brought up in a home in which your needs were not considered important? Did people teach you to shove down all your feelings and accept whatever it was that everyone else wanted?”

“I mean, isn’t everyone brought up in a home like that?” said Eiren with a shrug. “To keep the peace in any group, it’s the needs of the many over the needs of the individual. I hear all this stuff about setting boundaries and communication and all that pseudo-therapy speak, but I think it’s really like this: there are two kinds of people, people who give and people who take, and you put them together and there’s peace. And you put together the opposite kinds of people and it’s bad. If you’re a giver, you need to find a taker, and if you’re a taker—”

“I am not ataker,” said Tawny.

“Yeah, but the fact that you will even say that, proves you are,” said Eiren. “And it’s not a bad thing to be, a person who advocates for themselves. It’s good. I’m envious. I’m just not that way.”

Tawny scoffed. She should be offended, really, but Eiren seemed to have a knack for saying offensive-seeming things in ways that didn’t actually seem offensive. Maybe Tawny was envious ofthatabout the other doe.

“Anyway, you’re right, though. I could stand to take up more space. And Rora, you needed to literally take up some space.”

Rora laughed. “Okay, yeah, true.” She drank some coffee. “But what will I even say if I talk to him?”

“Just like what you told us,” said Tawny. “And unless he’s a big jerk, in which case you now know to steer clear of him and it’s a good thing to know, he’ll probably apologize.”

“But then I’ll feel even worse,” said Rora. “I don’t want him to apologize.”

“It was his fault,” said Tawny, shrugging. “He should apologize. Of course, you should apologize for leaving and not just waking him up.”

“I just don’t like…”

“Inconveniencing people,” said Eiren in a resigned voice.

“Both of you need to grow a spine,” Tawny decided.

“Probably,” acknowledged Eiren.

“Maybe I won’t leave,” said Rora, thinking it over. “But I don’t want to do any of the runs.” She nodded in the direction of the field.

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