Page 94 of The Hunting Moon
“A few hours,” she agrees. And then she shakes her head, because this isn’t at all what she came here to say. What shewantsto say is a very simple phrase that she can easily diagram on the whiteboard.
I (subject) like (predicate) you (direct object) too (adverb).
Just do it,she prods inwardly.You went into the forest after him. He can probably guess how you feel. Now just say it out loud, Winnie.She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she shoves her warped glasses up her nose and fights the urge to click her teeth.
Jay meanwhile continues to stare with such intensity that it’s actually getting uncomfortable. Winnie’s also pretty sure if he grips his bow any tighter, it will snap in two.
Just do it, just do it.
“I like you too,” she blurts. It comes out loud and harsh. Definitelynotthe suave presentation she practiced in front of her mirror. But it’s too late to stop now, so she just blunders on: “I also liked you four years ago, which was another reason it hurt so much when you ditched me. Because Ilikedyou, Jay. I mean, Ireallyliked you. And while yeah, I understand why you didn’t want to stay friends with me, I didn’t know that at the time, so—”
Jay moves so fast, Winnie barely processes that he has lifted his bow and taken aim—much less that he has nocked an arrow and let loose. She only realizes, in fact, once the arrow hits the farthest target directly in its heart.
Flecks of foam spray from its vinyl chest.
Alotof foam, as if the force of impact is more than that poor human-shaped torso was ever meant to sustain.
Jay shoots two more arrows, one after the other with a speed that isn’t quite human. And Winnie suddenly understands in a fuzzy part of her brainwhyhe stopped running in the Nightmare Masquerade 5K.Never startle a nightmare.
A heartbeat later, Jay is tromping off toward the target as if he wants to murder the thing with his bare hands.
“Are you…mad?” Winnie asks his retreating back. When Jay doesn’t answer, she chases after, hurrying over new grass and old mud. “Are you mad?” she repeats once they’re beside the target and Jay is very,veryforcefully removing the first arrow from the dummy.
“Not at you,” he snaps. The arrow rips free. Shredded foam and vinyl fly into the breeze. Then Jay rounds toward Winnie, now clutching the arrow with the same bone-breaking ferocity he’d clutched the bow.
Winnie can literally see the shaft bending within his fingers.
“I’m mad at me, Winnie. I’ve been mad at me for four fucking years because all I have wanted to do was tell you the truth about what happened. Instead I wrote stupid songs—”
“I really liked your song.”
“—and tried to pretend I didn’t know how much I was hurting you. I’m sorry, okay?” He doesn’t actually sound sorry as he says this. He instead sounds furious, and now there are spots of pink rising onto his cheeks.
His gray eyes shine pewter, and Winnie is pretty sure if he doesn’t release that arrow, itwillbreak in half. So she reaches out and cups his fist.With both her hands, she closes her fingers around his. “Jay,” she says quietly.
He doesn’t relax.
“I’m not going to pretend I forgive you, but you’re not the only one to blame here.”
He still doesn’t relax. If anything, a confused tension rises up his spine. His forehead pinches.
“I should have noticed what was going on with you, but I didn’t. I didn’t notice it with Erica either. I should have looked at someone other than myself for once and realized maybe they had problems too. But I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t apologize.” Jay wags his head. Some of his posture relaxes. “Please, Winnie. I don’t want you, of all people, to apologize to me. Not after… after everything.”
He doesn’t specify whateverythingmight be, but he doesn’t really have to. Plus, Winnie isn’t actually sure he could summarize it all if he tried. She certainly can’t. There are so many circles on her Venn diagram now—so many Ping-Pong balls and open questions that can be traced back to four years ago… and then likely even farther back than that.
Between them, they have twoveryfull lockboxes.
So Winnie simply says, “How about neither of us apologize, then?”
Jay’s muscles soften a little more. Enough so that she can gently pry the arrow from his grasp and drop it to the sunlit earth.
And enough so that she spies her chance to crack a joke. Something the old Jay would have laughed at. Something to diffuse the final tension stretched between them. “So isthisone of your make-out spots, Jay?”
He stares at Winnie for several seconds, incomprehension dulling his eyes to brushed steel. Then he laughs—a sound that is brimming over with the boy Winnie once knew. “Oh shit, Winnie.” He shakes his head. “You’re really hung up on that, aren’t you?”
She blushes. “Well, is it?”
