We both took a moment to relax.
“No one is going to murder anyone,” she said eventually. “We’ll be safe.”
No one? Implying I could murder too? “That’s an interesting way to put it.” Didn’t know what she was putting where yet, but curiosity achieved.
She smiled. “I know.”
* * *
Our activity for the day?
Insanity.
I needed to be more specific.
We were in a clearing. It was clear. Though there were trees all around us. Joanne had assured me she knew the way back, so we didn’t have to rely on my nonexistent survival skills. Oh god, I hoped had survival skills. At least one or two hiding somewhere. Had I checked under the couch cushions?
I needed to survive this.
“Do you know the most important thing?” her even, clear voice asked.
“Don’t hit a vital artery.” My brain was laughing and screaming at the same time.
“I don’t want to say that’s not crucial or put it in second,” she told me in a contemplative voice. “But let’s call it a tie. Theothermost important part is tobreath.”
Totally. I had done that before and could do that again with no problems whatsoever. I tried, air rushing in and then escaping in nervous, almost hysterical laughter. The really annoying thing about breathing was that I couldn’t just do it once and be proud of myself and stop. I had to keep going. Stupid breathing.
Joanne was even crazier than me.
“Your dad tells me you do great in school,” the crazy lady said. “You’re a bright kid. I’m guessing you can focus and be serious when you need to.”
Generally, but... “There’s a lot of pressure here.” My voice warbled like crazy. I didn’t look at my hands to see how badly they were shaking.
“You can put pressure on yourself, sure.” I glanced at her and she still seemed calm and steady. “However, I’m here talking you through it. You’re going to be careful and follow directions. This is safe. A variety of people with much lower IQs and even younger than you have successfully learned to use firearms. You can do it too.”
Maybe she had a point. My body was busy screaming,danger, danger,but my foot was bouncing around impatiently, something I’d have to control if I actually went through with this. I had to admit, I was morbidly curious, almost excited—
No, not morbidly curious or morbidly anything else. There would be no morbiting today.
It was my turn to say words. God, along with breathing and possibly shooting, I had to do wording too. My to do list for the day was so long. I went with, “I see why Dad and Luke couldn’t be with us.”
“Less distractions the better,” she agreed.
“Also, they know me better and understand on spiritual level how Icannotbe trusted with a firearm.” They probably expected us to have all our pieces still put together in the same order they left us in when we met back up.
No, they’d met me. They didn’t expect that but greatly hoped for it.
“We don’t have to do this,” Joanne said. “If you want to, I’m willing to show you.” Why wasn’t she wearing orange? I didn’t want to mistake her for a weird upright deer with hair. Wait, we weren’t hunting.
Sometimes all the insane, spastic impulses just exploded from inside me, demanding I be weird. Most of the time, I didn’t really see a point in reigning it in. Yeah, there was a lot of embarrassment in my life. Hazard of the Ryan. Worth it though.
Couldn’t control all of it. Some of it, yeah. And this was how. When all the eleventy million thoughts in my brain became about the same thing. When I didn’t want to just talk and talk and talk (and talk) because I was more interested in listening. Watching. Learning.
Curiosity.
That wassomy drug of choice. But not in a lame anti-drugs-ad-that-probably-didn’t-work-anyway way.
In the way where I was trying to be so still on the outside, I was pretty sure every inch of every organ in my body was vibrating inside. I reached out slowly and touched the gun. Wow, what a rush. Adrenaline rocketed through me. Maybe that was a good stopping point for today. We made some real progress here.
