“Well, you did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Good.”
The wind whipped around us.
“I’m going back to town,” I said.
He gestured feebly toward the pines. “You can take the truck if you want.”
I turned to walk back down the road. “No, that’s alright.”
“It’s a long walk.”
“I like walking.”
He said something else, but I didn’t hear him as I marched back down the mud road.
CHAPTER 32
My ears rang and my vision blurred.
All I could think to do was keep marching forward, feet beating to the pulse throbbing in my temples, back down through the dark corridor of pine trees.
As soon as I was certain I was out of sight and out of hearing, I ducked onto the verge of the forest track, overgrown with weeds and nettles, pulled a large thistle out of the ground, tearing it roots from the earth, and whipped it against the nearest tree. Furiously, I flogged the gnarled trunk, teeth gritted, hands stinging from the spines up the thistle’s stalk. Dirt flew. The crack of the greenery on wood echoed through the gloom between the trees. I kept hitting until the plant fibres severed and the flower head flew off into the forest, spiralling through the air like my clotheshorse had done a few days before.
The high whine in my head popped at its crescendo and stopped. A pathetic sob escaped my throat. I put a hand up to my mouth as if to catch it, put it back. But it was out now, if only in gasping, silent, fish-mouth cries. I fell onto my backside in the tall grass of the verge as tears poured down my stupid red face.
Small flies drifted in and out of the sunlight. My palms burned. I wiped my face with my filthy, burning hands.
Oh God, he knows. He knows! He knows what happened at the office!
I sniffed. I thought we were friends, or at least becoming friends.
It’s only been a few days. Did you really think anyone would like you that quickly?
I groaned. How could I be so stupid?
I looked at the remains of the destroyed thistle and the marks on the trunk of that unfortunate tree.
I sat with what he’d told me. I tried to imagine Rowan—gentle, dorky, calm Rowan—smashing a bottle over a stranger’s head. The fear I’d felt in the truck hadn’t been entirely paranoia. The discomfort shifted about under my skin. I thought of the puncture on my foot. I thought of the needle in my pocket floating around inside my body, waiting to snag on my internal organs. I’d give him one thing: looking at that mangled thistle, he’d been right about walking away before succumbing to rage.
No, fuck him. Where does he get off telling me to be careful with anger?
I stood up.
I had a one-off lapse in judgement. A wobble. That’s hardly a track record. It’s men who have a problem with anger. That’s been proven, hasn’t it? Women don’t take their anger out on the world. They don’t beat up their partners. Well, except the ones who do. Or start fights on nights out. Well, no, some do that as well.
I resumed my march back down the hill.
If anything, women aren’t angry enough. That’s what people say. If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. Anger was the antidote. Being angry meant I was on the right side. Being angry meant I was safe from anyone who’d do me harm. How was anyone supposed to survive otherwise? What with all the things we have to be afraid of, all the monsters we’ve been told about. Shadowy men poised around corners, waiting in parked vans, hiding in the spaces the streetlights don’t reach. Toxic people that take advantage of you, looking to steal your money, your time, your emotions. Workplaces that abuse your labour, that demand gratitude, that make you spend all your time slaving away for not-very-much-money-at-all-actually, that sink you into exploitative environments like frogs being slowly boiled alive.
You have to always have your trigger finger resting on your anger. Always be ready to let rip. It would be a good thing if women let rip more often. That would teach the rapists and the wife beaters and the kidnappers and the misogynists and the bad bosses and the bullies.
Smack. Fuck you. Slap. Fuck you. Punch. Fuck you.
So what if I’d imagined breaking the knees of the white sleeved arsehole who groped me once in a bar? So what if I’d thought about running the catcaller in the park through with a broadsword? So what if I’d daydreamed about smashing in the skull of whoever owned that flat that played loud dance music at three in the morning?
