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“Did I even say anything other than that? When did I say men were bad?”
“Two seconds ago when you were talking about how glamorous hunting was. Have you everbeenhunting? Do you know what it’s like? It’s not glamorous. It’s mostly boring. It’s very cold. If you do kill something, you think doing a field dressing is a walk in the park?”
She blinked at him, feeling a little off balance.
“I don’t know what your deal is,” he said. “But here’s what I think. Everyone’s doing the best they fucking can. Menandwomen. And it’s hard for everyone. Maybe… maybe sometimes men are kind of stupid and thoughtless, but you know, I don’t think we do it on purpose. We’re just sort of preoccupied. It’s not as easy for us as it is for you to be doing, like, twenty things at once—”
“That’s not actually easy for women either,” she protested. “It justhasto get done, and no one else is going to do it, so—”
“Okay, well, you do this, though,” he said. “You take it on and then you just explode later, and we didn’t know it was a problem.”
“And if I tell you it’s a problem, then I’m a nag.”
“No,” he said. “No, not with you and me. Never. You have to trust me on that.”
“This isn’thappeningwith us.”
“Because I won’t admit to being some asshole male chauvinist? I’m not a bad person.”
“It’s subconscious.”
“So, I’m subconsciously evil?”
“You’re not evil, it’s just… it’s the way society makes us,” she said.
“Nobody’s making me—”
“I’m not blaming you!” It was a harsh whisper, a revelation.
“Seriously, I make my own decisions, and there’s no one out there making me do anything that I don’t want to do.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said, sighing. “It’s no one’s fault. It’s all internalized, though, and we have to recognize it and root it out.”
He snorted. “Look, maybe you have internalized shit, butIdo not.”
“And you’re never going to admit this to yourself,” she said.
“Why would I admit something that’s not true?” he said.
She shrugged. “Fine. Get out.”
He shook his head at her. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it.”
“It is.”
He turned and shuffled out of the room, shoulders hunched over, clearly annoyed.
She made faces at his back. She could never be in a relationship with a person this committed to being utterly blind about himself and society andeverything elsein the world.
Which was why she did the next thing.
Well. No.
The next thing she did, it didn’t make any sense.
She went after him and pressed her body into his from behind, and he stopped walking and went still.
She hugged him.
