The Woodlands by Lauren Nicolle Taylor Page B

his mother had used to try and kill him. Hands around his neck trying to choke him, his tongue hanging out, making strangled noises and coughing, and fighting to breathe with a pillow over his face. He looked so funny flailing around on the ground, like a beetle on its back, that I laughed despite myself.
    He got up and I dusted the dirt from his back. His face changed. No longer a smile, but a sad expression that made him look older. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the horrible memory.
    “ She’d never used a knife before. I wasn’t ready for that. I had to fight back. I didn’t want to die.”
    I didn ’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything. I just squeezed his rough hand and stared out into the trees, watched them pick up the slight wind and dance on it. Nodding their heads in agreement that no one should have to go through something so horrible. Wishing I could lift some of the burden, that I could reach into his head and pluck out those painful memories.
    “ I tried to save her but there was just so much blood. Too much.” He wasn’t crying. He talked about it almost like it was someone else’s story, like he had watched it from a distance. Commented on the angle of the knife, the ineffectual method of stabbing that left the victim bleeding for hours before the release of death.
    “ Anyway, I buried her, under the house. Then I told the neighbors she had run away. Of course they reported me straight away and, before I knew what was happening, I was on a chopper to here.”
    I nodded. He was right. Anything was better than that. His expression quickly changed, his face relaxed , and he was easy-going Rash again. He let go of my hand and punched my shoulder lightly, “Farm animals?”
    “ Sure.” I guess everyone had their own way of coping. This was his.
    After time spent joking with Rash at the animal pens, we separated and I went back to my dorm. It was dark and the moonlight made the buildings look less harsh, less like they were going to rise up and devour me. But I still felt small; the eyes of the concrete creatures clinging to the drainpipes followed me, mocked me.
    I lay awake thinking about what Rash had said. Realizing that things could be a lot worse for me. Construction was a surprise, yes, but there must have been a reason why they picked it, something in my tests that pointed them in that direction. I would try. I would go into Class and absorb everything I could. I fell asleep easily. Anticipating the ‘hard, hard work’ but kind of looking forward to it.
     

     
    It didn ’t take me long to realize that there had been a reason. I was good at this, really good. Every week we would learn a new skill, repeat it as many times as was necessary to perfect it, and then move on to something new. Our teacher was passionate and intense, but he wasn’t unkind. He had never-ending patience for the ones that struggled. For once, somehow, that wasn’t me. I enjoyed making things. Taking a piece of wood and crafting it into something useful was calming and centering for me.
    My classmates were all genuinely decent young men, despite the swearing. They looked out for me in the beginning, protective because I was a girl, but once they could see I was managing really well on my own, they would often come to me for help.
    Daydreaming about Joseph , I was plummeting a drill bit into a piece of plasterboard, white dust flying everywhere like toxic snow. I was thinking about talking to him, imagining a confrontation that didn’t end in him running away from me. A strong hand wrapped around my own and pulled the drill back.
    “ Uh, Soar?” My new nickname. “What the hell are you doing?”
    I snapped my head around to face Nik, a tree stump of a boy whose ropey exterior resembled an even rougher and ropier interior.
    “ Oh, damn, sorry Nik, I wasn’t concentrating.”
    He looked at me dumbfounded, “What yer apologizing to me for? I jest needed yer help with sumthin’.” He ran his hand