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very well. I probably always would.
    It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and I needed to get away from Travis. He’d been in my room the night before and had been rougher than usual with me. To take my mind off things, I set out into the woods preoccupied with finding a nest of baby squirrels.
    I didn’t wear a watch. I didn’t even own a watch. Not then, not now. So I’d lost track of time. Disappointed that I hadn’t found any squirrels, I made my way back to the house. There was a rumbling in my stomach, and I hoped I could sneak some food to my room without Travis noticing me. And I might’ve been able to. But when I emerged from the tree line and stepped into the yard, Travis opened the back door. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.
    As I saw the look on his face, I considered running to a neighbor’s house. I knew that if I did, what would happen to me would be far worse than what would happen if I just went into the house now. So I walked across the yard, dragging my feet. I slowly climbed the rickety steps that lead to the back door, my feet heavier with each step.
    This close to Travis, I smelled the alcohol. I could also still detect the smell of sex left over from the night before. He stepped back so I could come inside. As I walked past him, he slammed the door, wrapped his arm around my neck, and dragged me into the living room where he beat me for more than an hour.
    He told my mother I’d ran away and returned home battered and bruised. He said I must’ve been beaten up and realized that life outside our house was harder than I’d thought and returned.
    All because I took a walk in the woods.
    As I walked into the forest now, backpack clutched in my left hand, shovel in my right, I walked much farther than necessary. I just felt better with more distance between Travis and me.
    I sat on my knees on the ground and put the backpack in front of me, unzipping it. It didn’t smell any better now than it had when it was hanging in my locker. Wishing I’d brought gloves, I reached in to pull out the cat, and then decided to dump it out instead.
    With the cat lying on the ground, I tossed aside my backpack, which now had a large brown stain on the bottom from the cat’s blood.
    He wasn’t a very large cat. He was black with grey stripes. One eye was missing, and his little pink tongue was hanging from his mouth. A rib was poking through his side. This was where the blood had come from. Looking at him, I couldn’t tell how he had died. He’d probably been run over. But it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that Dominic had killed him somehow.
    I stared at him for a long time, wondering what it felt like to be dead. There had been so many times that I wished I could die. I wanted to be dead. I wanted to be with my dad, and be rid of Travis and Dominic. I wanted to be where it didn’t matter that I was flunking almost all my classes. And the only way I knew to get all those things was to die.
    I picked up a stick, and poked the cat with it. Then, I wondered the cat felt like. I knew what cats felt like when they were alive, but I’d never touched a dead one.
    Tossing aside the stick, I slowly stuck out my hand, getting closer and closer to the cat. I thought of pulling it back, but I really wanted to touch it, to know what it felt like.
    It was hard and stiff. I poked it with my finger a few times, but it was no better than poking it with a stick.
    So I petted it. It sort of felt like petting a live cat, only it didn’t purr or meow or turn its butt around to face me.
    So I picked it up. It felt like I was holding a fake cat. It was stiff as a board and not warm at all. If a stuffed animal was stuffed with concrete, I imagined this was what it would feel like.
    In my mind, I heard Dominic telling me to have my way with it. He said this would be the only pussy I ever got. Sadly, I realized he was probably right, and the trembling I’d felt earlier when he made fun of me in front of all those