Page 89 of Running Feral

It all felt wrong. But Gunnar was right. It was her choice. Between that, her social security, and some leftover insurance money from the bar that I still feel cripplingly guilty for accepting, we had enough to make it work.

I was still worried about the nurses being racist or shitty, because I know what this town is like. That wasn’t a joke. But we did a bunch of research, and of course Tristan got way too involved in the process, and it turned out that one of the best places in the area is actually in Possum Hollow. So, she’s not far.

It’s barely fifteen minutes to go see her if I take my Ninja, or twenty-five if I go in the car with Gunnar’s old man driving.

She likes it there. The nurses are all her new besties, because they’re excited to have a patient so young, sharp-minded, and relatively mobile. They hang out with her on their breaks and keep her entertained when I’m not around. It worked out as well as it could have, I suppose.

I still hope she’ll be able to come home eventually. We’ll see what happens. We’d have to have a bigger home for her to cometo, and right now I’m struggling to save up enough money to get this fucking snake tattoo on my neck covered up.

I was going to get it removed, but then I found out how much more expensive that is and decided against it. Now Gunnar keeps telling me I need to get it replaced with a giant possum, in honor of the bar.

I’ll keep thinking about it.

“I don’t think we’ve found a single game that you’re good at, baby. Maybe this is a sign you should spend less time with your emotional support horror films, and more time socializing with human beings.”

Gunnar is staring at the road as he drives, but he’s not bothering to hide his smile as he makes fun of me. I punch him in the arm anyway, driving or not.

“I had a neglectful childhood! Isn’t that what got you all hot and bothered in the first place? If I was good at normal things, I wouldn’t trigger your broken-toy kink and then where would we be?”

Gunnar looks at me out of the corner of his eye, half-bemused, half-scowling. This probably counts as ‘negative self-talk’, which I know drives him fucking nuts.

But fuck, come on. At least all the trauma made me funny.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” I hold up my hands for emphasis.

Gunnar’s eyes are on the road, while I scroll mindlessly through social media on my phone. It’s not something I ever really did before. Digital footprints don’t mesh well with a criminal lifestyle, and I was also so stressed all the time, I didn’t have the capacity to care about something that trivial.

Now, it’s kind of nice. Like another veneer of normality over my life I never thought I’d have.

I’m thumbing through videos on TikTok when the algorithm seems to keep showing me different versions of the same thing one after the other, so I finally stop to look.

It’s a mashup of clips of a male gymnast. The shots are mostly from phone cameras instead of professional ones, and nothing about this is screaming Olympics-level-famous. I’m searching my brain to see if I’ve been thirsting over male gymnast videos or something to make this fall into my feed, but I can’t remember anything relevant.

Then I see why—every fucking person I know in Possum Hollow and the surrounding area has liked and shared these videos. The caption tells me that it’s about a local athlete getting chosen for ‘nationals’, which is apparently a big deal.

I thought we were more of a football area, but I’ve never been known for my love of sports, so who the fuck knows? Either way, everyone’s apparently salivating over the idea of this guy representing our shitty little neighborhood on a national platform. And also salivating over him, because in addition to all the jumping and twisting bullshit, he seems to be an expert at posting thirst traps.

Something about it nags at me.Henags at me. Then I read his name, and all the pieces fall into place.

Finch Lewandowski, from Mishicot, population 196.Lewandowski. A last name I can’t even pronounce, but would have been mine if my mother hadn’t insisted on changing my birth certificate at the last minute.

So that’s what my half-brother looks like. I’ve seen one shitty old picture of my sperm donor, and the resemblance between them is on point. I’m surprised I didn’t notice it sooner, but I guess I wasn’t expecting a long-lost relative to reach out of my phone and slap me in the brain.

For a second, I consider telling Gunnar. I know how much he wants me to confront my childhood, or whatever. He told me it’s never too late to reach out to this guy if I want the chance at more family.

I think Gunnar and my lola are all the family I need.

I’ll tell him about it later. Once I’ve processed it a little. Maybe I’ll talk to the guys about it tonight, actually. They normally understand my reticence to get involved with new people, in a way no one else seems to. Which reminds me to remind Gunnar.

“I’ll be back later than usual tonight. I only have a half shift, but then I have the thing after.”

Gunnar’s gaze flicks to me again, but he quickly corrects himself and looks back at the road.

‘The thing’ is not to be discussed in detail. I don’t like mentioning it, let alone really talking about it. Because of this, he treats everything to do with it like Venetian glass. Like it’s something precious, and if he breathes the wrong way, it’ll splinter into pieces.

He’s probably right. I refused his offer of bankrolling me going to therapy so many times; we agreed to disagree so we could just stop arguing about it. Even though I know there’s a fucking pin in that subject in his brain, and we’re coming back to it one day.

What he did convince me to do, as a compromise, is start going to this stupid support group. I don’t even like the words ‘support group’. I like ‘survivor group’ a lot less though, so it remains ‘the thing’ whenever it’s mentioned.

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