Page 26 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
While she’s sobbing into her mother’s shoulder, while Mom runs a hand across her hair and whispers to her, rocking her back and forth like she’s a baby again, go ahead. Make eye contact with the mirror. Really look.
Doesn’t Jess look a hell of a lot like that.
“Crane?” Tammy says again. “Crane.”
Jess stares, and Crane can taste the impending burning-hot bile in the back of his throat.
Fuck her. She doesn’t get to do this to him, not now, not like this. It should be her in his place right now. It should’ve been her.Fuck her.
And Stagger is holding him. A hand on the chest, on the shoulder, pressing down. Body curled protectively, close and warm. Murmuring,“Okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
He’ll run, Crane thinks, like he hasn’t already failed. He’ll defect, he wants to say, as if he is capable of surviving out there in the world alone. They can’t do this to him. They can’t.
Oh, but they can.
Carry our little one into the sun,the hive says,where we cannot go.
Second Trimester
Eleven
There are rules now.
Guidelines for what Crane may or may not do, for his safety. “And the baby’s,” Levi said.
One: No driving, as stated previously. The Camry’s key has been confiscated and hidden.
Two: He must be accompanied by Levi or Stagger at all times, to avoid instances of drinking bleach, hitting his stomach with random heavy objects, etcetera.
Three: The following items are banned from the apartment—belts, rope, the go bag. The shotgun and all ammunition must be securedin the gun safe at all times. The following items are available only by request, and use must be supervised—kitchen knives, painkillers, scissors, replacement blades for Levi’s razor. One day Crane gets back from the gas station and the metal coat hangers have been replaced with plastic. It’s so absurd he laughs.
Four: He may no longer assist with or perform hunts on behalf of the hive, alone or with supervision. Not that he ever wanted to. That’s fine.
Five: He must agree to weekly check-ins with Tammy regarding the health and growth of the fetus.
Nothing is said about his HRT, and he’s not risking it. Crane dismantles the three-week supply kept in the Tupperware, hides each piece of medical equipment individually, and climbs onto a chair with a screwdriver to hide his hormones in the vent. Stagger holds the chair steady.
“Hey,” Jess says one day, while Crane is trying to show her the specifics of breaking down the register at the end of a shift. Not that the specifics really matter, but more accurate numbers make for better lying, and Crane is in the process of actively attempting to work himself to death, because everything else is off the table. “Um.”
Crane turns to her with a stony glare.We were in the middle of something, he hopes his expression says. Jess catches his annoyance immediately, which is the advantage of working with non-autistics. They tend to pick up the carefully crafted social cues he manages to lay down. She shrinks a bit.
“There’s,” she tries again, “something I wanted to—”
If this is about the hunt, or what she saw last month in themanager’s office, he doesn’t give a shit. He doesn’t want to hear it. Least of all from her.
Third attempt. “How are you holding up?”
She’s messed up his counting. He slams the cash drawer shut. Let her figure it out herself.
How the apartment used to be:
Crane’s alarm blaring from his phone and Levi coming into the bedroom to yank off the blankets. “Up and at ’em,” Levi would say, then snort when Crane would growl and snatch them back. T-shirts with red stains slung over the shower curtain rod because Crane’s washed enough period blood out of underwear to clean up better than Levi ever could. Crane stealing Levi’s jackets. Levi squeezing Crane’s thigh right on a bruise, to watch him squirm. Cobbling together dinner for two from dollar-store rations and getting fucked face down on the hardwood floor. Levi wandering out to the front porch of the apartment complex to grab a smoke, and Crane always going with him, sitting on the concrete in Levi’s clothes, leaning against Levi’s leg as the lighter clicked.
“Want a drag?” Levi might say, handing the cigarette down. Sometimes Crane would take it. Sometimes he wouldn’t.
Once, there was a deer—a buck wandering out from the woods with another buck’s severed head stuck on his antlers, the two of them locked together forever. A rutting match ended in decapitation. The rotting head hung like a trophy from the buck’s eight-point rack as he picked his way across the parking lot, between the cars and trucks.
Levi nudged Crane’s shoulder. “Holy shit. Look at the size of him.”
