Chapter 19: Chapter 18: A Midday Nap

Erica’s nap took about three hours, three hours during which I pondered the nature of gender and how I related to it, and I came to a fairly solid conclusion by the end of it. My conclusion was that gender is really complicated and scary and I really didn’t want to think about it too hard. All I could really say with any certainty was that the idea of being referred to as a he felt really really weird and uncomfortable now. 

 

Outside my own head, nothing really happened. Erica had a nice midday nap by the water’s edge, I took the time to wash the bug juice out of my own clothes, and I snacked on a couple carrots from our shared fruit and veggie supply. We really needed to get some more food soon. It had hardly been a day and a half, and I was already getting sick of assorted raw veggies, and they definitely weren’t going to be meeting all our nutritional needs on their own. If I was being completely honest, I was starting to get a craving for some meat. My mouth watered as I imagined a nice juicy steak, so rare it was practically raw, then I glanced over at Erica’s bovine head and just felt awkward. I wasn’t sure if I could bring myself to eat beef after this. 

 

Eventually, it was time to move on. I shook Erica awake, fished some blueberries out of my bag for the two of us, and started getting ready to move out. She looked like she was doing a lot better after getting some real rest, and spending a few hours dipping my feet in the river and just relaxing had done a lot for me as well. The aches and bruises that covered my body were just that little bit better, and I was getting a lot better at working around the tender parts of my hands.

 

As she finished snacking on her berries, Erica cleared her throat.

“So… what are we gonna do about that” she said, gesturing towards the river. “Your friend’s house is on the other side, right? I could probably swim it, but if there’s anything dangerous past the drop off, I don’t like our odds fighting in the water.”

She was right, I really didn’t trust the deeper water, but we had to get across somehow, otherwise there was no way we could find Willow.

“I don’t know. Maybe we just follow the bank and see where it takes us? There might be a shallower stretch somewhere we could wade across or something.” I took a deep breath, this next sentence would hurt. “Or we could turn back… I don’t even know for sure that she’s alive, and there’s no guarantee we’ll find a way across. If you can think of some other place that might be safe-”

Erica cut me off.

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“Nope.”

“Nope..?”

“Yup. I don’t have anywhere better to be, my place is on the other side too, so if I wanted to just go home, I’d still have to find a way across. Let’s just walk, we’ll follow the river, and we’ll see what we can find. It’ll be an adventure.”

I rolled my eyes and hiked my pack up on my shoulders.

“Sure, because the last two days haven’t been an adventure already.”

She gave me her best bull smile before patting me gently on the shoulder.

“Shall we?”

I smiled back, and started walking.

“I think we shall.”

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