The Route I Did Not Call

Dain caught me before I could say it. That was the part I kept circling after. I could have named the barge’s route and let the evidence do the ugly work, but the moment his knee drove into my ribs, I folded. Not because he was stronger. Because I could hear how easily I could hurt him, and I was afraid of how much I wanted to prove I still could.

I told myself I was protecting the crews at the wharf. I hate that excuse. It was partly true, and that is worse. Dain knows exactly how to make violence sound like town business, and for a few seconds I let him choose the argument for me.

My back is worse now. Moving the crab crates felt good, though. Ordinary pain has instructions. I lifted, shifted, kept pace with people who did not ask whether I was capable of anything beyond carrying what they gave me. At the pub, the skippers argued about standing together, and I felt the old shame of being the outsider who keeps turning solidarity into another excuse for staying alone.

I watched Dain’s pickup from the fuel dock. I was not planning anything. I was learning its rhythm.

The wind is coming hard tonight. I should sleep. Instead I keep hearing the sentence he used: one troublesome drifter. He is wrong about me, but not by much. The dangerous thing is not that he believes I am dangerous. It is that I cannot prove to myself that I would stop if my pride took over.