The deer’s belly is split open and its organs spill out: Winding pink intestines next to a deep red heart next to an opaque stomach like a big hideous pearl on the green grass. A sad electricity shoots through me. I memorize the insides, the blood on the fur, in the wide eye.

JARRED COMES TO ME IN THE AFTERnoon, by the lockers.

“I want to see you again,” he says.

My brain swells, goes dizzy and wild with the thought of it.

“Me?” I ask.

“Yes, you. Fucking freak,” he says, but this time he cracks a smile like he won’t spit.

“When?”

“After school. I’ll walk you.”

I spend the rest of the day in a haze imagining it: His mouth on mine, his body near mine, his hands on me. The hours ache by. I stare up at the clock and urge it forward.

I WALK TOWARD MY HOUSE WITH JARRED.

“I’m sorry about last time,” he says.

I nod, unsure what comes next.

We move quietly over the land. The heat from his body makes me quiet until my house comes into view.

“No one is home until six...” I say.

We sit on the couch and stare at the wall. The air is electric. I am waiting for something to happen and then it does, then it is his mouth on mine again, this time without the metal, still salt, this time his tongue against mine, a new sensation, our tongues. I go ravenous, an animal, heat growing between our bodies.

He peels off my dress and runs his hands up the knot. He slides his hands up to my breasts, cups them through my bra.

“Take it off,” he hisses, and I do, then there is nothing between our skin, his hands on my nipples, then his mouth, a fire.

He snakes his hand down to my jeans. The zipper parts and his hand is between my legs, his fingers finding the thicket of hair there then stopping cold.

“Jesus, you’re hairy,” he mutters. “You don’t shave?”

I flush red and go motionless.

“Shave?”

“Down there, shave,” he says. “Girls are supposed to shave that.”

He takes his hand from my pants. “Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” he asks.

I open my mouth to tell him I am working with the doctors to get the knot removed. I want to give him hope for our future, but the words won’t come out.

There is a series of sounds in succession: His receding footsteps, the front door opening then slamming, then he’s gone.

THE SUN SETS AS I CROSS THE FIELDS, SKY dripping sherbet colors: Light yellow, twilight orange, deep pink.

At the entrance, I put on my helmet, cast the light.

Deep in the quarry, I take the left. I let the walls close in on me, down into the deepest section.