I could never fake a fever, though. I have one of those faces. Call it innocent, though it’s obviously not. One of those faces. You know. The kind that never lets you lie.

Seamus turned off the TV and embraced some package. It was wrapped in brown paper, and my father’s name was surrounded by hand-drawn hearts. You’d think it was from some teenage girl with a shameless crush. But it was from Sylvia, his girlfriend. When she was in our house, she wafted around all pepperminty. She made me earrings. Crystal triangles, she said, carried love from the sun. I couldn’t stand her.

Got your knife? Seamus asked me. He was struggling with Sylvia’s knots of twine.

He had his own knife. Still, he liked to use mine.

He had some kind of sentimental deal with my knife. It was a gift for my birthday when I turned fourteen. He thought I loved it, and maybe I did—then. I’d been elated by the sight of the Eaton’s box. Finally, I thought, he’s giving me something from a store. He’s giving me a girl’s prize: Barbie, a jewelery box with a ballerina, some china heart on a silver chain. A gift that wouldn’t smell of dirt or his hardworking hands. Maybe I loved the knife; at least it was brand new and it shone.

I couldn’t feel the cold clasp of my knife. I told him I didn’t have it.

He looked really worried. You need that knife, he said. It’ll come in handy.

Yeah, I’ll get it tomorrow, I said. I knew it was in the clearing with the burnouts and I wasn’t gonna go back there ever again.

Good, he said, and he tousled my hair. He went down to the basement to get his own.

I put my hand up my shirt, just to make sure. Though I was pretty sure. I’d kept the knife in my bra since I’d had a bra. I could feel the white cloth and my skin and my breast and nothing else. So fuck the knife.

It was funny to keep something so close to you and then you have no need for it after all.

It would stay undiscovered and useless in my clearing, lying in the dank dirt with trodden twigs and spit-soaked roaches. It would rust unnoticed as the clearing grew over and the entrance was barred by branches because who would cut it if I didn’t.

FUCK IT UP