He’d wanted me to hunt with him, to go into the forests with a rifle and an axe, and look for something innocent to murder. That was when I lost interest, when he took me to his family’s mountain lodge and showed me the peaked roof, decorated with antlers. He was so proud of them, like a little boy at show and tell. It made me sick. I could feel the heaviness of the air, of the spirits that had been killed. And that night, he asked me to go out with him the next morning to hunt, to join in his family rituals. Of course, he didn’t call them rituals, but that’s what it felt like. But what was I to say? No? I guess I should have …

Because when we got to the forest and he readied his rifle to shoot at a grazing deer, beautiful in nature - in solace, in peace - I grabbed for an axe and swung at him. He fell, and I kept swinging. His rifle never fired, and the deer fled, as it should.

And now I stood at the lake near his family lodge and looked down into the icy waters, glad that I couldn’t see his body sinking anymore.