My Boyfriend is a Bigfoot?

Chapter Ten

I'd stashed my bear spray and container of sweet potato and quinoa salad in my backpack: a tool for war and a tool for peace. The duality was not lost on me. I found a place just hidden from the newly reproachful windows of the estate, still burdened beneath Darla's disapproval of the whole endeavour. It wasn't so far that I couldn't make a break for the door if I had to, but not so close that someone could spot me easily from the lawn.

I cozied into a stump and retrieved the leftover salad from by bag, maneuvering the backpack off my shoulders with care not to disturb the deathlike silence of the forest. My fingertips wedged between the lid and the plastic rim and popped it ajar. A savoury scent I could just barely discern from the musk of the trees floated into the open air. My nerves braced for some ambiguous threat.

In minutes, a crow fluttered as near to me as its fear would permit, emboldened by hunger. It cocked its head curiously at me.

It edged along the branch, testing its bravery. An urban crow might've been so brazen as to swoop it at me. Topher had once lost a whole hotdog to one of them. This one was half-wild, stranger to neither the whistle of the winds in the pines nor the growl of Darla's diesel engine. So it waited on me while I waited on Brad, halfway between attack and retreat.

I tried to get comfortable, but the shards of rotting wood refused to be made soft by any amount of adjustment. The wind bit through all three of my layers and I regretted neglecting to bring better stake-out equipment—a blanket and a chair, maybe even a small tent. I contemplating going back, but was stopped by a powerful sense that I was sworn now to my watch, my station in the wood. I would wait for as long as it took, and I wouldn't miss a second.

Night came on the wings of a mid-November chill that burnt my cheeks and turned my fingers white. The crow turned to leave, and I tossed it a couple chunks of sweet potato: a reward for its patience. It startled at first, but was drawn back by the scent and retrieved the morsels from where they'd sank amidst the lichen and twigs. The sweet potatoes disappeared in two hefty gulps, slinking down as lumps in its gullet before it took flight, finally relegating me to solitude.

I slid onto my back, head propped against my backpack where I'd lain it on the stump. I huffed to myself and finally caved: I took my phone out of my pocket and opened one of my three downloaded e-books. A Man Called Ove, page 72. I picked up where I'd left off weeks ago. My third read through.

I'd been avoiding the corner of my screen, but the dim hue of the sky compelled me to allow myself a quick peek. 8:30 pm. I could go inside, come back at nine-thirty or ten, having thawed my fingers a bit, but I remained pledged to my vigilance. He was just as likely to appear at nine-o-clock as he would be at ten or later. Already the book was lulling me to sleep. If I went back now, I figured, I'd lose the vim to face the cold again and fall straight into bed. All that was keeping me lucid was the frigid air, and its power over me was waning.

The trees bristled against something more remote than the streams of wind. I shut off my phone and sat up, searching blindly for Darla's bear spray, just to have on hand. My fingers curled around the canister as the sound of cracking twigs dissolved the cumbrance of exhaustion. I cast the container of leftovers to the moss beside me and scrambled to my feet.

I flicked on my phone's flashlight with one hand and hid my grip on the bear spray behind my back with the other. If brandishing either was a good idea, I wasn't sure, and, lacking time to properly contemplate the decision, settled my deliberation on the matter with a mental coin flip.