“Twelve?!” Isis shrilled, her hand flying to her chest in dramatic disbelief. “Oh yeah, hedefinitelyconcussed!”
I know damn well she didn’t just diagnose a fake concussion based on a number pulled straight out of a fever dream.
If stupidity was contagious at that cabin, I was ten seconds away from packing my hoodie and voluntarily social distancing with the wolves and bears. Hell, I’d take a bobcat with trust issues, a moose in mating season, and a family of raccoons running a meth lab behind a pine tree over that mess any day.
I rolled my eyes and crouched down beside Adrian, brushing the snow off his pants leg. With a firm grip, I reached for the cuff and started rolling the fabric up. He winced before I even got halfway.
“Relax,” I muttered. “It ain’t like I’m peeling off your skin.”
His knee was red and scraped, swollen and angry, with a shallow but long cut running just above the bone. It looked like it stung more than it bled. It was one of those injuries that hurt a person’s pride just as much as their flesh. However, in no way was it a life-threatening wound by any means. It didn’t require stitches, an emergency surgery, or themelodramaticamputation Adrian was moaning about like we were losing him to the spirit realm. And there was definitely no need for Isis to be hollering like a surgeon on standby for a knee operation in the snowy wilderness.
“How did this happen?”I asked, annoyance evident in my tone.
“He tried to flex with a hatchet, hit the log at the wrong angle, and bounced the handle right off his knee… real simple story,”Bryce explained, then leaned down and effortlessly picked up a thick log as if it weighed nothing. “These kinds of things tend to happen when lies collide with lumber,” he included.
“What?” I asked, confusion washing over me as I looked between the two of them.
“Your boy just confessed that he ain’t no real carpenter. He quit the class halfway through but kept the toolbox for clout.”
Adrian shot Bryce a wounded glare, an expression of betrayal etched onto his face. “So much for you not telling her, huh?”
“Nigga, you made a deal with herex,” Bryce pointed out. “That’s like making a deal with the devil and asking for a hug instead of heat or signing a lease in hell and asking him to lower the thermostat. You don’t walk into hell hoping to stay cool… especially not when youlied on your way in. Ain’t no safety clause thereorhere. Yousigned upfor the burn. Sue me,” he shrugged. “Besides…” Bryce nodded at Adrian’s sad little pile. “She already smelled the smoke; I just came out here to confirm the fire.”
“Adrian, what the hell is he talking about?” I demanded to know, my impatience growing as I tried to make sense of the subliminal talking.
“Chess, don’t listen to that nigga. It ain’t like how he's trying to put it.”
Bryce grinned, slow and sinister. “Yeah, it is. I warned you, though. I told you wood don’t play with posers.”
Isis gasped, as if that was disrespectful to all patients everywhere. “Stop it, Bryce! He’s hurt!” she snapped at him.
“And yet… he will live,” Bryce shot back in a callous tone.
My piercing glare turned sharply toward Adrian. “Adrian, is this true? You’re really not a carpenter?”
Adrian shifted uncomfortably, glancing between us like he was trapped in a snowstorm of shame.
“Okay… I might’ve exaggerated a little," he admitted finally, his voice barely above a whisper.
I scoffed, disbelief dancing on my lips. “Alittle?”
“Aight… look. Itookcarpentry for like two weeks, then I dropped it.”
Bryce snorted. “He lying. My man said he took carpentry for two weeks and quit ‘cause the class was cold.”
Isis blinked, her brows knitting in confusion. “It was cold?”
“Yeah. The building was cold. The tools were cold. The instructor? Cold as ice. Hell, probably the truth of it all was cold, too,” Bryce added.
“I can’t believe you’ve been lying to me this whole time,” I said, voice low and edged with disappointment. “I don’t know if I’m more mad at you or myself for being so damn naïve and just taking your word for it without looking deeper into what you really did. Now it all makes sense why you never posted much of your so-called ‘work’ on social media.” I narrowed my eyes at him, leaning in closer. “And since this is the moment that we’re all being honest, let me just say, the few things youdidpost, they looked a bitsketchy.It’s like you typed ‘weld me a dream’ into Midjourney and hit send."
Adrian's face fell as he seemed to shrink under the weight of our accusations, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in the snow and reboot his whole life.
He winced, regret flashing in his eyes. “Chess, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie. I just didn’t want to scare you off by making you think I was just some lame substitute teacher or a broke-ass dude barely scraping by.”
I nodded slowly, my lips curling in disbelief at his flimsy excuse. “And yet… you are just that. Well, the lame part for lying for sure."
I let the pause settle before dropping it on him, clear and steady.
