DROWNING | TOM KAULITZ

• CHAPTER FIVE •

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ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : him & i - g-eazy & halsey

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"We need to stop doing this," he says.

Tara rolls over in the bed to face Tom. The room is dark but not pitch - black; a bit of light comes in through the window. He is lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

"We always say that," she says.

"I know."

He still doesn't look at her. They've been down this road before, around and through and across, and they can't seem to find the exit. She isn't sure there is one.

But if there is, she probably wouldn't take it.

Maybe because of the squirrel.

Years ago, not long before they graduated from school, they went to Lake Barleber See II for a weekend.

Her classmate knew someone whose parents had a cabin, and a bunch of friends were headed up there. Tom and Tara went in his car, an ancient Ford truck he had driven out from Berlin.

She never saw the squirrel. Tara had been looking in her bag, trying to find something.

Lip balm, a hairbrush, a piece of gum...She can't remember what it was, but she does remember the car jerking to the side. Tom had seen a squirrel and tried to avoid it.

Tara does remember the thump when it went under the tire.

What was that?' She turned, watching out the back. Tom pulled over to the side of the road.

"A squirrel," he said.

Now a brown and red blob on the cement.

"Oh God."

"Stay here."

Tom got out and grabbed something from behind the driver's seat. Looked like a tire iron. They were on a side road, not the highway, so there weren't many cars. She tried to watch him push the dead squirrel over to the side of the road but had to look away.

He got back into the car and started driving. Didn't say a word for at least ten miles.

And then: "Do you think that squirrel had a family?"

"I don't know." she said.

Silence.

"I think squirrels are loners, aren't they?" she said.

"Google it."

She didn't want to, but he pestered her until she did. Gray squirrels, as it turned out, lived mostly alone. The one he'd hit had been brown, and brown squirrels lived in colonies.

Tom didn't say anything for a long time.

She thought about suggesting that he donate to a save the squirrels nonprofit, if such a thing existed, but she didn't want to sound stupid. Or insensitive. Neither of them had extra money for donations.