M E A T

Rifles, steak knives and survival- always loosely based on real life.

The back of Sarah’s neck was elegant, her raven-black hair swept up in a perfect twist. Icey earrings dripping in contrast. Pinned, pearled and perfect. Her dress was understated but exquisite, satin for the holidays, as if chosen to blend in just enough without disappearing. She sat at the table, surrounded by her friends and future in-laws chattering and laughter.

The Matriarch of the family moved through the room with practiced grace, laying down dishes one after another. The fortune of food being laid on the table resembled a King’s feast. Bread, vegetables, casseroles, a cheese plate, fruit, drinks, finger foods, creations Sarah didn’t even recognize. The room brimmed with warmth, with camaraderie. Plates clanked, and voices overlapped in a joyful chaos. It felt safe.

Sarah smiled politely, nodding at her fiancé’s father as he recounted some silly dad joke. She was present, gracious even, but detached—unreadable, her composure a thin veil over her unease. It was intentional. A survivors skill. She knew she would be asked questions and was carefully calculating her answers.

The final dish was set down in front of her. The meat.

The steak was perfect. Charred on the outside, tender in the middle, and glistening under the soft glow of the chandelier. It sat untouched in front of Sarah’s plate, the juices pooling against some bread.

Across the table, laughter rang out as someone recounted a story about their latest hunting trip. Sarah smiled faintly, her eyes flicking to her fiancé, who gave her hand a reassuring squeeze under the table.

“So,” a man said, leaning in slightly, his voice casual but pointed, “why don’t you eat meat?”

The table quieted, everyone turning toward Sarah. She set her wineglass down carefully, her movements measured. She had been hearing this question her entire life. Inventing answers that were appropriate for the occasion. Essentially lying. It always seemed to stand out more during special occasions. When family gathered and the pressure of enjoying someones laboring over a celebration meal made the stakes higher.

“Ethical reasons, dietary reasons, I don’t know…I just don’t crave it,” she said, her voice smooth and practiced.

The man laughed, a sharp, barking sound. “Ethical reasons? What, were you raised in some vegan commune or something?”

Sarah smiled again, tighter this time. “Something like that,” she murmured. The laughter at the table grew louder, swelling with the warmth of wine and the comfort of familiarity. Sarah’s set her fork down next to her plate as she reached for the salad, carefully avoiding the steak sitting untouched in front of her.

The man across the table wasn’t done with her. She could feel it in the weight of his stare, the way he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table despite the matriarch’s unspoken rules of etiquette.

“You know,” he said, his tone playful but needling, “I’ve always thought vegetarians were just people who couldn’t hack it. You know, real food. Or people who were entrenched in propaganda…Bill Gates style, you know the lab grown meat stuff.”

The others chuckled nervously, their glances flicking toward Sarah. Her fiancé shifted in his seat, his jaw tightening, but she stopped him with a subtle touch on his arm.

“Real food?” Sarah said, tilting her head as if the words were a curious observation instead of an insult.

“Yeah, you know,” the man continued, emboldened. “Hunting, cooking, eating the way humans are meant to for millions of years. None of this rabbit food nonsense or eating bugs.”

“I do not eat bugs nor would I recommend them to others” Sarah’s smile froze, sharp as glass. She could feel the room tilting slightly, the weight of old memories pressing against the edges of her mind. She forced herself to take a sip of wine, letting the warmth settle in her chest, grounding her. She took in the smell of the party, the perfumes, the food, the wine. Trying her hardest not to go back.

A woman asked, “How long has it been since you’ve eaten meat?”

“Since I was 10” Sarah said knowing she was opening more doors for questions.

Sarah’s mother had once dated a hunter when she was a child. Not a hunter like her Native Wailaki relatives, who honored the game they killed, praying over the animal for its sacrifice and using every part with reverence. Those types of hunters lived in accordance with the natural law and order, understanding their place in a delicate cycle of survival.

No, this man was different. He hunted for power, for the thrill of conquest. He hunted to prove something to himself, to anyone who dared question his dominance. His kills were trophies, not sustenance. They decorated every wall in their house, vacant eyes staring at small Sarah, reminding her she was being watched. A violation, not a harmony. His name was Silas Blackwell and he was hated by many people.

The memory rose unbidden, sharp and hot behind her eyes.

10 year old Sarah sat at a weathered table. Plate of meat in front of her, cold, sitting there long after everyone else had finished.

Silas’s voice thundered in the kitchen. “You don’t leave this table until that plate’s clean, you hear me?”

Sarah didn’t move. Her small hands stayed in her lap, her chin tucked into her chest.

“Fine,” he snarled. “You want to act like an ungrateful brat? you want to disrespect me?”

He stormed out into the garage, the door slamming behind him. Sarah knew what had been in the garage. The hanging deer carcass where Silas processed it earlier. It’s called exsanguination. A necessary step in the craft of a hunter, though to Sarah, Silas made it seem more like a primal act of sacrifice. A clean incision along the throat of the deer, cutting the carotid artery, allowing the blood to drain completely into a bucket.

Sarah’s eyes flicked toward her mother, who sat silently at the other end of the table. “Mama,” Sarah whispered, but her mother just shook her head. “Don’t make it worse Sarah, why won’t you just eat?” she murmured.

Back at the holiday dinner Sarah shifted slightly in her chair, her body automatically scanning the room for exits. It was a habit she didn’t know how to break. The long dining table stretched across the room, cluttered with platters of food, too many glasses, too much excess.

If something happened—a fight, a fire, an accident—she knew exactly how to move. She knew which chairs would tip over easily, which decorations would shatter. She could disarm someone holding a knife or gun in less than two seconds.

These were things she thought about without meaning to, without wanting to. The things she had learned in her childhood.

---

The man’s voice cut through her thoughts again. “Come on, though. There’s gotta be a story. People don’t just stop eating meat for no reason.”

Her fiancé looked at her, his brow furrowing slightly. “You don’t have to—” he started, but Sarah stopped him with a slight touch on his arm.

“Yes, since I was ten,” she said again smoothly, her voice giving nothing away.

“Ten?” the man asked, grinning now. “What, did you see Babe and get all sentimental?”

The table laughed, the sound rich and indulgent. Sarah’s smile didn’t falter, but her fingers tightened slightly on her fork.

The smell of the steak rose in the air—charred and bloody, thick with fat. Her stomach turned.

A knife scraped against a porcelain plate, its sharp, familiar sound reverberating in Sarah’s chest. She set down her wineglass, carefully, deliberately. Around her, laughter swirled like cigarette smoke in a crowded room—thick, cloying, impossible to escape.

Across the table, her fiancé’s sister threw back her head, laughing too loudly at a joke Sarah hadn’t heard. The matriarch moved through the room, refilling glasses, rearranging platters of untouched food. More than enough for a feast, more than anyone here could—or would—finish.

Sarah glanced at her plate. Bread, salad, roasted vegetables. No meat.

“So,” a man said, his voice cutting through the din, “how do you do it? The whole vegetarian thing?”

The table quieted slightly, their glances darting toward Sarah. She felt the weight of their attention like a sniper’s scope.

Her smile was calm, precise, a polished veneer she had mastered over the years. “I suppose I just don’t think about it much,” she said lightly.

The man chuckled, leaning back in his chair. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I mean, how do you resist? Steak like this?” He gestured to his plate, the knife in his hand glinting under the chandelier’s warm light.

Silas Blackwell slammed the bucket down on the table, making the deer blood slosh dangerously close to the edge. “You think you make the rules in this house?”

Small Sarah didn’t answer.

“Fine.” He dipped his hand into the bucket and smeared the deer blood across her face. Sarah gasped but didn’t cry, her small frame trembling as he leaned close to her.

“You don’t leave this table until every bite is gone,” he hissed.

When she still didn’t respond, he upended the bucket, the blood drenching her plate, her lap, her arms. The blood pooling on the floor, Sarah’s lap, on the table.

Her mother shrieked. “What are you doing?!”

“Shut up,” he snapped. “This is my house, my rules. You don’t like it, you can leave too.”

But her mother never left, she always stayed.

The man at the dinner table raised his glass, his voice boisterous. “To all the carnivores in the world—may we eat red meat, live long, and prosper!”

There was an awkward pause before the guests clinked glasses, their laughter forced.

Sarah raised her own glass, her smile charming and seductive. A smirk “To all the carnivores,” she said loudly, her voice cutting through the celebration like a steak knife.

The kitchen lights had been turned off hours ago. Sarah sat alone in the dark, her small body rigid. Her mother had retreated to the bedroom after Silas’s outburst. On the other side of the house, he snored loudly.

10 year old Sarah slid off the chair silently, her bare feet padding across the cold floor. She slipped into the garage and opened the door to the closet. The rifle was heavy, but she held it steady as she crept back inside.

Her small frame barely made a shadow in the hallway. All the vacant eyes watching her, following her as she padded slowly. Her tiny arms and face covered in dried blood. She opened the bedroom door, her movements steady and deliberate. Silas stirred, his eyes fluttering open just as she lowered the barrel to his forehead.

Sarah knew how to shoot a gun, she had been out on ranges and in the woods since she could remember. She clicked off the safety.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, kid,” Silas said, awake, his voice quieter now, but defiant. Mocking her innocence.

Sarah’s eyes didn’t leave his. “I know exactly what I’m doing,” she replied.

Her finger hovered over the trigger, the cold metal pressing against her skin. For a moment, the weight of it all was too much—the noise, the blood, the screaming that would follow.

She hesitated, just for a moment.

Silas saw the hesitation. He lunged forward, his hand grabbing the barrel of the rifle, yanking it to the side. The gun discharged, the deafening crack echoing through the bedroom. Blood splattered across the headboard, across her mother, who jolted upward with a scream.

Sarah’s expression didn’t change. She held the rifle steady, her small bloodied body framed in the doorway as her mother wailed.

“What did you do?”

Back at the dinner table, Sarah excused herself quietly, her napkin brushing against the edge of her plate as she stood.

“Are you okay?” her fiancé asked softly, his brow furrowed.

She smiled faintly, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. “Just need some air,” she said.

In the cool night air, Sarah leaned against the balcony railing, her hands trembling slightly. The laughter from the dining room spilled out into the night, muffled by the glass doors behind her.

She closed her eyes, the memories pressing against her, unrelenting. She could still feel the weight of the rifle in her hands, the iron tang of blood in the air and on her skin.

It wasn’t just the meat she couldn’t stomach—it was everything Silas represented. Power, violence, control. A world she had escaped but never really left behind. She hated that it resurfaced during the most inconvenient times. Eating was supposed to be symbolic of communion, where each bite is a promise of togetherness.

Her fiancé joined her a moment later, his hand brushing against hers. “They’re assholes,” he laughed softly.

She smiled faintly, leaning into his warmth. “They’re just curious, I know I stand out. It’s weird in this world we live in” she replied.

He looked at her, his gaze searching. “You don’t have to explain yourself to them.”

“I won’t,” she said, her voice quiet. She glanced back toward the dining room, where the steak still sat untouched, she always felt a pang of guilt for not indulging.

Her fiancé squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone.”

Sarah nodded, but her thoughts were far away, lingering in her mothers bedroom with a rifle, a wound carved deep in her soul, and the weight of everything she had tried to leave behind.

At just ten years old, Sarah was too young to be prosecuted as an adult, a fact that shielded her from the harshness of a system that didn’t want to see the child behind the act. It was self-defense—clear, instinctual—but the situation was far more complicated than the law allowed for. Her mother had finally stepped forward in a rare moment of selflessness, her voice steady as she claimed responsibility for the pieces Sarah couldn’t explain. It was a choice born of love, a desperate attempt to protect her daughter from the unforgiving world. For the first time in Sarah’s short life, her mother’s actions weren’t driven by her own survival but by Sarah’s. That single act of sacrifice began to mend the fragile, fractured bond between them, a bridge built on shared silence and an unspoken promise that this moment would never break them.

The glittering city lights stretched out below Sarah and her fiancé, swimming like a thousand tiny minnows. She stood on the balcony, the cool night air brushing against her skin as she leaned into the warmth of her fiancés arms. His presence was steady, grounding, a quiet reassurance that she wasn’t alone in the world anymore. She looked down at her hands, hands that know so much violence and survival, now adorned with a ring that symbolized something she never thought she could have—peace.

Her fiancé traced a gentle line along her arm. “You okay?” he asked, his voice low and soft, pulling her from the swirl of her thoughts.

She nodded, a small smile breaking through the lingering shadows in her eyes. “I am, I always am” she said, her voice strong with a smile.

The wind carried the faint, light scent from the floral garden below, and for a moment, everything felt still, as if the world had paused to acknowledge this fleeting but perfect moment. She turned to him, her hand resting over his heart, and felt its steady rhythm beneath her palm.

“I never thought I’d feel this” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Safe.”

He pulled her closer, his chin resting on her hair. “You deserve this,” he said firmly. “You deserve all of it.”

And for the first time, she believed him. Above the city, wrapped in the arms of a man who saw her not as broken but as whole, Sarah felt the pieces of her life begin to align. The past didn’t feel so heavy anymore—it was still there, but it no longer defined her. She had spent much of her life surviving. She closed her eyes and let herself exhale, surrendering to the idea that maybe, just maybe, she was finally home. She allowed herself to imagine a future where she wasn’t a killer, but someone who was finally free.