There’s a first for everything: love, marriage, paddling for your life in a stupid canoe while praying for rapids to come sweep you away and take off the brunt of the labor.

They just don’t train you for this in Pilates, which is a shame. I foresee even more of the prison yard originated workout in my future if these freaks catch up with me, but I don’t think I should be held liable for what happens when they do.

And they will, because I’m not exactly the outdoorsy type. It’s just me and my oar on this annoyingly docile water against _them_ in hot pursuit.

I don’t look back no matter how much I want to, no matter how much my instincts scream that predators are closing in on my back. I’m just glad my instincts are finally working for my benefit.

The frantic eddies I create with each twist to either side and thrust of the oar make a metronome of soothing sound so wildly contrasting to the heightened horror propelling me now. The rapid steady rhythm hyponotizes and provides an unwelcome montage of all the times I froze before.

I see pettily scolding teachers and sneering peers, their looming accusatory intimidation based solely on how small they feel.

The canoe lists to the left and I return to my rapidly tiring body, eagerly hoping for help from the current, but I’ve only just rowed twice on one side. Dammit.

My life plays on an unskippable reel, unhelpfully starting back where we left off and forcing me to witness all I’ve allowed. People and places blur by as I watch the memories of how their influence weakened my spine.

An ex’s hand raises above my face, and that’s when I see it: the reckoning. The straightening of the back spent perpetually stabbed. The refusal to cower any further. The flinch of a man who witnessed this shift in me as if he were the one hit.

Maybe that was the beginning of the end, I think ruefully, as a bird cries as it flies overhead.

“Show off,” I accuse under my heavy breaths.

My strokes start to devolve from the steady pattern to more of a haphazard flailing. Scary movies pertaining to my exact situation take the place of my unavoidable memories, reminding me what an idiot I was for even coming outside.

On a deep breath that just won’t come amid hyperventilation, I return to my steady pace. Trees pass by on a blur on either side, and I realize with a jolt that there’s movement in them.

_Please be a bear. Please be a bear. _

I chant internally, no longer containing the energy to speak aloud.

I can’t go back. I won’t.

The creature following my frantic escape calls out. I tell myself I’ve stumbled upon a miraculous talking animal.

The magic is also how it knows the name _they_ gave me. Right?

But then it calls out the name again. And again. More raggedly each time like it has any reason to be upset.

It takes everything in me to ignore it after everything I’ve been conditioned to be is docile and compliant. They take advantage of this no longer.

My actions must be a horrific aberration of their expectations, I think with glee. The idea restoring a little more of my energy.

But then another creature joins the first. And another. Cementing that I never had a true chance of escape.

Never had a hope for even an hour on my own on this stupid camping trip as they call out that _name_ in a chorus of, “Mom!”