I wanted to tell him that I didn’t care about Michelle or what she might do to try and hurt me. Seriously, she’d already been doing her best to make my life miserable, with very little effect. Kaia was right. Michelle really had no power. She was just a bully and not a very effective one at that. I could handle her if it meant getting to be with Jack. I couldn’t say any of this, because I didn’t even know if Jack wanted me that way or if he’d feel anything for me at all, after I’d gone behind his back and gossiped about his past.
After several minutes of trying to engage me in conversation, Jack finally pulled the cart over and turned off the ignition. “Okay what’s wrong?” He asked.
“Why do you think something’s wrong?” I asked unconvincingly, not daring to make eye contact. I never was a very good liar. And the guilt was probably all over my face.
We sat in silence for several agonizing moments. He didn’t ask again, but he also made no attempts to get us moving back towards our destination. Instead, he leaned back against his seat, placing his hands behind his head, letting me know that we weren’t going anywhere until I confessed to what was bothering me.
My mind raced over what I could possibly say to him, to get him to leave the subject alone, but then I realized that dodging was what he’d done. And that had frustrated me so much that I’d gone behind his back. Either he liked me enough to accept that I cared enough about him to try and figure out the big mystery, or we just weren’t meant to be. The thing was, I was terrified to find out that it was the latter. I felt so strongly about him being my soulmate, that the idea that he might not feel the same way scared me. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to get past that. Opening my heart up wasn’t an easy thing for me. Yet it had happened so easily with him. It had to be real.
After letting go of a deep sigh, I decided I better just come clean and find out what he thought about it. “I’m not a patient person,” I finally said, still not looking at him.
“I’m confused,” he responded, trying to get me to look at him. I’d probably have been just as confused if he’d said something like that to me. I was struggling to find the words to phrase it just right. Not that any way I said it wouldn’t sound just as awful. I’d pried into his personal business. It was something about his past, that he hadn’t been ready to share with me. I had my own secrets, that if he were to seek after from another source, I’d be very hurt.
“I got tired of waiting for you to tell me why Michelle hated me so much, so I asked someone else.” I decided not to mention that that someone was Kaia. It was best that all the blame fell on me.
I’m not sure what I expected his response to be. A part of me was bracing for yelling. All fights I’d ever experienced with my family had involved yelling. We were all passionate people. I was probably the calmest of the bunch, and even I lost it from time to time.
I dared to look over at him. It was a mistake. I could see him struggling to keep his cool. I held my breath, bracing myself for a verbal assault. The normal smile he wore for me was completely gone. Normally only Michelle could do that. The fact that I’d managed it, made me sick to my stomach. I kept waiting for him to let loose on me. I deserved it.
“Please say something,” I pleaded with him.
He started the engine back up. I supressed the tears that were struggling to find their way to the surface. “There’s nothing for me to say. Apparently, you know everything now.” He might as well have reached across the car and slapped me in the face. It was way worse than him yelling at me. If he yelled, at least we could try and talk through it. The silent wall he had up, was something I didn’t know how to break through.
He pushed his foot down on the gas pedal, making the cart go as fast as it possibly could, which wasn’t very fast. Normally he’d go as slowly as possible, pretending that he didn’t want to risk hurting my leg. He had no need to pretend today.
“I don’t know everything. And I tried asking you first.” I knew I was just making excuses for my selfish actions. I didn’t need to know the big secret. What I did, I did out of curiosity. I hated secrets, they nagged at me. I waited, hoping Jack might still decide to have it out with me. Jack didn’t bother responding.
The rest of the cart ride over to the clinic, was incredibly awkward. I hated every minute of it. I wanted to beg Jack to pull over again, so we could talk this through. But I was terrified that if I opened my mouth to speak again, I’d burst out into tears.
The way Jack was acting towards me, was way worse than I’d feared. I thought maybe after he watched me in rehab and had a chance to cool down, we could try to talk it through. But that didn’t happen. Instead, he stayed in the cart, not offering to help me out like he normally did and the moment I was a safe distance away from the vehicle he said, “Well I guess I should be getting back to work.”
He didn’t bother looking at me, as he drove off. It was all I could do to keep from breaking down right then and there. But my sister was standing outside the clinic, waiting for me and the last thing I wanted to do was tell her what happened. She’d probably blame Jack for what I’d caused and then feel the need to fix it, which would only make everything worse. As hard as it was, I kept my mouth shut, my tears suppressed, and my mind focused throughout my physio session. With all the effort I had in me, I forced a fake smile on my face for the entire hour. For once I was grateful for the physical pain. It was easier to deal with, than my breaking heart.
Chapter Fourteen
After physio, I claimed that I was so tired and exhausted, that all I wanted to do was sleep. I encouraged April to go off to the dining hall without me, so that I could get some rest. The truth was, I couldn’t keep up the façade any longer and I was dangerously close to losing it in front of her.
She of course, didn’t want to leave. The only way I could convince her to go, was by telling her it would be too hard to sleep with her wandering around the cabin. That was a lie. I’d gotten used to sleeping on hard floors, with all sorts of noises that made it difficult to slumber for most people. I think she knew I was lying. But like me, she was smart at picking up on signals and though the dining hall was the last place she wanted to be, she left me alone.
I counted slowly in my head, until I reached one-hundred and then, when I was sure my sister was out of hearing range, I let the sobs fall out onto my pillow. The pain I felt, was unlike anything I’d experienced before. I would have rather felt Billy’s scalpel slicing through my leg again, than feel like this. This was hopelessness. This was heartache. I wanted so desperately for what I thought I had going with Jack, to be real. But it was all a lie. Maybe he liked me, but he didn’t love me. I didn’t know if I loved him yet, but I was certainly on my way. If I hadn’t been so close, this never would have hurt so bad.
If I hurt this much over a man I barely knew, then how much more was my sister’s pain over losing her husband? That thought brought on fresh pangs of guilt. I shouldn’t be crying so hard over Jack. I barely knew him. But still, I couldn’t make the hurting stop. Only sleep would bring relief, but I doubted I was capable of it. Crying however, has a way of exhausting even the most anxious mind and sleep did eventually find me.
I should have known better than to think I could run away from my problems through sleep. Dreams are the minds way of dealing with the emotional baggage of life. And boy were my dreams having fun sorting through the day’s events. It was like being slammed repeatedly in the heart with a hammer. First, I relived the cart ride with Jack, in slow painful detail. And then Michelle found her way into my subconscious mind. She was there to taunt me. I was even forced to watch her make-out with Jack. The rational part of me knew Jack had no interest in kissing Michelle, but seeing the two of them going at it, made my skin boil.
Finally, as if the earlier dreams hadn’t been enough, I found myself standing outside the moat that blocked the infected from getting to the community. The drawbridge had been raised and Jack was on the top of the wall staring down at me. April was up there too, bes
ide Billy, who had his arm wrapped around her. “You don’t belong here,” Jack said. He wore this look of pure hatred that was more suited for Michelle’s face than his.
“Please forgive me,” I begged. “I made a mistake; I can make it up. April please.”
“Sorry Siss, but I told you this was all an illusion. You were never truly safe. You wanted to make this home, but it never was and never will be your home. But look on the bright side. At least I got something out of this.” With that she turned away from me, with Billy still holding on tightly to her.
“Jack please, I belong in there, with you.”
Jack laughed back cruelly. “You don’t belong with anyone. Don’t you get it already? You were always alone, and you’re always meant to be alone.”
I woke up with a start, the pain in my chest was worse than it had been when I’d first fallen asleep. Jack’s words rang through my head. You were always meant to be alone. For the longest time I’d believed that. I thought that with the way this world worked, it was better not to dream about having a future with someone, because it just couldn’t happen. All people in this world fell into one of three categories. They were either cowards who relied on the strength of others, heroes who died too quickly saving other people, or they were scum looking for how they could use and exploit others. Andy was a hero, the scum made up most survivors and I…I was a coward.
I’d spent my whole life relying on the strength of others. I may have spent a few months caring for April, but that was really nothing compared to all she and Andy did for me. I’d never killed anyone. I let April or Andy take on that task. I didn’t even really hunt for our food when we needed it. I set traps like a coward, so I didn’t have to see my prey suffer and die.
The tears welled in my eyes, and I was terrified of the sounds that were going to escape my lips. I searched the room to try and figure out some semblance of time. It was dark, except for the small embers in the fireplace. April was gently snoring over on the couch. I saw her lying on her stomach, her face smooshed into her pillow, with her one arm draped over the side. Normally the sight of her like that would have had me bursting out in laughter. But just looking at her, brought up the dream I had of her abandoning me.
It was a real fear. After all, she’d emotionally abandoned me for months. And I lived in fear every day that she would just take off, either just up and leave, or find a way to permanently end her suffering.
I couldn’t stay in the cabin any longer. The effort it was taking to hold back the sobs, was too much. I knew that if I even let just one out, she’d wake up. April was a light sleeper, and I was positive that I was the reason for that. Just one more thing to feel guilty about today.
Slowly and as stealthily as I could manage with my aching leg, I crawled out of the bed, slipped on my slippers, grabbed my cane, and put on my winter coat that I’d finally been given. It wasn’t much of a winter coat. It was thin and thread worn, but it was better than my dad’s old sweatshirt.
Sneaking out of the cabin was no easy feat. The floor had a lot of creaky spots, and I still hadn’t memorized any of them. Any time I hit one, I cringed, then shifted my gaze to April. She’d switched positions, half waking and then fallen back asleep, thankfully.
Finally, I managed to get outside and close the door behind me, without letting too much cold air into the cabin. The night was freezing, even with my winter Jacket. My face stung, and my fingers burned from the bite of the wind. At least I could shove my hands in my pockets. My face would just have to suffer. Maybe it would be just distracting enough for me to forget about how miserable I was. Nope. I let my body drop on the cold hard bench and my cane drop to the ground in front of me. The tears silently rolled down my cheeks, practically freezing where they touched my skin.
I’d never been one to cry. Well, that wasn’t true. I used to cry a lot as a kid, and when the pandemic first broke out. But eventually I stopped, realizing that crying did no good. It didn’t change anything, and it only made you weak. The weak were the first to die and I didn’t want to die, so I stopped being weak. Or at least I thought I had. Maybe April was right. This place could make us weak. It was already starting with me. I’d let my guard down so quickly with no real reason to, besides a gut feeling that turned out to be a big mistake. If you couldn’t trust your own gut, then what could you trust?
I was so busy basking in the misery of being me, that I didn’t even notice the snow as it began to fall. It wasn’t until there was a soft layer of the white stuff covering my hair, that I finally looked up from the floorboards to see the first snowfall. It was beautiful. Here I was in this ideal setting, with stars shining in the distance, as large soft snowflakes fell from the darkness.
Out in the world, the first snowfall was not something that anyone enjoyed. It was a sign of hard times to come. Resources shrunk significantly; and infighting amongst groups of survivors got bad. It was at the tail end of winter when we lost Andy. The group we were with, were surviving on the bare minimum and we’d been that way for over a month. Prey was scarce. We weren’t the only ones hunting for meat. The monsters required protein, just like we did. And they were better hunters than we were.
We shouldn’t have spent the winter with that group. But we were desperate. We had little on our own, and felt lucky that they would even consider taking us in. If only we’d known their true motives. Well, I had a little bit of an idea, by the way the one guy looked at me. But I figured in a group of fifteen, he wasn’t about to act on his urges and risk being kicked out of the group. I regretted not voicing my concerns when I had them; before it was too late. Andy would probably still be alive, and he would be here with April, and they would be happy.
The beauty of the snow faded through the blur of my tears. I’d been deluding myself about this place. We couldn’t have a normal life. Normal life didn’t exist anymore. And as the tears continued to burn down my face, I made up my mind that I was going to leave with April when spring came. She was right. We might still have family out there. This wasn’t our home. They were. And I wanted home so bad.
I was so overwhelmed by all the emotions going through me, that I didn’t even hear him walking down the path. His boots always crunched along the gravel, and I’d grown used to the sound they made. But it wasn’t until he was almost standing right in front of me, that I finally looked up. Hastily I wiped the tears from my face, knowing just like last time, it was no use. The evidence was written all over my face.
I knew eventually I’d have to face Jack again, but I certainly wasn’t planning on it tonight. With it being so late, I should have been able to cry in peace. When I asked him what he was doing here, it came out a little harsher than I meant it to. He stood there awkwardly for a moment; before he took up the seat next to me.
“I deserved that,” he said staring off at the snow.
“No, you didn’t. I’m just tired.” That wasn’t entirely a lie. The emotional roller coaster I’d been on was absolutely exhausting.
“I’m sorry for how I reacted earlier today.” Did he just apologize to me? That wasn’t what I’d been expecting from him. I’d gotten used to the idea that whatever I thought we had going on, being all in my head. His most recent actions had seemed to reinforce that idea at least.
“Why are you sorry? I’m the one who went behind your back.”
“Only because I wasn’t willing to answer your questions when you asked me directly. I couldn’t.”
“Why?” I asked curiously. We were no longer both staring off into the village. Our eyes were now locked on each other. And those same feelings I always got, when in his presence, bubbled up. Only now I was terrified by how happy he made me. I couldn’t handle being disappointed again. I needed to know if he really wanted something with me.
“Because I was embarrassed by the whole Michelle thing.” I eyed him curiously, not understanding just what he had to be embarrassed about. From the information I had, it was clearly all on her. “It’s one thing when she’s trying
to make my life miserable. That I can handle, but then when she targets someone…I care about. That only makes it so much worse.”
My heart skipped a beat. And the way he was looking at me. It was a look I’d seen Andy give April more than a thousand times. It was a look that normally came before a passionate kiss. My body shook. I wanted him to kiss me. I’d certainly done my fair share of fantasizing about it, but the thought that it might happen now, was a little unnerving. Especially seeing as just a few hours before, I’d written him off.
We held each other’s gaze for one perfect moment and then he turned away unsure of himself. I tried not to feel disappointed. It was probably rushing it, to already have our first kiss, when we’d not even really established where we were. He at least cared about me. It felt like he’d been working to find a non-threatening word. I wanted him to say more, but I understood. I think we were both walking a fine line, not sure if we were ready to cross it just yet. Each of us afraid that the other one might not be there yet.
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I don’t care what Michelle thinks or does. She’s a nuisance for sure, but nothing more than that. Trust me, I’ve dealt with worse than her outside these walls.”
I didn’t elaborate on what that worse was, but my whole body shivered giving me away. My mind went back to that day when we lost Andy. I’d been so stupid to get myself into the situation. I knew better than to let my guard down. Whenever the memory popped up, it took all my strength to shut it down. It made my skin crawl just to think about it. Outside the village I’d been busy enough surviving, that I rarely had the opportunity for the memory to fully surface, but here, things were different. And it crept up on me a lot, especially over the last week, with all the guilt I felt over April.
Seeking Hope: Book 2 in the Seeking Saga Page 13
