For a brief second, I considered telling her everything. Keeping up the charade of lies wouldn’t hold up forever. But, Professor Woodward’s comment about secrecy was too important to break so I ignored the desire.
“I, I’m just burned out from finals,” I lied with an uneasy chuckle. “Don’t listen to me, just toss a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and jacket into your bag and let’s get going.”
She continued to look at me warily until I finally stood up.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll meet you out front in five minutes.”
Once I entered my room, the realization that I had yet to pack hit me. Scrambling, I threw open my closet door and pulled down one of my small duffle bags and zipped it open. I grabbed a pair of jeans and my gray ULV sweatshirt off their hangers and changed quickly. Then, I rushed over to my dresser and pulled out a pair of old sweatpants and some mittens and threw them into the bag. Finally, I went back to the closet and found the massive ski jacket Marie had sent down to me. I quickly rolled it up and jammed it into my bag. It took a minute to actually fit it into the bag with all the other junk that had been shoved in there.
“Come on Zoe!” Annie yelled from the front door.
“Just a minute!” I impatiently yelled back.
My eyes made one final scan of the room, making sure nothing got left behind. Seeing nothing, I exited my room and stopped in the bathroom, grabbing my toothbrush and deodorant. Once everything was tightly packed and zipped up, I threw the bag over my shoulders and met Annie at the front door.
“That’s a good idea,” she said, looking at me. “Give me a minute, I’m going to put my warm clothes on too.”
After another minute of waiting, we finally left the apartment. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Hope was standing alone with a single bag next to Annie’s car.
“Where’s Steph?” I asked, approaching the car. “She didn’t leave you, did she?”
At that point, Annie pulled the bag off my shoulders and stormed towards the trunk. She heaved the bags in swiftly and slammed the door shut.
“No, she took off with Damien earlier today,” she muttered uncomfortably, looking terrified from Annie’s outburst.
“Good,” Annie spat, pulling open her door and completely ignoring Hope’s apology. “I wouldn’t want her in my car anyway!”
I looked at Hope, whose eyes had gotten as wide as mine.
“I’m sorry; I should have come and asked you guys for a ride instead of assumed,” she said.
“That’s stupid, you don’t need to ask us for a ride,” I said.
I opened the passenger door and pulled the seat forward, allowing Hope to climb into the back seat. The moment the door closed, Annie turned the ignition and the engine roared to life. Right when my seatbelt clicked into place, Annie threw the car into reverse and shot down the street in a rush, which caused a few on-lookers to stare in confusion.
“Whoa, slow down Ann, we’d like to get there in one piece,” I laughed nervously. Hope followed suit with a nervous laugh behind me.
“You just tell Steph to stay away from me this weekend,” Annie yelled at Hope, who looked both confused and frightened.
“I think she already knows, but I’ll remind her,” Hope said timidly. I noticed her hands were shaking slightly when she grabbed her headphones and then lost herself in music.
“Ann, I know that you’re upset but I don’t think she meant any harm by it,” I started, hoping to calm Annie down enough to enjoy our trip. “Steph was worried about you, she just wanted to help.”
Annie’s hands started to turn white when she continued to grip the wheel harder and harder. The odometer crept uncomfortably close to 70 while we approached the on-ramp for I-215, which took us out to the highway and towards the mountain.
“Yeah, well, she should’ve got the hint when I didn’t answer her the first time. She just had to keep pushing it,” she said, not taking her eyes off the road.
“I understand that-” I started.
“Look, Zoe,” she cut me off gently. “I know what you’re trying to do and I love you for it. But please, let me deal with it, ok? I won’t cause a scene this weekend, I promise,” she said with a kind smile, apparently reading my mind before I could request it.
“Okay,” I said, hoping against hope that she would hold true to her word.
Outside of the heat, if there was one thing I despised about living in the desert, it was the lack of scenery. In the Northwest, there were trees everywhere scattered along the freeways and highways, which gave passengers something to look at during long car rides. The desert was the exact opposite. Once the towering hotels and offices of Las Vegas were out of sight, the only thing that surrounded us was a vast land of dirt, mountains and cacti. Even though I found the desert landscape to be rather unappealing, the cacti added a pretty element to the scene. The green complimented the tan and brown of the desert perfectly. The cacti lined the road while we sped towards the mountain.
After 45 minutes had passed, the scenery started to shift while we slowly began to climb the mountain. Eventually, the empty vastness of the desert was gone, only to be replaced by pure and luscious forest area. When we finally reached the entrance to the Spring Mountains Recreation Area, snow covered trees lined the mountains that surrounded us on all sides.
We continued to drive for a few minutes before we finally pulled up to a gate, where a friendly looking ranger greeted us.
“Good afternoon ladies,” he said in a very husky voice. “Where you headed?”
“We’re meeting some friends for a camping trip,” Annie said politely.
The ranger’s smile slowly faded from his face. It was replaced by a look of distrust. “You’re part of that ULV group of kids, eh?” he asked sternly.
“Um, yes sir,” Annie said, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.
He stared and surveyed us for a minute. “That’ll be $30 for the night,” he finally said.
“Thirty bucks?!” Annie choked. “For what?”
“It’s the standard weekend fee with a vehicle and two passengers,” he said, pointing to the huge sign next to his window.
“But we’re only here for one night!” she demanded.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but it’s a flat rate for the weekend.”
Annie mumbled something inaudible under her breath as she pulled her purse out from the backseat. While she handled the payment, my eyes gazed around the area. There were some parked cars in an adjacent parking lot, and in front of us, right before the road turned into the trees, there was a fire danger sign with that friendly looking fire bear. The danger for the weekend was low.
“You ladies be careful up there this weekend,” he said, collecting Annie’s money. “And please make sure to remind your friends to be careful too. I know the fire danger is low, but you can never be too cautious. If you need anything, we have ranger cabins scattered all over the woods. Here, take this map, it will show you where the stations are located and also help you find your campsite.”
“Thanks,” Annie said, taking the map and tossing it on my lap. “Our friends have been here tons of times, so I’m sure they know where it is.”
His eyes squinted at Annie’s remark. “Enjoy your trip,” he said, slamming the door of his window behind him.
“Wow, what a jackass!” Annie said, driving forward into the park. “By the way, you both owe me ten bucks.”
I unfolded the map while Annie started up the long and winding road towards the mountain. It was a very easy map to read. We were to meet everyone at the Black Lake campsite, which Steph and Damien had reserved right after Thanksgiving. It was the furthest campsite from the entrance to the park, and it seemed as though it would take us a while to get there. Fortunately, the directions were simple.
“Alright Ann, just take this road all the way up,” I said nonchalantly, not taking my eyes of the map.
My eyes continued to scan the map, looking for the ranger station we’d been told about. Even with
all of the fun and excitement of being on vacation, Annie was still in danger and I had to take every precaution to make sure she remained safe. Once I found the station icon located about a half mile west from our campsite, I exhaled deeply in relief and folded up the map. If something happened to Annie, the only place where she could get medical help was going to be a half-mile away. The thought of possibly having to use that cabin made me shiver.
While we continued to drive up the curvy road into the mountain, an extremely unfamiliar sight caught my eye. It was one of the more beautiful sights my eyes had ever seen. The ground had transformed from a natural blend of green and brown to a flawless white. Everything was blanketed from the grass to the trees. There was something so pure and innocent about the snow, it made me feel at peace. All of my worries and fears about Annie and her safety seemed to be blanketed with the rest of the woods.
Hope was sitting in the back seat, staring with her mouth half way open at the passing landscape. If snow was something uncommon to me, what would someone from Arizona think of it? She looked more in awe than I did. Annie, on the other hand, had focused more on the car. We didn’t have chains or four wheel drive on her car, so she was taking extra precautions to make sure we survived the drive.
“Stupid snow,” she mumbled from under her breath.
After another half an hour, we finally reached our destination. As we pulled into a relatively vacant parking lot, I could see a bushel of blazing red hair blossoming out of a familiar black truck. I looked over at Annie whose eyes had widened and fallen on me.
“Did you know about this?” she asked almost inaudibly.
I just shook my head and stared back at Liam’s truck. Did Steph really invite Liam? Was Steph that angry from Annie’s scolding that she’d devise such a nasty revenge? Granted I didn’t know Steph as well as Annie did, but she didn’t seem to have an evil bone in her body. If Liam really was there, it was probably Damien who invited him. My heart sank into my stomach while the thought of the weekend going from potentially relaxing to utterly uncomfortable started to sink in.
Annie slowly pulled into a spot next to the truck, and stared a hole right through Steph, who was unloading camping gear out of the trunk. I turned to look at Hope who was also staring at Steph. She looked nervous and was biting her lip.
“It’s about time you guys made it up!” Steph panted, throwing a random bag off the truck bed.
“Yeah, traffic was pretty bad on the freeway,” I said over the top of Annie’s car.
“How was the trip?” she said, not even glancing at Annie who had also gotten out of the car.
“Just a bunch of desert, pretty boring,” I shrugged.
Steph laughed and unloaded the last piece of her gear from the truck. Hope had gotten out of my side of the car and was already walking towards Steph. When she got there, instead of hugging each other, Hope just picked up a majority of Steph’s gear and appeared to wait for further instructions from her.
“That may have been boring, but you can’t possibly tell me this place is!” she exclaimed, picking up the last of her gear, a small grill and some charcoal. “This has to remind you guys of home, right?”
“Yeah, minus the snow,” I joked.
“Well, the campsite is a little bit of a hike up this trail,” she laughed, nodding towards a small opening in the dense forest that surrounded us. “Why don’t you guys grab your stuff and follow me, everyone else should be up there.”
Annie leaned against the car with her arms folded while Hope and Steph passed. Steph gave her a half smile when she passed, but Annie’s gaze was focused on the dark forest we were about to enter. The moment Hope and Steph were out of sight, Annie walked towards the trunk, which she threw open in anger and started throwing bags out onto the forest floor. With each bag that was thrown out, Annie mumbled insult after insult under her breath.
“Stupid bitch thinks she’s the center of the world,” she said after tossing my duffle bag to the ground.
“Always has to know what’s going on in other people’s lives,” she muttered as her backpack was the next victim.
“You alright?” I asked, approaching her with caution. Annie was emotionally unstable at best, and I knew the slightest, most innocent question could be construed as an attack.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Why?” she asked, slamming the trunk door closed.
“I just heard you ranting, so I thought I’d see what’s up,” I said.
“You heard that?” she replied, sounding mystified.
“Yeah, you said it pretty loudly,” I chuckled. “Are you sure you can handle this?”
“Well we’re not heading back now. I didn’t come all the way up here only to turn around and go home.”
“Okay, I just had to check,” I said. “But we should probably get moving, they’ve got a pretty good head start on us. You’re positive that you’ll be okay?”
Annie just smiled her beautiful, wide, warm smile and started to pick up some bags. It was one of the few, rare times her smile had come out since Thanksgiving. Any worries about Liam being there seemed to melt away with the warmth of her smile. The last thing I wanted to do was to bring him up, especially when she seemed to be calming down a bit. If he really was there, I decided to just deal with it when it happened.
“We had better catch up, I’d hate to get lost out here,” Annie said, lifting Hope’s bag into her right hand. I threw my backpack over my shoulders, returned her smile with one of my own, and followed her into the darkness of the trees.
Steph and Hope must have been walking at a breakneck speed because we had lost them in the trees. We followed the trail for about ten minutes before we reached a spot where it broke off into two separate trails. Annie stood on the spot and her eyes gazed back and forth between each trail.
“Hope?” I yelled out into the trees. “Steph?”
There was no answer. Frustrated, I pulled out the map and tried to figure out where exactly we were supposed to go. Annie dropped Hope’s and her bags and waited patiently while I scanned the map with my finger and traced our path from the car. My eyes wandered up the map, and noticed the ranger station resting to the west of where we were. Knowing our site was directly east of the station, I chose to go right.
After another five minutes, the path reached an end point and we stood at the brink of a wide opening which was our campsite. Five relatively large tents were spiked into the ground around the camp, and in the middle was the “living area”. Four large, thick logs were resting around a fire pit, which was full of black ash. A cooler and the grill Steph was carrying were resting behind one of the logs. While my eyes studied the layout, Chase and Tyler came bounding towards us from their tent.
“It’s ‘bout time!” Tyler beamed, stopping on a dime right in front of us.
“Yeah, no joke,” Chase chimed in next to him. Both guys were smiling widely.
“Can we help you with those?” Tyler said, leaning down and grabbing all three of our bags.
“We were going to camp outside, we don’t have a tent,” Annie started to say.
“We actually set one up for you guys right over there,” Chase said, jerking his head to the right. Tyler carried our bags over and put them inside the largest tent of the group. It must have stood over seven feet high and looked wider than our bathroom at campus. Annie and I walked slowly towards the center of the campsite, both of our mouths hanging slightly open in shock.
“Damien said that Liam put an extra one in his truck because he knew you didn’t have one, so we set it up for you,” Tyler said, emerging from our tent without the bags.
I looked over at Annie to gage her reaction.
“So, is he here?” she asked cautiously.
“No, he couldn’t make it,” a familiar voice said from behind us.
I turned on the spot and was almost face to face with Damien’s lanky frame. My eyes rested on his face which was spread into a malicious grin. “Too bad too, I’m sure he would have had an awesome
time out here,” he finished, glancing over at Annie.
I could feel my blood start to boil at the absolute carelessness in his voice. There was no doubt he knew all about Liam and Annie, and to have the audacity to be so heartless in front of her made me want to punch him right in the face. I then glanced over at Annie, who looked solemn. Instead of fighting back, she shuffled her way slowly towards our tent and out of sight.
“Dude, you really need to quit sneaking up on us,” Chase said, grabbing his chest.
“Sorry bro,” Damien said casually. “Anyway, Steph, Hope and I are headed towards the lake, anyone want to roll? We’re going to meet the others down there.”
Tyler and Chase just shrugged their shoulders. “Got nothing better to do,” Tyler said. “I’ll go grab some booze before we head out.”
“Not much else to do around here besides get plastered,” Chase added lazily. He plopped down on one of the logs around the fire pit, waiting for Tyler.
Damien then stared at me and waited. After his rude and inappropriate comments, there was no way I’d put Annie in a position to deal with him anymore. On top of that, Annie would have killed me if I’d agree to go on a hike with Steph.
“Sorry, but I think we’re going to get settled here,” I said shortly.
“Are you guys sure? I think you’ll really like it,” he added hopefully.
“No, we’re both pretty tired. We’re going to take a nap while you guys are gone.”
Without another word, I turned on the spot and headed into the tent, ready to spend the next few hours being Annie’s sounding board.
There was something about a picture perfect, beautiful sunset that always lightened my mood. The magnificent image of the sun setting behind snow capped mountains pushed all of Annie’s drama from my mind, even if it was for just a minute. The brilliant mix of purple, red and orange in the sky reminded me of a painters easel, where many colors combine to make a masterpiece of art.
A pleasantly crisp wind blew through my hair while I stood at the edge of the campsite and stared at one of the mountain peaks.
Common Ground (The Common Ground Trilogy Book 1) Page 31
