Sitting on the bed, she ran her hands through her long hair and sighed. Look at the bright side, she told herself, at least with Katy not scouting, it would give her some time alone with Cort. That was after all, what she had said she needed all along. The biggest problem with this situation is that she didn’t know if he felt the same way about her, but enough time alone and she could find out. If he didn’t return her feelings, well then, she could make a move from there.
She looked at her phone which was sitting on a duffle bag at the bottom of the closet. Without communications up, she wasn’t exactly sure what move there was to make. No Meredith, no family, and nowhere to go. There was a time in her life when she would have reveled in this situation, where it would have seemed like a huge adventure but now her body was just weary. She rubbed the dog’s head and laid back on the bed. There was almost no winning.
Chapter 14: Cort
Deep Creek Lake, Western Maryland
December 19, 2012
“A storm is coming,” Annalise said in the late afternoon hours as they walked through the woods surrounding the house. They had been walking for half an hour and neither of them had said very much. He didn’t know if it was because of his outburst earlier in the day, or if it was because they were really alone together.
“We should probably gather some extra wood while it’s dry,” she added, pointing to the branches on the ground.
Cort bent over and started to pick up some of the stray twigs on the path around them continuing to think. They had been out at the house for just short of twenty days by now and so far the weather had been mild enough that they hadn’t had to worry about keeping warm besides adding a few extra blankets to the beds at night. If Annalise was right, this might be the first test of their survivability in the area.
“We can put it in the kitchen,” she continued, picking up branches of her own. “We have to make sure we have enough to last us at least a couple of weeks because this probably won’t be the only snow storm. We should probably also come up with a plan to keep everyone busy if we get snowed in.”
The prospect of having everyone locked in the house they currently shared caused Cort to shudder involuntarily. The group dynamics had been strained since their arrival and the only thing that had provided release was the fact that every couple of hours at least two people were leaving the house on scout duty. If the storm was bad enough, it could cause scouting to be become damn near impossible with reduced visibility and strong winds. Out of the group that had made it to the rally point, the only person really equipped for that sort of scouting was Annalise. While he was thankful that she had the foresight to bring a considerable amount of her snowboarding gear, he didn’t know if he’d be comfortable letting her scout alone. Of course, she would claim she wasn’t alone because she would take that damned husky. They would probably argue about it for a while until eventually she would leave to scout on her own against his wishes. She was so stubborn sometimes.
“Cort, are you listening?” she prodded, shaking him out of his thoughts. He looked up at her with a questioning gaze. “I was saying, if the storm is bad enough I’m the only one with enough gear and experience to scout. I don’t want to argue about it in front of everyone so I figured we could just do it out here.”
“How do you know I’d try to stop you?”
She waved her hand dismissively at his question. “Because the rule is always to scout in pairs, but the only person who can fit in what little extra gear I brought with me is Katy and you said that she shouldn’t be scouting.”
“She’d be fine,” Cort replied curtly, knowing that Annalise could probably hear the doubt in his voice. It was true that Katy probably wouldn’t be able to handle the storm if it was as bad as Annalise thought. Hell, she couldn’t even handle scouting in good weather right now. Besides, he definitely didn’t want to put Annalise and Katy anywhere together without supervision of some sort. It wasn’t that Katy and Annalise were overtly rude to each other; both of them were far too concerned with pleasing everyone to let that happen. There was something there though, and the strange undercurrent between the two of them was visible to everyone at the house.
On Annalise’s side, it made sense; he often wondered if she thought about their history as much as he did, and if she missed him in that way. Even now, looking at her red curls peak out from under her beanie, he could almost imagine they had never broken up and they were just on a romantic walk through the woods. If she was thinking the same way he was, it explained some of her her behavior towards Katy.
Katy on the other hand, was still relatively in the dark about the history that Annalise and he shared. Given that, he wasn’t sure why Katy was so on edge around Annalise. Perhaps it was a situation where Annalise’s subtle attitude was rubbing off on Katy. At any rate, it wouldn’t do for both of them to be alone during a scouting mission, especially if it was in bad conditions.
Annalise was arching her eyebrow and looking at him with an incredulous face. “We probably don’t need to scout during the storm, I doubt anyone else will be out in it.” he argued.
“You’re just saying that because you’re uncomfortable with me going out alone.” She stopped to sit on a log that was laid across the path they were on and reached into the pocket of her jacket to pull out a cigarette. “I’ll take the dog,” she said petting his head. “He’d never let anything happen to me.”
Cort knew she was right. After Annalise had found that dog he’d been more or less attached to her side. In a way it almost made Annalise the safest in the house, because he couldn’t imagine that dog letting anything happen to her. He rubbed the dog’s head and took a seat next to her on the log. “You really think the storm is going to be that bad?”
The corners of Annalise’s mouth turned upward as she realized she had won the argument. “Well, both my knees are killing me right now and I can feel it coming in all the other bones in my body, so yeah.”
“Since you’ve typically been the human barometer, I say we go with your gut feeling,” Cort acknowledged as he took a long drag off the cigarette Annalise passed his way. “I never thought about that coming out here, that we wouldn’t really have a way to tell the weather until it was almost already on us.”
Both Cort and Annalise lapsed into silence while they smoked and thought about what he had just said. It wasn’t exactly the comfortable silence they used to share, but it was something. He thought about asking her what her feelings were towards him, but he couldn’t find the words or the gumption to ask. Maybe some questions were better left unasked, because he wasn’t sure how he would handle Katy if Annalise said she felt the same as she did months ago.
“Did I ever tell you the story of how I got the propane tanks?” Annalise asked, shifting her entire body to look at him.
“Nope,” he said as he took a final drag of his cigarette. “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”
“I was on 340 on my way out to you guys and I was running out of gas,” she began, her voice shaking a little bit. “I stopped at this gas station I knew and when I walked inside there was no one there. I kept saying hello, and no one answered. I started checking around and when I got to the back room - there was this older guy - he was sitting on a chair.”
She paused, rubbing her arms as though a chill had suddenly grabbed her. “He had shot himself, right through the head. His brain was all splattered on the wall behind him. I keep thinking, what did he see that we didn’t because we were driving. Did he know what was going to happen?”
Cort was stunned; he expected to hear a cute story about how she managed to flirt with some guy to let her walk away with all the tanks. He hadn’t expected her to tell him that she stole them from a dead guy, much less that she had seen the dead guy. He felt an unexpected rise of self-loathing that he wasn’t there with her in that moment. She shouldn’t have had to deal with that alone. He searched for some words to say that would ease the pain she must be feeling, but none came to mind. Instead,
he gathered her into his arms and started rubbing her back.
Immediately, Annalise relaxed against him. He was struck between the difference in the emotions he felt compared to the scene with Katy earlier. With Katy, he felt a need to protect her, somehow keep her safe from the knowledge that nothing was ever going to be the same. With Annalise, he knew she was already aware of the truth, and he only needed to lend her a shoulder.
Initially, Katy had been a drain on his nerves. Before the events in DC, she had been nothing more than a fuck-buddy but after the time they spent out here he regarded her almost as a child. She had been so sheltered from the reality of life that she had a kind of innocence about her that her sexual experience had hidden from him. Yes - part of that was a selfish streak a mile wide, but in this new world he thought that kind of innocence should be protected, and cherished. There had been far too little of it already in the world, he could only imagine that Katy might be one of the last people on earth to possess those traits.
In a strange way, he imagined himself as Noah, and the people he had gotten out of DC as the animals. There was one every kind. Jake was the strong silent type, Kevin was the thinker, Jenna was the always cheerful cheerleader - and Annalise? She was the walking wounded. She was like a vase that had been shattered and laid on the floor with all those sharp edges. You could put her back together, but she would never be whole again. It always marveled him that she carried so much baggage from her own past, but it never stopped her from being strong and helping those around her. It was probably the entirety of the reason she had answered his text and come out here. She couldn’t resist it when someone needed her help, and he definitely needed her help.
“When we went to Cumberland, the first morning out here, I didn’t tell you guys everything,” Cort confessed. Something about the story that Annalise had just shared with him made him want to share his burdens too.
She moved away from him, one of her lips curling up in a sort of twisted smile. “I know, I figured you’d tell me when you were ready,” she repeated, nudging his ribs to lighten the mood.
He laughed, and lit up another cigarette. “The cop, there was something wrong with him. He looked sick, in a way I have never seen anyone look before. It was strange, unnerving.”
Annalise lit up another cigarette as well and took a deep drag before releasing it and letting the smoke mingle with his. “Whatever is going on out there, we’ll make it through,” she said finally. “We just have to figure out what we’re up against.”
Chapter 15: Annalise
Deep Creek Lake, Western Maryland
December 20, 2012
Midnight scouting was the absolute worst kind of scouting. During the day, it was possible to have conversation with scouting buddies. Something about the light shining through the trees and onto the lake made it seem less like a mission to make sure there wasn’t anyone about to crash their little party and more like a nature walk. Night scouting though, Annalise had to pay attention. Her body was on high alert for any noise or any sound. Maybe it was the reduced visibility and the fact that walking in the woods at night had been beaten in her head by every horror movie and Law and Order type procedural show as a bad idea. Whatever the reason, by the time she and Jenna rounded the last corner and the house was in sight she let out a large sigh of relief and let her body relax a little.
It was almost as if Jenna was reading her mind. “Night scouting is the worst,” she commented, kicking a rock. “I think we should refuse and make the guys do it from here on out.”
Annalise chuckled a little bit. The thought had crossed her mind a number of times. If Katy could play the distressed female role, why couldn’t she and Jenna? “I’m surprised Kevin lets you. He hasn’t tried to play the knight in shining armor when it’s our turn?”
Jenna smiled, slowing the pace a little as they got closer to the house. “No, he has, but as long as you’re willing to do it I guess I can’t chicken out right?”
“Katy did,” Annalise replied bitterly. In her mind, it wasn’t fair that Katy didn’t have to scout anymore because of some silly ‘breakdown’. They were all in a high stress situation and all of them had to contribute. Since their failed trip to Cumberland, Katy had barely left the bedroom. That meant she brought nothing to the table and therefore was just a drain on resources. When she and Cort had been together they had often talked about what would happen if someone in their group became a drain on resources and they had blithely concurred any person not pulling their own weight, unless by injury, would be forced to leave. Practically, it was more difficult than they had imagined. Even though she disliked Katy, she couldn’t see just shoving her into the wild and telling her to make on her own.
“You really don’t like her, do you?” Jenna questioned, moving them towards the dock instead of the house. Annalise’s dog ran straight ahead, sitting at the edge waiting for them to arrive. He knew how these scouting missions with Jenna ended, with about fifteen minutes of girl-talk on the dock. It was probably one of Annalise’s favorite times of the day.
Annalise pondered the question as they both sat in a cross legged position across from each other. “It’s not that I dislike her…” she began.
Jenna interrupted her. “It’s me ‘Lise. You can talk to me.”
Maybe that was all she needed to hear, but suddenly everything she had felt in the weeks they had been here began rushing out. The carefully placed dams she had built to hold back her feelings broke and all of her feelings came flooding out in a stream of thoughts. “I hate her Jen, I hate her. It should be with me Cort, you know that, I know that, so why doesn’t she know that?”
Jenna pondered the questions and held out her hand, asking for a cigarette wordlessly. Annalise complied, lighting one for both of them as she continued. “This was our plan, Cort’s and mine, everything was what we planned and she’s the one who gets to enjoy it with him.”
“Have you told him how you feel?” Jenna asked taking a drag off the cigarette and coughing lightly afterwards. Jenna rarely smoked. Annalise had never seen her smoke prior to being out here and the only time she smoked now that they were here was at the edge of the dock.
Shaking her head, Annalise scrunched up her face. “What good would that do? He’d just tell me that he loves her and I have to deal with it.”
“I don’t think he loves her ‘Lise. Not like he loved you.”
Annalise groaned in frustration. She didn’t really think that Cort loved Katy either, but there was something about the way he treated her with such care that made her think he was definitely protective of her. Speaking her feelings, no matter how she worded it, but would be an attack on Katy and probably wouldn’t be well received. “Loved being the key word there Jen. He doesn’t love me anymore and probably hasn’t for a while.”
Jenna shook her head emphatically, “I don’t think feelings like that just go away, I mean, he invited you here didn’t he?”
Annalise contemplated what Jenna was saying for a second before she responded. That was the million dollar question that had been running through her head since the night that they got here. Did he invite her because he wanted her back? She didn’t think so. “The fact that he invited me here just means he wanted me here. It doesn’t imply any sort of additional feelings on his part. It was a logical, and smart move to bring me.”
Jenna bust out laughing which turned into coughs because of the cigarette in her hand. “You both think too logically and need to just start feeling. You know, Kevin and I broke up.”
Annalise stared at her disbelief. “You didn’t! You guys…”
Apparently Jenna realized the mistake in the way she had explained it and began to correct herself. “No, no, no, not here. A while ago, when we first started dating. I broke up with him about six months into it for a couple months. We stayed friends and I don’t think anyone ever noticed, but the relationship definitely had its rough patch.”
Annalise leaned back to let her hands support her weight. It was
hard to believe that Kevin and Jenna ever had a rough patch. They were so obviously perfect together. “I still don’t believe it, you guys are too perfect.”
“That’s what you think,” Jenna said raising an eyebrow and dismissing Annalise’s protests. “We still fight, we still have arguments, and in the beginning it was bad enough it caused me to walk away. When it’s meant to be though, it’s meant to be and I truly believe you and Cort are like that.”
Annalise finished her cigarette and threw it into the lake. Jenna had more faith in her and Cort than she did at this point. “From your lips to God’s ear.”
Jenna followed suit and stood up, “Not God’s ear, ‘Lise, Cort’s.” Jenna looped her arm with Annalise’s. “I have a feeling that everything is going to be just fine.”
They walked up to the house, opening the sliding glass door and letting the dog run in before them. Kevin and Cort were still up, both of them sitting in the living room reading by candlelight. For a moment, Annalise could almost fool herself into thinking that Cort was waiting for her and that Katy wasn’t here. In her mind, she and Jenna had been out at the mall, and Cort and Kevin were just waiting for their girlfriends to return. Jenna took off her boots and walked over to give Kevin a quick kiss on the check, breaking the illusion. Annalise couldn’t do the same thing, so she stood awkwardly by the door.
“How was it?” Cort asked, looking up from his book. “Anything strange?”
Annalise shook her head bending over to take off her shoes. “Not unless you count the fact that there was no moon.”
Kevin eyed Jenna next to him, “And the fact that Jenna smells like smoke.”
Jenna swatted Kevin and laughed, “Hey, if it’s the end of the world I’m allowed to indulge a little bit. I’m going to go hop in the shower and jump into bed,” she said leaving the boys in the living room. At the stairs, she paused giving Kevin a little eye wiggle. “You are welcome to join me.”
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