It was a rarity for all of them to eat dinner together but because of the storm they all found themselves sitting in the dining room. Tonight was especially bad given the worry earlier about where Annalise had gone and her reaction when she returned. There was an awkward silence that hung over the group and it caused Cort to question his leadership abilities. He had brought everyone out here to survive, and he guessed technically they were. Was it a life worth living though? It seemed every day there was a new obstacle that put everyone on edge and he didn’t know how to fix it.
Beyond that, he was irrationally mad at Annalisa for her inability to focus on what was supposed to be her task during the apocalypse. Every plan they had built together, Annalise was supposed to be the one to bring people together. Instead, since she had returned from her solo search for that damn dog, she had a bad attitude towards everyone, especially Katy. He understood it to a degree, the dog had been her constant companion since it’s arrival, but it was a dog. There was no way of knowing if the dog would come back or not. In his mind, it was premature to be this pissed off. Pushing his spaghetti around the plate in front of him, he hoped for one of them to say something that would break the silence.
It was Katy who answered his silent prayer. “I miss my parents,” she said barely above a whisper.
“Must be nice to have to parents to miss,” Annalise quickly responded with obvious bitterness in her voice. Cort took a deep breath praying that Katy somehow managed to remain oblivious to the tone in which Annalise had spoken. He had filled his prayer quota for the day though, because Katy put her fork down on her plate with enough force to raise the eyes of everyone at the table to her.
“You must still miss them,” she accused. Cort knew the minute those words came out of Katy’s mouth that Annalise was going to react poorly. He couldn’t really fault Katy for her way of thinking, but she didn’t know Annalise’s history.
Annalise put her fork down too, starring Katy straight in the eyes. “No Katy, I don’t. Some of us didn’t grow up with picture perfect lives and parents who doted on their spoiled brat’s every need.”
Katy’s hands went into little fists and her knuckles turned white from the pressure. This could get ugly, Cort realized. “Why do you hate me so much Annalise?” Katy finally bit out between ground teeth. “What have I ever done to deserve this?”
Annalise started to laugh. Not the joyful laugh that made Cort laugh along with her, but a bitter laugh that showed the anger and resentment she held towards Katy. “That’s the point Katy, you haven’t done anything the entire time we’ve been here but manage to leave a door open which let my dog out. You serve no purpose and you have no skills.”
The table was eerily silent after Annalise finished her miniature rant. Cort could see that Katy’s eyes were scanning the table looking for one of them to defend her. When Jake, Jenna and Kevin didn’t come to her defense, her eyes rested on Cort. He wanted to say something but he couldn’t argue Annalise’s logic. Katy hadn’t done anything to this point. She was useless as a scout, often making Cort do all the heavy lifting and he couldn’t remember a time she had cooked, or cleaned. If Katy was looking for some defense, it wasn’t going to come from him. Instead, he let his eyes drift down to his plate and left her to face Annalise’s wrath alone.
“They aren’t going to defend you,” Annalise continued. “They all agree with me, whether they are going to voice it or not. The only talent you probably ever had was sucking cock, but since Cort’s the only one who gets the benefi…”
Jake slammed his hand down on the table, shaking everyone’s plates interrupting her mid-sentence. “That’s enough Annalise.”
Katy’s face flooded with relief and Annalise stared at Jake. Instead of cooling her anger, it only seemed to fuel it. “Oh, is she sucking your dick too?”
“Annalise…” Cort warned. Jake was often seen by everyone as the quiet one, always observing but never getting involved. It typically lulled those around him into a false sense of security because Jake had one of the most volatile tempers of anyone Cort had ever met. Annalise was walking a thin line with her comments directed at him and didn’t even know it. Or maybe she did, but she didn’t care.
“No, I just don’t think you should take out your anger at Katy when it’s really Cort you’re pissed at,” Jake responded in a deadly calm manner. Cort groaned. This wasn’t what he had in mind when he had asked for something to break the silence. The dinner was quickly degrading into something that none of them would have control over. He tried to think of something to say to defuse the situation but Annalise stopped him by standing up from the table.
“You’re right, I am pissed at Cort. He never should have brought both of us here,” she ground out before she turned on her heel and walked to her room. They all sat listening to her throw stuff around, until she finally stomped out of the house slamming the door behind her.
Again, it was Katy who broke the silence while she stared at Cort. “What did she mean both of us?”
In that moment Cort realized how truly oblivious Katy was to the situation around her. Katy’s question was genuine and that meant she had never noticed the tension that always radiated from Annalise when she saw Cort and Katy together. He had always hoped that she never noticed it, but he hadn’t actually thought in his core that it was possible she missed it. For the second time that night he was at a loss of what to say. It was his turn to look around the table for help that didn’t come.
“Cort - what did she mean by both of us,” Katy repeated, as if repeating the question would suddenly pop an answer in Cort’s head. What could he tell her at this point in the game? ‘Oh Katy, by the way, Annalise is my ex and I’m pretty sure I’m still in love with her. I only brought you because you happened to be in bed the night before.’ Despite what a rat bastard he might seem to those around him right now, he was unwilling to crush her like that in front of everybody - but he was also unwilling to talk to her in private until he had what he would say figured out. Instead, he tried to change the subject by directing a question at the person most likely to respond. “Jenna, this is delicious, what kind of spices did you use?”
Jenna was about to answer when Katy cut her off. There was a kind of confusion and fury that he was used to seeing in Annalise, but looked out of place on Katy’s delicate face. “Cort, do not ignore me. What did she mean. Did you date her?”
“Guess the cats out of the bag now,” Jake muttered under his breath.
Katy gasped at Jake’s comment and Cort could see tears welling up in her eyes. “You and Annalise used to date,” she repeated. This time it was less a question and more a statement of fact.
“Yes,” Cort replied. “We dated. It wasn’t serious.” Jenna had started backing away from the table. The situation must have been excruciatingly awkward for the rest of the them. They knew that Cort was lying but all of them had enough loyalty to Cort not to interject with their two cents.
“But she’s here, she knew about the plan. You asked her to be here. It must have been serious enough,” Katy accused, pointing at him. “You invited her here before you asked me to come. She was the first person you texted that morning.”
“Yes,” Cort replied weakly. It figured that the first time Katy showed an ounce of brains would be to nail him against the wall. Katy stood up with what Cort thought was an amazing amount of grace for the current situation and walked to the room they shared, closing the door softly behind her. There was a loud click as she locked the door and Cort finally pushed his meal away from him.
“Cort…” Jenna said picking up the plates from the table.
“I should go check on Annalise,” he replied, getting up. “She shouldn’t be outside in this alone.” Cort looked at the doorway to his room where all his coats and boots were and wondered how hard it would be to get Katy to open the door.
Luckily, Kevin was reading his thoughts. “You can use my stuff, hold on, I’ll get it for you.”
Cort nodded in appre
ciation and waited at the table for Kevin to gather his coat, boots and gloves. His self-loathing was pretty high right now, but he was somehow managing to suppress and ignore it by feigning concern for Annalise’s safety. A little voice in his head tried to break through to him, saying it was bullshit and Annalise was probably the most equipped to deal with this kind of weather, but he suppressed that too and by the time Kevin returned with everything he had worked himself up to a place where he believed Annalise needed rescuing and only he was the one who could do it. That had to be the case, because he couldn’t go to sleep with both of them hating him. His ego wouldn’t allow him to lose both of them in one night.
Pausing by the door, he looked out into the storm.
“She’s probably by the dock,” Jenna suggested quietly. “It’s her favorite place here.”
Cort didn’t know how Jenna knew that, or why she was helping him, but he nodded gratefully at her and stepped out into the white abyss. He would find Annalise, and he would make everything better.
Chapter 19: Annalise
Deep Creek Lake, Western Maryland
December 22, 2012
The snow stung as it furiously hit Annalise’s face. The dock provided no shelter from the weather and she welcomed the fury of the storm. It was interesting to her that the moon, barely peeking through the clouds, reflected off of the ice that covered the lake creating a pathway - like it had that night she almost got swallowed whole by the ocean. Over the course of her life she had managed to suppress a surprising number of memories from that period in her life, but the memory of floating across the ocean staring at the stars had never faded in her mind. Sometimes if she closed her eyes and laid on the floor she could transport back there, and almost smell the salt water surround her. It was the one time in her life that she had truly been free.
That night she had been trying to run away from her parents and their drinking. In her youth, she hadn’t understood her motivation besides the allure of an adventure, but from her adult point of view it was pretty plain to see what her motivations had been. Tonight, she knew exactly what she was running from with the kind of crystal clarity that only comes from true pain and a heavy heart in your chest. She was running from Cort and the feelings that would never be returned again.
Truth be told, if she had initially thought that being friends with Cort post break up was hard she had no idea what hard was. Being out here with him made her long for the days of awkward conversation trying to navigate the post break up waters. To being stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, with no one but his friends and brand spankin’ new oh-so-perfect girlfriend was pure torture. The wind howled through the trees, creating a mournful song for her alone.
“Why did he even text me,” she asked out loud, kicking at the ice that created a cover for the lake below her feet. It didn’t make any sense. They hadn’t talked in months and he had a new girlfriend. Her presence here brought nothing but an additional mouth to feed and the unending awkwardness that seemed to plague everyone as they navigated the delicate social structure the group.
She wondered how thick the ice was and if it would support her weight if she decided to walk on it. It had seemed solid enough against her kick. How many times in her life had she been outside like this, alone, and thought about the possibility of just getting up and going out into the great unknown? Thinking back over her memories, she closed her eyes and inhaled the night air hoping to smell the salt water and be taken back to that night. There were times in her life when she looked back on that night and she was glad that the waves had eventually brought her back into shore. There were certainly people in her life who would have had a vastly different life without her touching them. Then, there were times, like these, when she wondered if maybe she wouldn’t have been better served by becoming one with the ocean. Sure, her parents would have been devastated, but she could have avoided sitting here, thinking about running away again. In the many years since she stood on the beach, or on the edge of the dock, she never quite had the fearlessness that her seven year old self possessed. There was always something to hold her back.
“You’re thinking about running away again aren’t you?” came his deep voice from somewhere behind her. Apparently the traitorous wind while singing to her had also been able to disguise the crunch of his footsteps in the snow.
“I don’t know why you even brought me out here.”
“Because you were my zombie apocalypse survival partner,” he responded immediately. Of course it was that simple to Cort. Everything seemed to be that simple to Cort.
“That was before we broke up Cort, and when we were still talking. And this isn’t the zombie apocalypse.”
Cort kicked some of the snow off the dock to create a space for him to sit next to her. “You’re the one who said it didn’t matter if we broke up; I’d probably still call you if something happened.”
“That was before we actually broke up!” Annalise exclaimed again in frustration, standing up as he took his seat. “That was before you got a replacement Annalise! That was back when we didn’t know how bad it would get!”
Cort stared ahead at the frozen lake, in contemplative thought for a minute before responding. Annalise wondered what he was thinking, and if she would ever truly be able to decrypt his emotions. “There is no such thing as a replacement Annalise. That’s why you’re here. I’ll admit, I didn’t think about how hard this might be for you, I just knew I wanted you here.”
His response infuriated her, her eyes lighting up with the kind of passion that only true anger can bring out of a person. “And isn’t that the way it’s always been? Your needs above everyone elses? You wanted to be more, so we were more. You wanted to stay friends so we tried to stay friends. Now you want me out here on this godforsaken lake with everyone you got out. I’m apparently just a toy to you, here for your amusement. I won’t have it - not anymore.”
Cort chuckled at her ire, which just served to make her angrier. Cort never looked at anything serious, and the next thing out of his mouth would probably be some smart assed comment. She felt like she was back where they were months ago, breaking up.
When he finally spoke, it was the kind of smart assed comment she had expected. “Well, you’re kinda stuck here. Where would you go?”
The fury erupted in a scream of frustration. “Do you really think I need you to survive this? I’ll have you know, Cort McCoy, I don’t need anyone.”
“I never said you did.” Cort said looking up at her. He was finally taking her seriously, and his next statement came out with a kind of velvet smoothness. “I just asked where you would go.”
The fury calmed as quickly as it had risen, deflating her as she took a seat beside Cort again. That was always the problem with her, she was always running away and never towards something. “I don’t know but I know I can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no place for me here. You have your girlfriend and your friends, and I’m just some girl who met you guys here.”
“You’re not just some girl who met us here. You’re my survival partner.”
It was Annalise’s turn to laugh lightly. She knew having this conversation would end like this. Cort had always had the unique ability to put the people in his life in little compartments and just assume that everyone else around him viewed them the same way. As social as he appeared to be he had never truly understood the group dynamics around him and had never attempted to view life from other’s eyes. When they had been starting out and discovering each other he had recognized that particular fault in himself and it was part of the reason he had picked her as his survival partner. She could remember him telling her that in the event of the zombie apocalypse she was to be the glue that held the group together, and the one who could tell him what the pulse of the people. She was supposed to be the one who kept people feeling like someone in charge cared because it would be easy for the people they brought with them and picked up along way to mistake his
general demeanor and attitude of coldness and uncaring. Now, he sat here doing that to her.
Cort interrupted her internal monologue, “You know I want you here right?”
She sighed. “I know you want me here Cort, but that’s not enough. I’m the outsider here and I can’t break through. It’s been a nearly month and it’s not getting better. I think it’s time for me to leave.”
They both sat in silence staring out at the lake. Annalise turned her head slightly to look at his silhouette in the moonlight. His body was tense, as if he was preparing for something horrible to jump out from the shadows and catch them off-guard. The snow had started to collect on his jeans and she could pick out individual snowflakes on his eyelashes. His green eyes were staring ahead at the ice covered lake and his lips were pursed tightly. She had the urge to rub his shoulder or cover his gloved hand with hers but she wasn’t sure how he would react to efforts of comfort. Closing her eyes and tilting her head towards the heavens she wished for things to be simple again. He had always thought that being the last survivors would simplify things. He had been so wrong.
“Well you can’t leave tonight,” he finally said. “Let’s see how you feel in the morning.”
“I’m not going to change my mind Cort.”
He ignored her statement, standing up and shaking the snow off his jeans. “My ass is freezing, let’s get inside,” he suggested, holding his hand out to Annalise.
She placed her gloved hand in his and let him pull her up. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
Looking in his eyes, she saw the he was looking for her to say something but she wasn’t sure what it was. She pulled her hand out of his. “For pulling me up.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
They walked in silence back to the house. At one point in time Annalise had dreamed of walking next to him in a comfortable silence through the snow. Kicking the snow at her feet she smirked. How like life to give you half of something you wanted.
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