by Mia Ford
I groaned, feeling defeat starting to encase me like the darkness and dropped my head into my hands.
Yet, as soon as I did this, I heard a noise in the woods that I couldn’t explain away by the wilderness. It sounded like footsteps.
Oh God… I thought, as my stomach dropped. The first thing I contemplated was what I would do if it was an animal, but the second possibility was even more horrifying. I froze and was nearly instantly brought to tears at the idea that the guide had found me. Oh God… I thought again as I bit my lip and hampered my breathing.
I listened for any other sounds, looking around for a weapon.
I couldn’t see anything and even if I did, it was idiotic to think that I would be able to fend off an attacker. Between my injured leg and malnourishment, I was as good as useless, which made me hope it was an animal that had found me.
At least if I was mauled to death, there was a possibility it would be quick. If the guide was stalking me, there’s no telling what he was planning to do with me and I had no interest in finding out.
By now, I was shaking but the cold had far less to do with my reaction than it did previously. Now, I was far more afraid than anything else, but knowing I couldn’t run, my curiosity got the best of me. I had to know who was out there as soon as possible, if only to ruin the consistent torment of the unknown.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” I called, as my voice cracked.
After speaking, I heard a rustle in the bushes and I braced myself for whatever or whoever was about to show themselves.
When the shadow of an animal leapt out of the bushes, I felt my heart drop. However, it didn’t take more than a second to hear a familiar bark, before feeling a wet tongue licking my face.
“Jake?” I asked, relieved as I hugged the dog close to me.
As I pet him, while my heart started to settle into a normal rhythm, he continued to kiss my face and snuggle against me, clearly happy to see me.
A few moments later, a familiar human voice broke through the silence of the mountainside.
“Jesus Christ, dogs never do what you tell them to do, especially this one,” Johnathan insisted as he walked through the bushes, holding a bundle of firewood in his arms.
My heart started to pound once again, but this time, it wasn’t from fear. I was relieved and excited to see Jonathan, thankful that he ended up following me. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done if he had taken my word and decided not to follow me.
Although, I tried to pretend like I wasn’t happy to see him, since I still wasn’t particularly happy with him. Yet, I wasn’t going to be mean enough to make him go away…at least not until after he built a fire.
“So, you just couldn’t stay away, huh?” I asked snidely, crossing my arms over my chest. However, the attitude behind the motion was ruined completely when Jake’s nose nuzzled between my arms, uncrossing them instantly. “You know, I was doing fine without you.”
“No food, no water, no fucking fire? Yeah, Carrie, you’re a regular boyscout,” he insisted, without losing a bit of his sharp tongue and normal roughness.
“I was getting to it,” I answered, “I was just taking a break, that’s all.”
Dropping the firewood on the ground, he followed it and started to methodically set the wood alight.
“Well, you need to get on that, because if you don’t warm yourself soon, your skinny ass will freeze to death.”
“You have no right to talk about my ass, in any capacity,” I answered, half teasing him.
Johnathan wasn’t amused. I could nearly sense his eyes roll as he continued to work with the tinder.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you do realize that you are in the mountains, not the fucking coast and when you’re in a situation like this, you should put aside your pride and get help. Your pride doesn’t do shit for you if your dead,” he hissed.
“Yeah, well, look who’s talking, Mr. I’d rather be an asshole than have a normal conversation.”
“Well, this is one hell of a thanks for saving my ass,” he retorted as the flames of the growing fire started to lick around the tender. Carefully, Johnathan put the pieces of wood on the flames and watched them devour the smaller twigs almost instantly, before encompassing the whole structure of firewood he created.
“You’re the one who came in here and started doing stuff. I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t need your help,” I insisted and this time, due to the light the fire was giving off, I could see him roll his eyes as his head tilted back in annoyance, “Dammit, Cassie! Is thank you even in your vocabulary?”
“Not when I have no reason to say thank you. Just because you want to act like my knight in shining armor doesn’t mean you get to be it.”
At this, Johnathan laughed, but in a maniacal manner, “Yeah, sorry, but no. I’m no knight. I am…how did you put it before? Pitiful? A coward? A…child hiding under the covers?”
“Oh, so you were paying attention. That’s good to know.”
“I always pay attention, unlike you who seems to think with their stubbornness first and their brain after. Was it really so hard to stay with me? Was I that terrible of a host that you made me come out here and save you?”
Now, it was me who rolled my eyes, “God, Johnathan! It’s always about you, isn’t it? For a loner, you are one of the neediest people I have ever met. You always need to feel justified. Holy crap! You made a fire…do you want a medal? When we get back to civilization, I’ll find you a medal, alright?”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Johnathan barked, “If you didn’t need to keep score all the time, I wouldn’t need to remind you of how many times I’m the reason you’re not dead…Or worse.”
As we bantered, Johnathan continued to set up camp skillfully, ensuring that everything was safe, and we were able to even have some shelter.
I wasn’t going to tell him this, but I was impressed by his resourcefulness.
He was even able to find a source of water, which he offered to me first, before giving Jake some and going back to fill up himself.
I continually huffed and puffed as he moved around the campsite, ensuring everything was appropriate. I still wasn’t ready to forgive him for what he said, though I was happy he was here.
I wanted an apology, but I wasn’t sure I was going to get one, so I settled on allowing time to heal the hurt.
When he was finished, Johnathan came over to me and moved toward my leg, as though he wanted to check it but I roughly pulled it out of his grasp.
“I’m still angry with you!” I exclaimed, meeting his narrowed eyes with my angry gaze.
Immediately, he backed away from me and shrugged, “Fine,” he retorted, “But if it swells up and falls off, it’s not my fault.” He grumbled and griped for a moment, before he continued, “We’ll rest here for the night and we’ll carry on in the morning.”
Again, I rolled my eyes. “You’re not the boss of me. If I don’t want to leave, I’m not going to leave and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.”
I expected him to return some snide comment, but instead, he looked utterly surprised and kind of angry by the way I reacted.
I had kind of thought we had a thing going here, so I wasn’t sure what had changed. Either way, he was still in trouble for what he had said, so he wasn’t going to get off that easy, regardless of what he had done to help me. So, I stood my ground, staring him down as I awaited his answer.
“Okay, um…I realize that, but I think if you’d stop being so damn stubborn, you’d see that I have done everything to try to help you,” as he spoke this time, the roughness had seemed to ease a little leaving a soured tone, that seemed slightly put off. He spoke through gritted teeth as he forced himself to remain calm. “Look, I know I’m an asshole. I try my best to be an asshole. That is literally the only thing in this world that I have had all that much success in being, but I am not the monster you seem to think I am. Yes, I said what I said, and it was a dick thing to say, but don’t my actions
account for anything?”
Could it be that he was actually trying to open up to me? I thought, now starting to feel bad for the way I had treated him. He was right. He had done everything he possibly could to keep me safe. He had gone above and beyond normal human decency, even risking his life to get me away from someone who really did want to do me harm.
However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still abundantly hurt by what he had said to me earlier, so I tried to convince myself it didn’t matter. I still didn’t deserve to be treated this way and since he couldn’t even give me so much as an apology, I didn’t have to feel bad.
“You know,” I finally spoke, trying to explain myself without starting another round of hurtful insults, “You seem to have convinced yourself, for whatever reason, that the whole world is against you and there is nothing I can do to change that. The reason I am so angry and so hurt is because I care and what you say influences me.”
“Yeah, words have meaning, I get it,” he hissed snidely, “But being spiteful about it isn’t helping either of us.”
“I’m not being spiteful,” I insisted, trying my best to remain calm. “I’m being honest with you. This is my attempt at a normal conversation, between two adults. I tell you how I feel and you tell me how you feel. It’s effective, I promise.”
“Oh, for the love of God, forget it! I’m not a fucking cave man. Now, you’re just insulting my intelligence.”
“No, I’m not. You just seem to take everything I say the wrong way,” I insisted.
“I understand how human interaction works, and I understand the words coward, and pitiful and everything else you were saying to me back there in the cabin, so don’t you sit there and try to convince me that I was slinging insults at you without provocation. You got a few good below the belt hits in there too.”
“This isn’t about who insulted who better, Johnathan!”
“Then, what is it about? I’m not stupid. I know that I was an asshole. I told you that I know that and yet, you keep beating the same damn, dead horse we’ve been kicking around all day.”
“You haven’t once said you’re sorry,” I insisted, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Well, neither have you,” he replied.
I went to speak, but stopped short, causing a cruel sneer to curl around the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah, that’s because you’re not,” he insisted, before standing up and walking over to the other side of the camp. “Try to get some sleep, princess, because I’m going to the ranger’s station tomorrow, whether you’re with me or not.”
I huffed and narrowed my eyes. I was angry, more now because he had called me out and I couldn’t retort.
The reason that I hadn’t apologized was because I was trying to get him to admit something about himself. I was trying to get him to open up and I thought if I gave the truth a little extra-insolent flair, he might get fired up enough to abandon his resolve. I thought I might be able to break down his walls and make him see what I was trying to get him to tell me.
However, unfortunately, my idea had backfired.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” I called across the campsite, “Does that mean that you meant everything you said to me? I just thought you were trying to be hurtful.”
There was silence, at first, and I thought he was going to ignore me, but when he did respond, I couldn’t figure out exactly how he thought his answer would be the least bit helpful.
“I told you, Carrie, I’m an asshole.”
Yeah, I know that… I thought, but did you mean what you said?
Settling on the notion that was going to be his parting words to me that evening, I didn’t bother to respond. I simply huffed, loud enough so that he had a chance of hearing it and curled up on the bed of leaves, hoping to get some sleep.
Chapter 16
Johnathan
Hearing Carrie sigh from across the campsite made me wonder if she knew what I meant by my last comment.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to apologize, and I knew why she had said what she did. I knew that I had screwed up when I reacted to her true claims by trying to respond in an equally insulting way but tonight, I couldn’t bring myself to apologize.
After all, I wasn’t even sure if I should even try to make things right. I couldn’t imagine what good it would do.
In my experience, I’m sorry always led to something more and I wasn’t ready for any of that shit. I don’t know about most people, but I know that pouring my heart out to some stranger, only to have her leave wasn’t exactly the therapeutic outlet I needed; and that’s if I was even looking.
Right now, I didn’t want therapy. I didn’t even want to get better, because I figured the journey, if a better mental state was even possible, was going to be far more painful than simply cutting our losses.
Granted, for me, cutting losses meant everything, since she was the only human I had even considered wanting to get to know in a long time, but for her, it wasn’t all that bad. It was a mistake, at most. She could go back to her life and be perfectly fine. If I tried to be the sensitive, apologetic man she seemed to want, I felt I would be apologizing more than I would be doing anything else.
I didn’t want to hurt her. I simply wanted to part ways, before I ended up ruining her life.
However, as I lay across the campsite from her, I still couldn’t help the knowledge of how attracted I was to her. After everything that had happened, the allure I felt went far beyond the idea that I was still responsible for her, safety, or even that of her beauty. Of course, I wanted to see that she was safe, but I knew that I would never forgive myself if something were to happen to her.
I didn’t want to follow her today, because I didn’t want to be in her life anymore than I was already, but now that I had, I was glad to be here with her.
Even though we were arguing, and I was the one being stubborn, I was content, in a way. Whatever we had, being close to her, in any capacity felt right.
I liked doing things for her. As much as I complained and teased her about not making a camp for herself, I was pleased to have the excuse to make my presence known. I was happy to help her, and I wanted to always be the one to help her.
Yet, that intense sense of commitment to her was only a portion of what I was feeling. The other part of me still wanted to leave her as quickly as possible, though I know that I would never actually do it.
Even if I tried, apparently, Jake wouldn’t let me do it.
So, after heavily contemplating all of this, my mind wandered into the idea of what it will really mean when Carrie returns to her normal life.
Am I going to want to visit her? I thought. Am I going to yearn for her, like I do now? I contemplated, even though I knew it was best for me to stay away.
I also wondered if knowing that I was still capable of these feelings would change the way I felt about everyone else. Do I want to return to live a normal life? Should I try to move on, or would I just be setting myself up for failure?
Really, though, what do you have to lose? I thought, this time growing slightly annoyed. I roughly turned on my side, so that the fire, and the small outline of Carrie across the campsite was at my back. I didn’t want to look at her, because I didn’t want to be drawn in by her charm.
Why the hell does this woman make me want to be back in the society that I had completely, successfully disowned? I wondered, shutting my eyes tightly and grinding my teeth with aggravation.
Even though I thought about all of this for far too long, I was even more frustrated by the fact that I never was able to come up with an answer. I still couldn’t understand why this woman was so special to me, when I really didn’t know her much at all.
It was almost as though I was put under a spell that I both loved and hated. Perhaps it was what I needed, but maybe it was going to be the death of me.
I supposed that only time would tell, since I clearly wasn’t able to figure it out for myself.
For a long time, I tossed and
turned, annoyed by the glow of the fire and the hardness of the ground, but kept awake by the racing of my thoughts.
However, eventually, I was finally able to fall asleep, thankfully allowing me to escape my thoughts and fall dreamlessly into a deep, encompassing slumber.
Chapter 17
Carrie
The following morning, I awoke, feeling eyes on me.
I tried to ignore it and turn over, but I continued to feel the eyes piercing into the back of my head.
Eventually, the feeling became too much. I groaned and rolled over. Johnathan was sitting there, staring at me, possibly watching me sleep. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about this, though I couldn’t help an initial sense of comfort flow over me.
While I was still curious as to why he was staring at me, I was pleased that he was there.
I started to grin at him but then, I remembered everything that transpired.
I narrowed my eyes and started to get up.
“Whoa, be careful. What are you doing?” He insisted.
“I’m sure you want to get a move on, so let’s go. The sooner we get to the ranger’s station, the sooner you can get me out of your hair.”
At first, Johnathan didn’t answer me, and I wasn’t sure why. After all, the night before, he had made it crystal clear that he was going whether I was ready to go or not. So, I was simply trying to comply, knowing that the sooner we were able to get going, the sooner I could return to civilization and put this whole experience behind me.