Jamie nods and smiles politely. “Yeah, just beat. And hungry.”
“Then you relax and I’ll make dinner.”
“Didn’t I just say you’re a shitty cook?”
“Oh my God, you’re such a bitch when you’re hangry, Jamie.”
He chuckles—just a light laugh through his nose—and leaves the backpack by the door.
“Hey,” he says as I reach the doorway to the kitchen. “Why didn’t you bring the gun outside with you?”
I look at it, propped up against the wall by the front door, and shrug. Because I really didn’t want to have to use it. And if I brought it out and someone else came up that driveway, I would have.
“We’re out in the middle of nowhere. Who was going to stop by?”
Jamie just stares at the rifle. “I don’t like...” He stops and shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“You don’t like what?”
He opens his mouth and looks at me. His cheeks turn a light pink and he shakes his head. “Nothing. I just worry is all.”
He worries? About me? My mouth goes dry and I duck into thekitchen to hide my burning cheeks.
“Sit down,” Jamie shouts, hanging his coat on a hook behind the door. Then he follows me into the kitchen. “You make me nervous walking around all the time. You can’t heal if you aren’t resting.”
So hedoesworry about me.
“You’re a very stubborn patient,” he says, throwing a log into the stove. “Why do you keep pushing yourself?”
Because deep down I know the truth. That I can’t stay here forever. As wonderful as it is to have a cute, nice boy taking care of me, I have to go. The longer I stay, the smaller my window gets to arrive in Alexandria by June 10. And I’ve already had so many setbacks.
I obsess over all the possibilities once I leave here and head to Alexandria. I could arrive and find the house empty; maybe the Fosters already left to find their parents. And this new option I’ve been pondering where I go right to Reagan National instead and try to live a life on the lam. But then I imagine running into the Fosters in whatever settlement the EU helps set up and trying to ignore the guilt. Trying to pretend like my life is fine while they grieve, never understanding what happened.
Another possibility is I get there and they’re alive and I have to tell them what happened in New Jersey. How their parents died.
Or I arrive in Alexandria and the Fosters are dead and have been since before I ever met their parents.
But I can’t tell Jamie about any of that because he’ll either kick me out, be scared of me, or try to make me feel better. I just don’t know which one of those would be worse.
“Because I feel like enough of a burden as it is,” I say.
“Well, you need to own that and get over it.” His tone is joking, but maybe he’s right? I take a seat at the kitchen table while he digs through the cabinets. “What movie will you be telling me while I prepare our food?”
“Why don’t you tell me one?” I say. “You can even just tell meEndgameif you want.”
He finally cracks a smile. “I can’t tell them like you. All I remember is the big scenes like when everyone who died comes back at the end.”
And wouldn’t it be nice if that could happen in real life?
“Fine,” I say. “But you have to help me. I only saw it, like... thirty times so I don’t remember all of it.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “As opposed to the eighty times you watch every other movie to memorize them?”
“Exactly. So start me off. Captain America’s in his Snapper’s Anonymous meeting, right?”
“Nope.” He glances at me and shakes his head. “Iron Man is trapped in space with Nebula.”
“See? You’re a natural!”
