I snort and limp over to him, pulling him into a hug.
“Should I have been meaner?” he asks, though I’m squeezing him so tightly his voice is strained. “I should have punched you in the arm or something, huh?”
“This is fine,” I say, still squeezing him.
Once I’m finished moving everything from my bag to the one he brought, I look up at him. “Why did you come after me? Why not go find Howard and the others from yesterday?” He doesn’t owe me a thing—if anything, I owe him more than I can pay, but what else is new, amirite? But why come looking for me instead of going to a larger group to survive? And he clearly didn’t come here to convince me to go back to the cabin, otherwise why bring these bags?
He frowns and crosses his arms again. “You mean the people whorobbed us? The whole group that took literal peanuts from us?”
“They stole the honey-roasted peanuts?” I yell. Jamie tries not to smile and fails.
“They couldn’t be doing that well for themselves if they’d take food from two people on their own.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. From what that girl Raven said, I figured it was just the group’s way of showing dominance, and maybe trying to force us to join them. But maybe they needed us more than we needed them.
Just like I need Jamie more than he needs me.
Jamie holds out his hand to help me up. “When my mom and I went out to the cabin, it was to leave the city. Everything was going kinda off the rails and we knew the cabin would be safe because we were secluded out there. Course, that didn’t keepyoufrom breaking in.”
I point a finger at him. “I did not break in—you’re a lunatic who left the door unlocked.”
He continues as if he didn’t hear me. “And now with Howard and Raven’s crew there... It just doesn’t feel safe anymore.”
I frown and guilt returns. “I don’t know how to tell you this...” Without going into detail about the Fosters. “But it’s not so safe out here either.”
“I watch your back, you watch mine?”
I nod. “Sounds good.”
We leave his bike since it would mean one of us pedaling slowly while the other tried to keep up by limping along on a crutch. After about five minutes he finally says, “I told you why I came after you. But why did you leave? Why the rush to get away? We still had food,and we could have made it last until you were all healed.”
And here it is. This is where I should tell him the truth. About the family in Alexandria.
But seeing him again reinforces everything I was trying to suppress. The heart-eyed butterflies that would die if he finds out I’m a real-life, grade-A horrible person and decides to leave me. I can delay the inevitable just a bit longer. Keep telling him the half-truth.
“If there is somerealcivilization out there, with a whole government and everything, I don’t want to miss them. I know you don’t believe me, but I do think someone might be coming. The quarantine worked in Germany and the Netherlands.”
“The news and the US government said the same about the UK and Italy. And people online said it was bullshit. Which... My mom and I were out at the cabin alone and she still got it. This thing doesn’t care about quarantines. It survived everything.”
“I know.” I heard that part, too. “I know it’s a rumor, but... what if it is true?” If it is true, the Fosters might be gone if I don’t get there before June 10. If it isn’t true, then I rushed out for no reason.
Jamie thinks on it. I can see him running all the options in his head. Then finally he nods. “Let’s get to DC by June tenth, then. We have a month, plenty of time.”
Plenty of time to figure out how to tell him the rest of the truth.
Yay.
Walking south is significantly more difficult than I remembered. My leg injury isn’t helping.
Two other things we didn’t think about were the sun and the heat.The sun didn’t burn in the winter, and walking quickly kept my body temperature up. Now, walking quickly does nothing but make us both sweaty and tired.
Lucky for us, few people cared about sunblock during the pandemic. They ransacked drugstores for medicine and food. The sunblock display is practically untouched, which almost makes it look like they’re still open for business. We stop the first chance we get and take several high-SPF bottles, and Jamie hands me a dark red Phillies hat. “You can be a bandwagon fan now,” he says, smiling.
“Go Phils,” I say, putting it on my head.
He tosses his own baseball cap onto the floor and grabs a straw panama hat with a strip of navy ribbon around the base. It makes him look like he’s on a vacation in Cuba. When I say this to him, he puts a heavy glob of sunscreen on his nose and doesn’t rub it in.
We’re going through water faster than we’re finding it, so we begin to ration it. Whenever we find a thick area of trees, we stop and rest in the shade for hours at a time, trying to keep up our strength.
