“You hungry?” Jamie asks. We skipped breakfast, opting to wash quickly before heading here this morning. There’s nothing here for us. And nothing left for us to do.
“Yeah.”
We leave Chris and his siblings, heading back toward the front of the airport. Leaving Benjamin Wilson where he took his final, sickened breaths before ending his own misery. Knowing there was no hope for himself or anyone else who came here.
I decide if I see any more graffiti, I’m crossing it out. But then I remember the lack of graffiti we saw around Baltimore. When I was alone, before Jamie, the “DCA 6/10” graffiti was everywhere. But since heading here from the cabin I saw only three of those messages, max.
Then it hits me. The perfect square of white paint on the side of the truck and over a few road signs.
Someone else already crossed it out after coming here.
“You said Henri’s daughter is in Florida?” Jamie asks. We’re sitting by the parking garage, the empty cans of our sad brunch at our feet.
I nod. “If she’s alive. Islamorada.”
If. And it’s a big if. Florida’s pretty far, but we’ve already gone pretty far. Jamie reaches for the multi-tool hooked onto his belt. Henri’s husband’s. Henri gave the multi-tool to us, but it’s not rightly ours. It belongs to their daughter Amy. And if Amy’s still alive she deserves to have it, and to know her mother’s up here, too.
Again, a big if.
“It’s a long way to go just to return an old multi-tool,” I say.
“We’d be doing more than that.”
He has a point. And Henri did help us. We could go back to the cabin now, maybe ask if Henri wants to come—though I highly doubt it. And then there’s what she said to me. Something that’s haunted me since she said it. How helpless she felt, being up here, while her pregnant daughter was down there, alone.
It’s entirely possible Amy is on her way up here, but... No, that’s a long hike with a newborn baby—and dangerous, judging by our experience.
Then there’s Chris and his siblings. They all have each other and they’re hoping to go out to Chicago and find more of their family.
We already know what’s behind us. It’s more road and a group of survivors who decided the best way to force us to join them would be to intimidate us with guns and steal our food. We know there’s nothing but the cabin. Is that enough? It would be for me. Jamie and me together in the cabin for the rest of our days sounds like a wonderful way to spend the apocalypse.
But would that be enough for Jamie?
Of course not. We’ve known each other for almost three months; he’s bound to realize there’s more out there for him than just nursingwayward gay boys back to health.
Maybe there’s something more down south. More settlements and survivors. Maybe Henri’s daughter. If I’m being honest, it’s a terrible idea. But I want to hope. I have to hope.
No, it’s not a want, it’s a need. I need her to still be alive. I need there to be something left in this world that’s worth hoping for.
Because before, I never thought I would survive after Alexandria. I expected Jamie to leave me because he only saw me as a murderer. I expected the Fosters to kill me out of revenge. I expected to be alone forever.
Jamie hasn’t left me, though.
And like Jamie did for me, Henri helped us when she didn’t need to. I heard how upset she was when she said she couldn’t be with Amy. She said mothers were supposed to be there for their daughters after they had a baby. But the world ended and she couldn’t.
We need to help someone else. Jamie likes the Marvel movies; what was that thing Black Widow said about having red in her ledger inThe Avengers? Because my ledger is redder than the end of Jamie’s notebook.
So I say, “Yeah. Let’s go down there in search of one person like a needle in a Florida-size haystack, and if we don’t find anything and civilization really is only you, me, a seventy-year-old-woman in Bethesda, some tax-obsessed Pennsylvanians, Chris and his kids in Chicago, and an Ax-Mannequin, then so be it. Besides, we can always walk back up after the winter to let Henri know either way.”
Jamie smiles and he seems genuinely happy. For an instant I don’t see the hesitation in his eyes that I’ve noticed so often. Then his smiledrops slightly. No one else would have ever noticed. But I do. I know his face better than anyone else ever could and I know what his face says. He’s apprehensive. Nervous about the entire prospect. Unsure.
I might be, too.
Halfway through Virginia the highway is completely clear. Every car we see is pulled over to the shoulder. Jamie points out the broken glass on the road and the broken driver’s-side windows in some of the cars.
“Someone moved them,” he says, looking in and pointing at the shifter in neutral.
“Which means there’re people around here who probably use this road.” Maybe on their way up to Reagan National. Or away from?
