“Bitch.”
“But you don’thaveto be funny. Not about this. You’re allowed to be sad and hurt and in pain.”
“Well, yeah, I’m all thatandfunny.”
He scowls as he puts away the tin and begins wrapping my arm with a fresh bandage. “You don’t have to perform, then. You don’t have to tell shitty jokes to me as if you need to act like you aren’t hurt. I still love you, and you don’t need to pretend around me.”
Be vulnerable? Ew. What is this, a Scientology intake quiz?
But what would that look like? Being vulnerable—not the Scientology, because that’s silly alien junk. Would it just be me crying to Jamie that I miss my fucking thumb? There are people in Niki’s camp who had their whole hands cutofffor trying to feed kids. And Kevin-the-monster’s eye injury gives a whole new eye-for-an-eye vibe I hadn’t picked up on before.
And I feel even worse about the next bit, because it’s so idiotically clichéd, but I don’t know what this injury means for our future together. Hand job jokes aside, what if when he doesn’t need to take care of me anymore, and my injuries are just scar tissue and unending pain and post-traumatic arthritis, he’s repulsed by my missing thumb and dead fingers? Even if he was, he wouldn’t tell me.
All that is giving me constant anxiety, but more than anything, I’m joking because I don’t want to say that the pain is so awful and so relentless that sometimes—despiteeverythingwe’ve survived—I’m not scared of dying anymore. Dying would at least mean no more pain. Now, what scares me the most is the pain not going away. What if it stays hovering at a nine out of ten for my whole life and I become a nasty, miserable person because of it?
That’s why I’m trying to joke. Trying to be funny and make sure the people I love don’t get annoyed that I’m cranky because I’m in endless, agonizing pain.
Bright and early the next morning, Cal and Kevin come over to our group with news. They want to get back on the road, but they want to invite us to stay with them. Jamie and I share a glance that says we need to discuss it as a group, because we haven’t yet. But for today, Cal says, they’re going on a supply run farther up the road.
“How much farther out are you going?” Cara asks.
“Today? Pretty much as far north as we can while still getting back before nightfall, or until we find gas, whichever comes first.”
“I’ll go,” Jamie says. I turn to question him with my eyes, but he isn’t looking at me.
“Me too,” says Rocky Horror. “If for no other reason than I’m curious to see how you get the gas.”
“I’ll come, too,” says Cara. Cal tells them to meet by the trucks in ten minutes, and the three of them get packing.
“Why are you going?” I ask Jamie. “We have to talk about whether we’re going with them or not.”
“We can discuss it when we get back. We’ll need food either way, and we can hit up more places on the way if we’re riding in a truck.”
“All the food is in these distribution centers.”
“Not all the food. There are still empty houses and maybe a few stores that might have something. Or maybe we’ll find another distribution center. One that wasn’t attacked.”
“Can you just stay with us?” I ask.
“And do what? They’re finished checking the mall, so what am I doing here that’s useful? Babysitting the kids?”
Wow, managing to dig right into my own insecurities of being dumped off the boat and assigned orphan duty. And also kind of belittling that job. We’re like a heteronormative married couple arguing about whether taking care of the kidsisa job. I’d make a joke if I wasn’t so pissed off.
“Fine,” I say. “Go watch football with your friends. I’ll stay here with the kids.” It’s the best I can do.
He gives me a confused look but doesn’t say anything. Instead he dumps out his backpack onto our sleeping bags, then dumps out mine, too. “I’ll be back.” And without sayingI love youor kissing me goodbye, he, Cara, and Rocky Horror head off for the trucks.
I’m surviving the apocalypse and I’m worried about bear traps, lions, alligators, Christofascists—oh my!—and the arguments between me and my boyfriend getting worse.
Jamison
CARA, ROCKY HORROR, AND I RIDE INthe bed of one of the pickups with three others, as well as tubes and fuel equipment that reek of gasoline. The Nomads had already hit the first two gas stations we passed and said there was nothing there. We stop at the third, but it’s also empty.
One of the Nomads shrugs. “Maybe a lot of Florida folks were trying to get out and go somewhere they weren’t stockpilin’ the supplies.”
We continue driving, passing dust-covered cars pulled to the side of the road. Some people were nice enough to write “NO FUEL” in the dust.
I remember the time Andrew and I found a blue Civic that ran for three whole hours before the fuel ran out. It was beautiful. The day was hot and humid, but feeling the wind blowing around us while driving down a silent, empty highway was incredible. Now, the wind blowing around us in the back of the truck is a little chilly. It’s winter, which means the days in Florida are in the low-to-mid sixties. We’ll need to stop to get jackets and winter clothes soon if we keep going north to Maryland.
