“How would you? You’re not psychic. You asked where I went. Well, I went with him, and then… ” She paused and sighed again. “And then I came back.”
I shook my head. “Where’d you guys go?”
“Everdeen—his camp. We used to hook up occasionally, you know? Like when we’d see each other at trades and stuff, and then one day he asked me to stay with him.” She shrugged again. “So I did.”
I blinked at her, the apple in my hand forgotten. “Wait, what? There’s another camp? A camp like this one?”
“It’s not as big as Silver Lake, but they do okay.” Ella tilted her head to one side. “You seem surprised.”
“Iamsurprised,” I breathed. “I didn’t think places like this existed anymore; we hadn’t come across a camp in years until this one, and now you’re telling me there’s two?” Stunned, I continued to shake my head. “Everdeen—how close is it?”
“About a three day drive—a week if we take the horses. We trade with them a few times a year; the next trip will be right after the fall harvest. If you want to go, you’ll have to tell Leisel now—the convoys fill up quickly.”
Remembering the apple in my hand, I took another bite. Chewing, I wondered how many communities we’d missed over the years, questioning what might have gone differently if we’d found one years ago. Wondering if Lucas might still be alive. At that last thought, my mood soured.
“Anyway,” Ella said. “We’ve got more fucking potatoes to pick.” Rising, she stalked off down the row muttering to herself. “More fucking potatoes. More fucking squash. More fucking apples. More fucking herbs. More fucking bullshit. More, more, more.”
Lounging in bed after work, nursing the aggravated ache in my leg, I was leafing through an old magazine I’d found tucked inside the bathroom cupboard when Logan arrived home. Fresh from work, he was shirtless, with his tool belt slung over one shoulder. Pausing in the entranceway, he glanced at me as if he were surprised to find me here—the same look he’d given me each day since I’d moved in. Tossing the magazine aside, I sat up and gave a small wave, feeling instantly stupid for doing so. Dropping my hands in my lap, I muttered hello.
Logan looked up from toeing his boots off. “Hey. How was your first day?”
“Good, I guess. I like Cassie. I don’t know about Ella, though.”
“Ella?” he asked. “Blonde girl? Always wearing sunglasses?”
“That’s her,” I replied.
“Yeah, she seems like a bitch.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “I think she’s just in a lot of pain.”
Logan puttered through the cabin quickly before heading inside the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I stared after him, wondering when modesty had crept back into our lives. Instead of changing without reservation, Logan and I now took turns dressing inside the bathroom behind a closed door. The closed doors at every turn, was perhaps the strangest thing of all.
He reemerged moments later with a wet face and beard and wearing clean jeans and T-shirt. “You headed to dinner?”
“I’m not really hungry,” I admitted. Shrugging, I turned my attention to a fraying thread on the knee of my jeans. “I think I’ll probably stay in tonight.” While it was true that working in the blistering heat all day hadn’t done my appetite any favors, it was the thought of having to see everyone again, after having just seen them all at breakfast, along with Jordy’s insistence that he sit with me this evening. Just the thought of having to try and make conversation felt… overwhelming.
Logan frowned deeply. “Is it your leg? Do you need to see Doc?”
I waved my hand at him. “No, it’s fine—I’m fine. I’m really not hungry. I’m exhausted and, I mean, I’ve had enough of people for one day.”
Logan took a seat on his bed, sighing. “Tell me about it,” he muttered. “EJ… he never shuts the fuck up.”
As we lapsed into silence, I tried to think up something more to say. Try as we might to make small talk with one another, tostart fresh, things remained impossibly awkward and tense, as if our history couldn’t help but stifle a fresh start that might be possible otherwise. If Lucas were still here, I knew what he would do, what he’d always done when it came to Logan. No matter how stubborn, no matter how hardheaded or surly Logan would become, Lucas had always tried to reach him.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, so, do you know about Everdeen? I guess it’s another camp that Silver Lake trades with sometimes.”
Logan glanced up, blinking through his bleary-eyed stare. “Yeah, I’ve heard it mentioned—I think it’s some sort of gated trailer park.”
“Don’t you think it’s crazy that there are two camps like this?” I continued. “And that they’re close enough to trade? I mean, how many camps do you think we’ve missed over the years?”
“Camps likethis one? Not many, is my guess. Yeah, there’s other people out there, but are they as well organized and as vigilant as this place? Not a chance in hell. ”
“You never know,” I mused. “There could be others.”
“Yeah, and you remember what some of those other places were like, right? Everyone was fucking nuts. And that was early on. Shit tends to roll downhill.”
“Or maybe,” I replied smartly, with a finger in the air. “Some of those places got their shit together and rolled it right back up the hill. Maybe they’re all doing great right now. Maybe they’ve elected a president and a Congress and they’re getting ready to send monkeys to the moon.”
Logan blinked back his surprise, a smile tugging at his eyes and mouth, before falling back on his bed with a short, “Fuck that. If the monkeys get to leave this shithole planet,then we’re going with them.”
Chuckling, I fell back on my own bed.And this time, when the cabin eclipsed into silence, it felt substantially less awkward and infinitely more companionable. I nearly laugh out loud as I shook my head.
Logan and I, companionable?
Ha. There was no freaking way.
