Willow
Logan and I walked to dinner in stony silence, the short journey rife with tension by the time we’d reached the dining hall. Passing Jordy on the porch, who’d ducked his head at the sight of us, Logan’s silent stewing grew increasingly louder. Collecting our dinners without a word, we took our seats at our usual table, where Logan began immediately plowing through his dinner, as if he couldn’t eat it fast enough.
This was typical Logan behavior—shutting down instead of dealing with things head-on. And maybe I wasn’t any better, but I was attempting to be honest about my feelings, at least. With a hard sigh, I stabbed a potato wedge with my fork and shoved it in my mouth, chewing angrily. All men, I decided, were completely and utterly ridiculous.
“Hey there, lovebirds,” Britta dropped her tray noisily onto the table, taking the seat beside me. “Why the long faces—y’all tuckered out from all that horizontal refreshment?”
While Logan only continued shoveling food in his mouth, I dropped my fork on my plate, sending Britta a scathing look. “Can you not?” I mouthed silently.
“Party pooper,” she mouthed in reply.
“You ever have one of those days where you’re like, what’s the fucking point?” Ella dropped down beside Logan and plucked a potato wedge from her tray, eyeing it with disgust. “Fucking potatoes again,” she said, flicking it away. Pulling her flask from inside her shirt, she took a long swig.
“Somethin’ ugly in the air today?” Britta glanced around the table. “Ella, you picked those taters with your own hands—that ain’t no small thing. Wasn’t so long ago that you were starvin’ somewhere—you’d be wise to remember that.”
“Because picking potatoes was always my lifelong dream?” Ella snarled in reply. “You might fool everyone else with your happy-hillbilly act, Britta, but you don’t fool me. You’re all talk, all the time—always flirting with guys half your age and talking yourself up like you’re something special, like you know something the rest of us don’t, when in reality, you’re just a sad old hagwho lost her husband and baby.” Ella had shoved up from the table mid-speech. Spinning away, she charged across the room, slamming through the double doors.
Britta had a baby?Oh my god, Britta lost her baby?I stared openmouthed after Ella, before quickly turning to Britta.
“Don’t listen to her,” I said in a rush. “She says stupid shit all the time that she doesn’t really mean—”
“Oh, she meant it all right,” Britta replied evenly. “She’s meaner than a wet sittin’ hen, that one. It ain’t her fault, though—it’s this whole goddang world.” Shaking her head, Britta pushed her tray away and stood from her seat. “Seems I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Britta, wait.” I hurried to place my hand on her wrist. “I’ll come with you. We can go for a walk.”
“Now don’t you worry about me, sugar,” Britta said, patting my hand and setting it aside. “It’s times like this I like bein’ alone. Think I might just take a stroll—maybe find somethin’ that needs some killin’.” At the mention of bloodshed, the corners of her lips curled up.
As Britta departed the dining hall and I stared sadly after her, Logan finally looked up from his dinner. “What the hell just happened?”
I shook my head, shoulders shrugging. “No idea,” I muttered, slumping in my seat.
“Jesus Christ,” Logan said, tossing his fork away. “All day I couldn’t wait to see you and this is what we’re doing—sitting here listening to everyone else’s depressing bullshit? Do you wanna get the fuck out of here—go for a drive maybe?”
I jerked in surprise. “A drive? Like, outside the wall?”
Logan was already on his feet, grabbing my hand. “Outside the goddamn wall,” he said, pulling me from my seat.
“Did you see the look on Leisel’s face?” Laughing, I leaned my head back in the seat, the Jeep’s caged top blowing warm wind through my unbound hair. “Oh my god, it wasfuckingepic!”
Leisel had been adamantly opposed to Logan taking one of the vehicles; she’d begun shaking her head before Logan had finished his request.
“First off,” Leisel said. “No one goes out this late in the day unless they’re on patrol—what if you don’t make it back before sunset? Second, you haven’t even been here six months—how can I trust you with something as valuable as a vehicle?”
Before Logan could argue, Joshua had placed his hand over Leisel’s. “Logan recently helped us with something important,” he said quietly. “I think we can trust him. And if they’re not back before sunset, I’m sure they’ll be back first thing tomorrow—right guys?”
While Logan and I stammered through our assurances, Leisel, with her mouth set in a straight line, pulled a set of keys from her pocket. “You can take the Jeep,” she said woodenly, while side-eyeing Joshua as she continued. “If anything happens, this is on you.”
As we flew over the forest floor, onto a barely there dirt road, Logan flashed a smile in my direction, bigger and brighter than any I’d ever seen grace his handsome face and I found myself watching him in a way I’d never done before—freely and without reservation. Had he always been so good-looking? Of course he had, but something felt distinctly different about looking at him now, like I was looking at him without a lens for once, without anything obstructing my view.
I was still staring at him when he pulled the Jeep to the side of a road—a residential neighborhood, the surrounding homes in various stages of decay.
“So we’re scavenging?” I asked, unbuckling my seat belt.
“We can if you want,” Logan replied. “But I thought you might want to learn how to drive?”
My eyes shot to his, my face splitting into a grin. “Are you serious?” I exclaimed, clapping my hands together. “Are you fucking serious?”
I’d only just started driver’s education classes when the world had closed its doors for business. To date, my time behind the wheel amounted to a few quick practices in parking lots, each instance so long ago I barely remembered them.
