Chapter 18
Asmita
“Why me? Why am I so special? I read it in the letter. My mom told me that I was special in mine. What makes me so special that they’d send you across the country to find me?
” I ask. I’m so mad. I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry.
A part of me wants to punch Jesse in the face.
The other part of me wants to punch him in the face but let him keep following me around.
I feel like I’ve been left in the dark about my own life.
Jesse runs his hand over his head and exhales. He shakes his head and says, “I don’t know. What you read in my letter is what I knew about you after the disaster. I didn’t even know your name until I got to Salt Lake.” He shrugs his shoulders as if he’s exasperated.
My mind fills with questions for him. He holds so many answers to my unknowns. “Did you leave before the disaster or after?” I ask him. I volunteer my information about leaving San Francisco after the disaster occurred in hopes of getting him to answer.
“Before,” he responds.
“Did you know it was going to happen?” I ask him.
He pauses again, waiting to answer. He drops his eyes back down from the sky and looks me in the eyes and answers, “Yes.” It’s as if he has his own internal debate going on to decide if he’s going to answer.
We sit there in silence together and let some time pass.
He stands to his feet, and I do the same.
“I’m feeling better. I can continue walking if you’re ready,” he tells me. I nod my head and turn around. I wait for him to be by my side before I take a step. I put my hand on his arm and wasted no time in asking him one more question. “Do you know what it was that happened?”
He doesn’t waste a second before telling me, “No. I knew that something was going to happen, but my parents never shared that information with me. Honestly, I don’t know if they knew exactly what was going to happen themselves.
We just knew that something was going to happen, it wasn’t going to be good and that I had to get far away from the Dome.
They helped me learn certain skills and gave me things that would help me in my journey, and that’s all.
I really didn’t even know about you until I opened the letter after the disaster happened. I swear.”
I absorb what he says to me, and we keep walking.
We walk and walk and walk till I’m so tired that I can’t go on any longer.
I stop, and we look at each other. We are both exhausted and emotionally drained.
We’ve kept the silence between us since he answered my last question.
I take a deep breath, and he speaks before I can.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it to the island tonight. I think we should stop and rest. We can rest here, find some water and shelter for the day then tomorrow, when darkness starts to fall, we can go the rest of the way to the island. What do you think?” he says.
I don’t know why I say it, but it comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. “Are they going to kill me?” In the darkness, I can still see his eyes shining at me.
“If you’re referring to the Dome then the answer is no.
They haven’t succeeded, and they won’t. Not with me in the way,” he tells me.
He’s so matter-of-fact as he says it. He puts down his bag, and I do the same.
He starts giving me directions for what to go find.
We can’t light a fire because we don’t want to draw any attention to us.
I shiver in the coldness of the night air, and a few seconds later he’s handing me a lightweight jacket out of his pack.
I thank him and zip it up to my neck. I start looking for tree branches that have fallen.
This far out into the woods we won’t find anywhere to hide from the sun. We are going to have to improvise.
We spend the rest of the darkness working on our shelter for the hot daylight that’s quickly approaching.
There’s very little chit chat as we go about our work.
We’ve got our makeshift shelter of tree branches for the daylight complete.
And while it might not be the greatest thing, we’ll at least be somewhat protected from the direct sunlight.
I get under the branches and lay down with my head resting on my backpack.
Jesse takes his water bottle out and asks for mine.
Our bottles are completely empty, and I’m thirsty now that I think about it.
“I’m going to go look and see if there’s any water around here. I want you to stay here and rest. I won’t be gone long. If you have any trouble, I want you to yell as loud as you can, and I’ll come back,” he tells me.
“Are you sure it’s safe to split up?” I ask him. I feel uneasy knowing he’ll be out there alone.
“We’ve made a lot of noise dragging these branches around and getting everything together.
If the Dome guards are out there near us, they would have found us by now.
I think we’re safe for the moment.” He smiles at me as he talks.
I wonder what he really thinks our odds are of making it to the island tomorrow, but I don’t ask.
He walks away in search of water, and I watch him until I can’t see him any longer.
Daylight starts to creep up, and I can feel the heat intensifying.
Sweat beads form along my hairline and I fight them away with the back of my hand.
I’m starting to get nervous that Jesse hasn’t returned.
I try to lay my head back down on my pack, but it’s too sticky hot to lie against the fabric.
I sit there thinking about the last 24 hours and how so much has changed.
I absentmindedly chew my fingernails and look through the trees for any movement.
I realize I’ve been holding my breath when I see Jesse come into my view.
His shirt is drenched in sweat, and I notice how it clings to his body.
Thankfully, he’s still too far away from me to notice that I’m admiring his muscles.
When he gets close enough for me to see his face, I can see his wide grin.
Maybe he wasn’t too far away after all. He holds up two full water bottles to show me that he’s found water.
No, he’s smiling because he’s proud of himself not because I’m ogling over his toned body.
When he gets to the tent, I’m more than grateful to take one of the bottles off his hands. I open it up and begin to drink thirstily from it.
“Hey! Slow down, you’ll want to save some for later. The water supply I found seems to be the only one around here, and it’s too far to walk to again during the daylight. It’s out of the way, and we won’t be hitting it before we head out again at nightfall,” he chastises.
I nod my understanding and stop drinking the water.
I close my bottle and put it safely into my bag.
I yawn and feel overwhelmed with how sleepy I suddenly feel.
Jesse catches me yawn and says, “It’s okay.
You can go to sleep. I’m going to watch for a little bit longer and then try to get some rest myself. ”
I don’t really want to fall asleep because a part of me feels like I should stay awake for as long as I can.
The other part of me is screaming and begging for rest. This has been the longest day of my life, and I’m spent.
After a few minutes, my struggle becomes useless, and I fall asleep under our makeshift shelter.
The oppressive heat doesn’t even bother me. I’m completely out to the world.
My subconscious takes over, and I begin to weave in and out of dreams. I dream of my parents on the day that I left them.
I’m boarding my flight and I turn to wave goodbye to them.
They stand there and wave back to me, my mother fighting tears trying to keep them in her eyes.
She blows me a kiss and mouths I’ll see you again soon.
The memory of the day vanishes, and I’m running in the woods.
This is the nightmare that won’t leave me alone.
This time in my nightmare, I recognize it’s just that…
a nightmare. At the end of it, I keep running and running and finally Jesse is running beside me.
He’s screaming at me to get closer. I look over my shoulder and the guards of the Dome are chasing us.
Their weapons are drawn and aimed at us, but we keep running away.
The noise from their guns rings out into the air, and I begin to scream.
I wake with a jolt, and Jesse has his hand over my mouth. My eyes come into focus, and I can see that he’s leaning over me. His eyes are as big as saucers; something has scared him. When he realizes I’m awake, he slowly moves his hand away from my mouth.
“Are you alright?” he asks me in a whispered tone.
In the same tone, I answered him back, “It was a nightmare. Why are we whispering?”
He looks around before answering, “Because you were scaring me. You started screaming so loud, people for miles could probably hear you.”
I sit up and rub my eyes. My throat is dry, and my clothes are soaked in sweat.
The hottest part of the day has passed, and the sky has taken on that glow of many colors as the sun begins to go into hiding for the night.
I look at Jesse, and he seems like he’s managed some rest. He goes about what he was doing before I scared him.
He’s got all of his bag unpacked, and he’s counting his supplies.
I sit there and watch him do his work. I break the comfortable silence between us.
“Will we start moving once it gets dark?” I ask.
“He takes his eyes off of his task and looks at me. “We’ll leave before it gets completely dark. If the rest of the path is like what we’ve experienced, we’ll do good to start out with a little light,” he informs me.
I watch him pack the rest of his bag up and start to get myself together to leave our tiny spot.
Much to my surprise, Jesse takes off his shirt and stands with his bare chest right in front of me.
I know my face blushes because I’ve never seen a man’s bare chest in person.
I feel embarrassed and look away. When he sees my embarrassment, he quickly tells me, “I wouldn’t do this otherwise, but I scratched my back on something yesterday, and it’s been bleeding.
Can you look at it for me? I need you to look and see if anything is in the cut. ”
He turns around, and I can see that the scratch isn’t just a scratch; it’s a large cut at least an inch deep and three inches long.
Dirt is caked around it, and the dirt might be the only thing stopping it from oozing blood everywhere.
From the little I know from schooling, it needs to be cleaned and stitched up.
I tell him what I think. “This is bad. It needs to be cleaned out, and you need stitches. It’s going to get infected if you leave it like that.”
“We don’t have anything to stitch it up with. Try to clean it with some of my water, but don’t use a lot”
I start to clean the wound and as I’m doing so, it begins to bleed.
Jesse takes the shirt he’s just removed and cuts it open on both sides.
He’s turned it into one long piece of fabric.
He turns around and hands me the fabric.
“Help me get this folded over and wrap it around me. We’ll tie it on to me and use the pressure to help keep it closed.
When we get to the island, we’ll see how it’s doing then. ”
The island. I can’t wait to get there and apparently, neither can he.