8. Annie
Chapter 8
Annie
4 Years Ago
May 23 rd
C hris stops, and I stumble into his back. I might be drunk.
“Oh fuck,” he mutters.
If I’m drunk, he’s wasted .
“What?” I ask, giggling even though nothing about today is funny. I want to wipe today off the goddamn map. Just like Meadow Springs was when it took a direct hit hours ago from a monster wedge. The memory—homes swept from foundations, sheet metal wrapped around trees, and cars tossed onto piles of debris like discarded toys—sobers me instantly.
“I asked for one room.” The door jamb catches him as he leans against it.
One room has been our usual M.O. up until this chase season. It wasn’t a big deal for Justin, Chris, and me to share a room to keep our costs low. But Justin’s in Seattle, starting his new job, and can’t join us. Or, I suspect, won’t join us.
I push past Chris and toss my bag onto the floor. “There’s two beds.” I spin around to sit on the end of the bed farthest from the door, but I miss, landing on my ass on the floor instead.
He laughs at me, and like it has all night, the sound warms me all over. He shuts the door and drops his bag, then whips his baseball cap across the room before falling onto his back on his bed.
I struggle back to my feet. I don’t have to say a word—Chris is already holding a bottle of water for me. Or, I assume he is. His arm is stretched toward me, so I pluck it from his hand and take a massive drink.
“Why are you so bad at darts?” I ask.
“Tequila.”
The giggle returns as I clamber onto my bed and sprawl on my back. “You hit that fish.”
The bar was a dive bar with heaps of stuffed dead animals on the wall.
“Yeah, but you were trying to hit the buck.”
We might have been asked to leave when my dart landed in a pitcher of beer after bouncing off a muzzle. But there was another bar. We ran into another group of chasers trying to forget the day’s chase. More shots.
“You’re good at tequila,” I say, remembering how he’d tipped his head back, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he took the shot—the way his eyes watered. The lime made his mouth twist.
I shouldn’t be noticing. I feel bad that I do. I’ve always noticed Chris, but it’s getting harder to ignore it.
It has to be this long-distance thing with Justin. My hormones aren’t satisfied by sporadic sexy chats. It’s not enough. I’m drowning.
“You’re not drowning, you’re drunk.”
I turn my head, and the room spins. “What?”
He turns his head to look at me. His eyes are so startlingly blue. “You’re okay,” he says.
“Oh.” I laugh again and go back to looking at the ceiling because it makes the room spin a little less. “What was I talking about?”
“No clue.”
I grab my pillow and throw it at him, missing by a mile. He raises his head, looks at the pillow where it landed on the floor, and looks back at me. “Jesus, Annie, your aim sucks.”
“I hit that buck.”
“You sure did, champ.”
I close my eyes against the spinning of the room.
Chris must get up to turn the lights off because it’s dark when I wake up, soaked in sweat with a racing heart. I’m still drunk, crying, sobbing uncontrollably. In my nightmare, it wasn’t Meadow Springs that took the hit. It was us. I was in the damp dark, searching for my missing chase partner. All alone.
My bed sinks as someone sits next to me, a strong arm lifting me and holding me to a broad chest. For a stupid second, I think Justin is here. But he’s not, and I recognize Chris through my drunken haze. He holds me tight, letting me soak the front of his shirt in tears and snot as he murmurs gentle reassurances. The terror from my nightmare fades, but the images that inspired it don’t.
I don’t want Chris to go back to his bed, but I’m sober enough to recognize I can’t ask him to stay. Maybe he knows because when my tears finally stop, he tucks me into bed and sits beside me, holding my hand.
“This wasn’t your first,” I whisper into the dark.
“No,” he says in a strained voice. He’s a dark shape, backlit by the dim light the curtain can’t entirely block, but I want to see his face right now. To share in this pain.
We weren’t the first on the scene, but nearly. Chris is a trained first responder, so helping with the search and rescue was a given, but there was nothing for me to do except wait by the SUV. I’ve never felt so helpless.
“Annie,” he says, his thumb sliding back and forth across the ridge of my knuckles. “It’s an act of nature. You never want people to get hurt, but it’s okay to see the beauty in a storm.” He pauses, then says, “Wanting something doesn’t make you a bad person.”
His voice is sad, but there’s something in the undercurrent that sounds like longing, and I feel it, too, even if I don’t understand. I squeeze his hand, and he brushes some of my hair off my forehead with his free hand. “Wanting what?” I ask in a whisper.
There’s a moment of silence, and then he says, “Get some sleep. We’re going to be wrecked tomorrow.” When he goes to stand, I don’t let go of his hand. He settles back down, on the floor this time, but he doesn’t let go.
Sunlight is streaming through a crack in the curtains when I wake up. Chris is still on the floor, his head resting on his partially crossed arms on my bed. We’re still holding hands, our fingers loosely entwined.
His eyes flutter open, and he winces. Then, his hand is gone from mine, and he stumbles to his feet.
I feel worse. My eyes are puffy from crying, and my pulse is trying to split my skull in half. I am never drinking like that again.
“Rest day,” Chris mutters, handing me a water bottle before entering the bathroom.
More storms are predicted to fire up to our southeast, but after breakfast and several cups of coffee, Chris drives us north. I sleep until it’s my turn to drive. Chris dozes in the passenger seat, coming to life only to give me directions.
Last night is a blur, but my hand hasn’t forgotten how it feels to be in Chris’s, and every time I think about it, my fingers twitch, and guilt turns my already queasy stomach into something more threatening. There’s a text from Justin on my phone. Just a text asking if we were in Meadow Springs and if I’m okay.
Not a call.
I haven’t responded yet. Justin can text Chris to get the details because I’m not ready. A text isn’t what I need right now. That I don’t know what I need frustrates me. Therapy, probably. First aid courses at a minimum, so I don’t feel so helpless. Time will make the images fuzzy and dull my recollections of the sounds and smells. If I can keep moving and doing something, it will get better.
“We should chase,” I say quietly.
“Not today,” Chris says, not even opening his eyes. “Too hungover.”
That’s a cop-out. We’re driving miles beyond what we’d need to for today’s severe weather, so the hangovers aren’t it.
Chris has me stop at a small grocery store, and I trail along behind him, silent as he adds things to the cart like he has a plan, and that plan involves cooking for ten.
Probably, he does have a plan. He’s the one with a PhD and a job he loves. I’m the one floundering. Stuck in a dying relationship, unable to find my wings in my career.
My stomach rumbles, and even though I still feel queasy, I make my one contribution: I add a bag of fresh cheese curds to the cart. In an oddly detached way, I realize we’re somewhere in Wisconsin.
We return to the SUV, and Chris drives us down a tree-lined highway. He turns onto a well-maintained dirt road and, a little later, onto a less well-maintained one. The flashing effect of the sun through the tree branches has us both wincing, but soon, we’re pulling up in front of a small cabin.
I pour myself out of the seat, stretching and feeling more human after drawing a deep breath of fresh air into my lungs. Chris lifts a small ceramic goose sculpture on the front porch and pulls a key from underneath it.
“This place belongs to my family,” he says, opening the door. I follow him inside and into the kitchen. He goes out to grab our bags and the groceries, leaving me to wander through a mural of Marchetti family history. Old photos cover the fridge—boys and girls with proud gap-toothed smiles holding fish of various sizes for the camera. Older family members sitting in chairs around a campfire. Picnics and barbecues and swimming in the lake. I can pick Chris out in several photos. There’s one of him from high school, grinning in a canoe. I’ve never seen him smile like that. Those desperate, drunken ones last night don’t count.
Blue and green checked curtains hang from the window, and there’s an old oil painting of a canoe on a lake. A massive rectangular wooden table fills most of the kitchen, with bench seats on either side.
“How big is your extended family?” I ask when he comes in again.
Chris sets the groceries on the counter and turns to lean against it. “Pretty big. We’re lucky no one else is here.”
He goes back out. I drift into the living room. The cabin has an open plan and mismatched furniture scattered around a wood stove. It looks comfortable and lived in and loved.
“You can have this room,” Chris says when he returns, opening the single door on the east side of the house and carrying my bag in. I follow. It’s a small room, the queen-sized bed taking up most of the space. But there’s a large window that looks out onto the lake.
Chris sets my bag on the end of my bed, and we collide when he turns around. His hands grip my upper arms to steady me as he shuffles to the side. Our eyes meet, but only briefly, and he’s gone.
I lie down on the bed. I don’t mean to fall asleep, but I do. My buzzing phone wakes me from a thick, featureless dream, and I blink at the ceiling until I remember where I am.
I pull my still buzzing phone from my pocket and glance at the screen before dropping it onto the mattress.
It’s Justin. I don’t answer, shoving my phone under the pillow and getting to my feet. Logically, I know Justin understands. He’s seen scenes like Meadow Springs before. But he wasn’t there. We didn’t experience it together. Justin isn’t the person I want to talk to right now.
Chris is in the kitchen, baseball cap backward, kneading dough. He looks relaxed and at home in a way I don’t think I’ve seen before, lost in daydreams for once. Classic rock is playing softly in the background.
“What can I do?” I ask, smiling when he startles.
“Want some coffee?” he asks, motioning toward the pot with a tilt of his head.
“Mugs?”
He points to a cupboard, and I help myself to a mug.
“Sugar’s in the canister labeled sugar,” he says as I pour myself a cup.
The warmth feels good under my fingers despite the day's heat. The aroma alone eases my headache. I take a sip, and it’s heaven.
“Have a seat,” he says, but I ignore him, staying where I am, leaning against the counter and watching the muscles in his arms move as he pushes and pulls on the dough. I’m staring in that hungover way, unable to move my eyes or care if his forearms and strong, capable hands have me transfixed. Flour clings to the fine, light-colored hair on those arms. It would make a good photo. Something that could grace a glossy coffee table book about different types of breads. Sexy breads.
I don’t budge to get my camera. I don’t want to touch it yet, knowing my last photos captured a moment that ended and upended lives. Like that, my mood turns.
“Did I do the right thing with the footage?” I ask softly.
“Sometimes people need a reminder to take tornado warnings seriously,” he says. “When your footage of that tornado appears on various media across the country, it might save lives.”
“Or encourage people to try to get shots like that themselves,” I grumble into my coffee.
Chris shrugs. “Nothing you can do about that. But you should get paid for your work.”
Maybe. It feels wrong when I think about the people who lost everything.
“Invest it in your photography,” he says. “Get that camera you’ve been salivating over. Keep chasing. What you’re a part of helps save lives. Some days suck, but…it’s worth it.”
His attention goes back to the dough, and mine goes back to his hands. I sip my coffee and think about how good it would feel to be that dough. Immediately I feel like shit that it even crossed my mind. Not that it stops me from watching him. I need to feel bad, and feeling bad over this feels more manageable than feeling bad about how excited I was watching the tornado.
My coffee is half gone when Chris turns the bowl over the dough and washes his hands. He beckons me over to the fridge and piles bell peppers, salami, marinated olives, and mozzarella in my hands, and then he puts me to work chopping.
He drinks his coffee, leaning against the counter and watching me. His gaze is on my hands but a million miles away. Still, I notice. I feel it warm on my skin and wonder what he’s thinking about that has a corner of his mouth tightening into the start of a smile.
Pain slices across my finger, and I gasp, dropping the knife. Blood quickly blooms in a thin line, and I can feel everything from last night welling back up in my panic not to bleed on anything.
Chris gently takes my hand, wrapping a clean dish towel around my finger, applying pressure, and lifting our hands over my head.
“Breathe,” he says, and my body obeys. He steps forward, nudging me back until something solid bumps against the backs of my thighs. “Hold this,” he says. I hold the towel to my finger while Chris lifts me onto the end of the table behind me. He studies me for a second, then turns to grab the first aid kit from the top of the fridge.
The song playing over a Bluetooth speaker is slow and heavy on the bass, and I become immediately aware of it—of everything—when Chris steps back between my legs. I could do this myself. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him, but I don’t. I want him this close. Closer. I want the same steady calm that infuses him to seep into me. Or maybe I don’t want to feel alone.
He unwraps the towel slowly, but his eyes stay locked on mine. Like he can see straight into all the painful, horrible little thoughts jostling for space in my head, but he sees them and accepts them. None of it changes how he feels about me.
Our friendship, I mean.
I can’t take that look, so I drop my eyes to my hand and take a deep, shuddering breath.
“Just making sure you aren’t about to pass out.” His voice is a soft rumble barely discernable above the song.
“Am I?” The sight of my blood doesn’t make me woozy, but I’m not feeling right. I’m all hot and cold, like I have a fever. Light-headed. I can feel my heart pounding everywhere.
“Look at me.”
My eyes snap to his, and I blush. Hard.
His lips curl in a small smile, and he rubs his thumb over my cheek, soft and tender, before taking my chin and tilting my head one way, then the other. “Color’s coming back. I think you’re good.” His hand drops back to mine, his eyes with it as he peels the towel back.
Chris is fixing me. Distracting me from the throbbing pain in my finger but also taking me here, after Meadow Springs. Maybe he needs this as much as I do, but I think this might all be for me.
“Finger’s still there,” he says, all business now.
I stare at his shoulder while he swabs the cut with an alcohol wipe.
“I don’t think you need stitches, but if you want—”
“No.” I don’t want to leave.
He patches me up, and I keep staring at his shoulder, every breath I take pulling in the woodsy scent he favors. He finishes and steps back, balling up the wrappers. “Good?”
I nod, but he points a finger at me when I slide off the table. “Stay. I’ll finish chopping.”
He chops. I try to stare at a spot on the curtain. Or a magnet on the fridge. But my eyes keep drifting back to Chris.
We spend the evening sitting on the patio outside, eating the pizza Chris cooks in the pizza oven and listening to classic rock. At first, we sit in silence. It’s comfortable, but the silence becomes too heavy as the sun sets and the stars come out. I ask him about his family. It’s the safest topic.
He shifts the conversation so slowly I barely notice. Then he’s telling me how he got into chasing and why he chases. Maybe it’s because sitting around the campfire in the dark makes it feel like we’re the only two people in the world. Maybe it’s because our jackets are done up to our chins to keep the mosquitoes away, and he can’t see much of my face. Or maybe it’s because he understands. Somehow, he draws the darkness out of my head, and we talk about Meadow Springs. What we did in the aftermath. What we saw. How it felt.
It takes everything in me to keep my butt in the chair and listen to him. Talking is even more challenging. But I think about his hand in mine last night as he slept on the floor beside my bed. And I stay.
Eventually, he puts the dying fire out, and we go inside, me to my room and him to his on the other side of the cabin.
In the morning we go fishing in the lake. We spend the afternoon lying in the sun. We eat too much, play card games, and talk about simpler things. I feel a little better, a little lighter. So when he hands me his phone with a “Justin wants to talk to you,” I take it outside and tell my boyfriend what happened and that I’m okay.
After one more night in the cabin, Chris drives me home, and when his email comes about the next chase, I’m ready to go back on the road.