Chapter Eight
It was deep into the evening when Chase sat at a nearby picnic table in what was formerly the army barracks.
Norah had recommended that both the army and the CDC staff deployed to the area be “quarantined.” This meant no one came or went without Norah, John, and Chase knowing about it.
This also meant absorbing the CDC’s campsite into the army’s, so no one could get too far.
The privates all grumbled about not being able to leave the grounds to go to the local bars and shack up with the townies, but Chase was thrilled to have her bunk moved so near Norah’s.
And she wasn’t entirely sure it was a coincidence when John, who had coordinated the move, placed her new tent only a few feet from Norah’s.
Chase didn’t see anyone else around that evening, assuming the young guys were off playing beer pong somewhere and Norah and John were in their respective tents crunching numbers and cringing at all the projection graphs showing things would get a lot worse if people didn’t start listening.
She was thinking about her parents, back home in Chicago.
She was thinking about her father’s ailing heart and her mother’s never-ending battle with the darkness of her mental illness that often left her impulsive and dangerous.
And Chase did something she didn’t usually do.
She worried about them. That worry grew into a spark, which seemed to evolve into a wildfire of anxiety, until she was worrying about not just her own family, but the families of everyone across the country.
Everyone across the world. She felt the burden of it all so physically in her skull that it became heavy, until she could no longer hold her own head up, allowing it to fall into her hands.
It was only at the sound of muffled sobs coming from somewhere behind her in the darkness that she was able to pick it back up.
Following the sounds of the cries, Chase stood and turned, walking into the night.
Only fifty feet away, but cloaked in blackness, a petite figure crouched against an enormous oak tree.
A few feet away now, Chase could see it was Jamie, who was now batting at her eyes, desperately trying to discard the tears.
“Hey.” Jamie stifled one last sniffle and offered Chase a very forced smile.
“Hey. Do you mind if I sit?”
In spite of all the work she’d done over the years, Chase was still uncomfortable with most forms of confrontation, in particular the awkwardness of someone crying next to her. She wasn’t at all sure why she felt compelled to kneel next to Jamie and put her arm around her.
“No. But you’re definitely breaking the captain’s rules by being this close.” Jamie chuckled, and Chase removed her arm from around Jamie’s shoulder.
“Right.” She slid a foot or so away. Chase wasn’t big on physical touch, except in the right circumstances (like, for example, with Norah), but this new decree of distance felt impersonal, inhumane almost—especially when someone was hurting right in front of her.
“Are you okay?” Chase finally asked. It was a stupid question, but she didn’t know what else to say.
“Yes.” Jamie nodded but stared into the dark for a long time before finally turning to Chase. “No. Not really.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Chase almost immediately regretted asking the question. She was horrible with this kind of thing, advice and girl-talk, or whatever was plaguing Jamie.
“I’m scared, Chase.”
Chase didn’t say anything, her silence offering Jamie confirmation that she felt what they were all feeling.
“I talked to my mom today. My parents, they’re in St. Louis, you know.”
Chase’s heart sank. “Oh, god. Are they okay?”
“They are. But one of my dad’s childhood friends who lives there too has it.
He’s sick. Really sick. Luckily my dad hasn’t been around him in months, but…
it looks like he’s not going to make it.
He’s only fifty-six. He has four daughters all about my age.
For Pete’s sake, the guy runs marathons.
Or ran, I guess. And now he’s in the ICU on a ventilator. ”
Chase watched a single tear roll down Jamie’s usually pink and vibrant cheeks, until it reached the cliff of her jaw and fell to the grass underneath them.
“I’m sorry. That, well, that sucks. This whole thing sucks.”
Jamie laughed sweetly. “Right?”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m scared too.”
“Actually, it does. I’m so worried about my parents over there in St. Louis.
Thankfully after seeing what’s happening to Henry, they’ve basically been staying inside, getting their groceries delivered, working from home.
And when they do go out, they wear their masks.
But a lot of other people don’t. And I’m not just worried about them, you know.
I’m worried about myself too. I know it sounds selfish and dumb, but I don’t want to get sick, Chase. I don’t want to die.”
Jamie choked back a sob that seemed to catch her by surprise, and this time a summer rainstorm of tears came with it.
Chase so badly wanted to reach out and comfort her, put a hand on her shoulder or stroke her hair, or just hug her.
It was the only thing that felt good enough in that moment. But she couldn’t do it.
“I feel the same way. I’m terrified of getting this thing.
I saw those people in the ICU and what it’s doing to them, and fuck, I don’t want to go out that way.
” Truth be told, Chase hadn’t given a lot of thought to her own demise, even in the setting of an alarmingly high mortality rate.
It wasn’t so much that she considered herself invincible anymore, like she had in her early twenties.
She just wasn’t afraid to die. But she had another thought, one much more terrifying, that cropped up for the first time.
The thought of losing Norah, after she’d found her again, this time in the most permanent of ways, sent her stomach tumbling into a fury of fear.
“Me either,” Jamie whispered.
“The idea of Norah getting sick with this thing…that would just about kill me. I couldn’t survive that.
” Chase said it more to herself than to Jamie, who looked at her with a perplexed gaze that said she had absolutely no clue what Chase was talking about.
“But you know what? We’re going to be fine. ”
“How do you know that?”
“Because. Norah Bishop, Captain Bishop, is the smartest, fiercest, most capable person I’ve ever met.
If anyone on the planet can crush a deadly pandemic, it’s her.
I’d bet my life on it.” She smiled at Jamie, a reassuring smile that said she’d meant every word she’d just said.
Norah was, had always been, Chase’s hero.
As long as Norah was okay, they would all be okay. Chase was sure of it.
“Thanks.” Jamie smiled back, and this time the tears seemed to have dried a little. “That helps a lot. I wish I could give you a hug right now.”
Chase held out her arms as wide as she could. “Long distance?”
Jamie returned the gesture. “Long distance.”
Norah, who had been standing creepily behind a nearby tree for nearly the entirety of the exchange between Jamie and Chase, bit down hard on her lower lip, her own tears now threatening to escape like tormented little prisoners.
It was hard to believe the woman she’d just watched with Jamie was the same Chase who’d walked out on her so many years ago because she couldn’t handle hard times.
Her mind raced back to the night they’d spent stranded in the jeep.
Norah? Do you believe people can really change?
She stayed hidden behind the tree, thankful for the particularly moonless night, until Chase got up and walked back toward her tent, and then she waited an appropriate amount of time for Chase to go inside before approaching the zippered entryway.
An army-issue lantern was bright enough to turn the white canvas a glowing orange like fire embers, and Chase’s silhouette danced across the backdrop, stopped at the far wall where Norah knew her cot was, and stripped her T-shirt off over her head in one smooth, perfectly sexy tug.
Norah’s throat tightened, and she second-guessed her decision to go in. But second-guessing was all it was.
She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes, blowing out through tightly pursed lips, hoping some of the heat would escape from her belly. But when she opened her eyes again, she wanted Chase just as much as ever.
“Chase? Can I come in?” Norah gently tapped at the wall with her fingertips, having yet to decide on the appropriate method of knocking on fabric.
“Yeah. Of course. Just one second.” She watched Chase’s shadow scramble to the ground, tossing what looked like various articles of clothing off to the side, and finally picking up a sweatshirt from the cot behind her and pulling it back on.
Norah would have been lying to herself if she hadn’t said she’d been more than a little disappointed about this move.
A few seconds later, Chase appeared at the entryway and pulled it open, gesturing for Norah to follow.
“Everything okay?” Chase asked, appearing a tad breathless from heaving dirty laundry out of the way in a hurry.
“Everything’s fine. I just wanted to…” Norah quickly realized she had no good excuse as to why she’d shown up at Chase’s quarters so late. “I just wanted to check on you.”
“What do you mean?” Chase took a seat on the cot, and Norah moved closer, standing in front of her.
“Oh, you know, with everything.”
“What’s everything?” Chase grinned playfully at her, and Norah felt herself suck in her bottom lip again and tug on it with her teeth, an annoying new habit she’d found herself doing lately whenever Chase was within a certain proximity.
“H7J1? Things are getting real here. It’s scary. And sometimes this job can be, you know, a lot. I just wanted to make sure you’re doing okay.”
“You heard me talking to Jamie out there, didn’t you?” Chase’s grin grew.