Chapter 7
BETH
I ’ve never been the type of woman who thought that one time with a man would change my life.
I've never even been the type of woman who thought I'd fall into bed with a man less than forty-eight hours after choosing to travel together.
But times are different now, and life isn't promised.
We have to take our opportunities where we have them.
But now? There’s a part of me that admits sleeping with Knox wasn’t necessarily life-changing, but it did change things about my life.
Now that I know what he looks like with no clothes on, the way his face pulls as he’s about to go over the edge, I can’t help but look at him differently.
“Which side do you want to search first?”
The sun beats down on us. This morning it’s hotter than it’s been in a long time.
He’s taken his shirt off, and put it in the back pocket of his jeans.
My God, this man has a body that won’t quit.
He glances at me, his eyebrows raised. Instead of answering him, I look up and down the street, hoping it hides my burning cheeks.
"Let's start directly across from where we are, and search a couple of houses.
If we find nothing, we'll pack up and head south tomorrow?
If we find something, we can search a few more? "
"Sounds good." Knox sighs.
That sigh reminds me of the one he let loose when he was finished last night, and I have to remind myself we’re really in the fight for our lives here. I can’t turn everything sexual. Looking up at the sky, I say a little prayer for my hormones.
"Do you know what today is?" I ask him, looking up at the sky. "Like the month, not the actual day."
"I can tell you both." He flashes his wrist to me. "Right before Eruption I got employee of the month at the Sheriff's office, and they gave me a solar watch. Never thought I'd wear it, because I wasn't a watch guy," he chuckles. "I always had my phone in my hand, ya know?"
"That was the worst from the beginning," I groan, thinking back to when everything happened.
"I'd hold my phone in my hand, and look at it, but all the apps were offline.
I was so used to always being connected with everyone and everything.
I was so lonely at first." I think back to those early days.
How disconnected everything felt. Although we weren't alone, and I was taking care of my family, it was all so lonely. Everything went dark. No streaming music, no videos. Once the battery died, I couldn’t even listen to the audiobook I downloaded from the library.
All of those things kept my anxiety at bay, but then all of a sudden I had nothing.
It's been something I've had to get used to.
"I don't miss people being able to contact me all the time," he's saying.
"But I do miss being able to look up an answer at any time.
I can't tell you the amount of times I've wanted to Google something in order to solve a problem.
Instead, sometimes I just have to trust my gut, or other times I'm just leaving shit up to chance," he laughs.
"But anyway, going back to what you were asking. It's May 31st, according to my watch."
He turns his wrist so I can read what the watch says.
"It's convenient that you have that, I guess. At least this way you can see what day it is. You can know for sure how long we’ve survived this shit. Sometimes it's good to know."
He coughs, before putting his hands on his hips, and looking up and down the street again.
“Or sometimes it’s better off forgotten.
I do appreciate it more often than not. Although back in the early days after Eruption, it didn't really matter what the day was.
The disruption in the weather patterns was so severe that we couldn't plan the year on them. "
"I remember people saying that, but I was so scared to go outside.
.." I let the words trail off. "Before the power grid went down, I would watch TV, and seeing people go after one another when they realized what was happening?
" I shake my head as I relive those moments.
"It scared the shit out of me, because I knew anyone that was left after everything had gone down, would be worried.
They'd be fighting to keep not only their way of life going, but life itself. "
He makes a noise in the back of his throat.
"I learned quickly that being an officer of the law meant absolutely nothing.
Men who had lived with the threat of imprisonment knew we couldn't do anything to them anymore.
Any morality that kept them from being a menace to society was gone.
Hell, even I didn't want to leave my house.
I didn't until I had to," he admits, his voice soft.
"The past only allows us to learn from it.
We can't change what brought us here, all we can do is make things better as we go.
So as we investigate these houses, we need to think about the future, Knox.
We have the ability to transport more than we did even earlier yesterday.
We need to look at everything we do from now on from the lens of starting over. "
"Is that what you want to do? Start over? With me?" His eyes hold mine, the question in the air between us.
I have to give him the truth. "I don't know. Who knows what tomorrow will hold for us? Who knows what tonight is going to hold? Right now none of us are aware of what is going to happen in the next few hours. What I can tell you is that you’re the only one here to start over with."
"Fuckin' ouch, Beth."
I can't help it. I laugh loudly, bending over to wrap my arms around my middle. "You know what I mean."
"Do I?" He chuckles.
Closing my eyes, I shake out the giggles and press my smile into a firm line.
Opening them, I look at him, and offer him my hand.
"Hi Knox, I'm Beth, and although we knew each other back home before Eruption, it's been a few years and we've both changed a lot.
I know the man who I went to school with, and who I ran into around town, but I don't know who you are now. I'd like to get that chance."
His eyes lower to my hand. It seems to take him an eternity, but eventually he reaches forward and clasps his hand with mine.
"Nice to meet you, Beth. I knew very little about you before Eruption.
Just that you were someone who everyone trusted and I never heard anyone talk bad about you.
I'd like to get a chance to get to know you, too.
As long as you're okay with it, I'd love to travel with you to Nashville.
Once we get there, we can decide if we want to continue together or not. Sound fair?"
It sounds like the most freedom I've actually had since this whole thing began. Since Eruption happened, I've honestly been running. Although I stayed behind with my family, I was still running. As long as I could stay busy, I didn't have to think about what was happening beyond the doors. Putting my head in the sand has been my MO since this started. Once I lost the last member of my family, I really started running. Within a couple of days I'd packed everything I needed. I left and didn’t look back. My reaction to this death was surprising to me. As a nurse I’ve seen it more often than most, and I’ve dealt with it. Never felt the need to run away. But Eruption changed me, and I wanted nothing more than to run. Which is the opposite of how I’ve always lived.
I've always been the type of person who has been settled.
Change was never easy for me, but what I've realized more than anything, is if I can't bend like trees during a storm, then I'll break.
Breaking won't help anything, it just means this is all over.
And I'm not ready for life to be over yet.
"Sounds fair," I agree. "Let's go scavenge."
He nods, and together we head toward the row of homes that we're going to search.
Standing back, I wait as Knox breeches the front door, and then we head inside.
It's always weird when I go into a house that belonged to someone else.
If I close my eyes and inhale, I can feel the remnants in the air of the energy of the people who lived here.
The energy here is good. Like the family who lived here loved each other, and had a good life.
We slowly walk through the house, and I see a few pictures.
It was a family. A mom and dad. Three kids, and two dogs.
When we walk into the living room, I gasp.
Their Christmas tree is still up. It’s obviously fake because it’s still green.
There are ornaments and lights still hanging on the branches.
“It's been years since I've seen a Christmas tree.”
"It's like we're in a different world huh?" Knox has stopped, and is looking at the scene in front of us. "I don't even remember what it was like to get excited about a holiday."
"I do." The words fall out of my lips. "Christmas was my favorite."
Walking over to the tree, I reach in and touch a few of the ornaments.
There's one that gets my attention more than the others. It's a crystal snowflake. The sunlight coming through the window makes rainbow prisms on the wall and floor. It’s like a visual ray of hope, and I’d love to take it with me, but I know I have to leave it behind.
"C'mon, we should get moving," Knox encourages, reminding me we should get in and out.
Staying in this town without having a plan, and taking too much time is a bad idea. I know that, but at the same time, I wish I had the simplicity again of decorating for Christmas. I drop the snowflake so that it sits back against the tree. "You lead and I'll follow Deputy."
He grunts in the back of his throat. "Ain't been a Deputy in a very long time, Beth."
I give him a grin, raising my eyebrows."Could've fooled me the way you clear a room the minute you walk into it. The way you want me to walk a little bit behind you? Reeks of law enforcement. So if you don't want anyone to know what you did in our previous lives, you need to work on it a bit more."
He turns to face me, his hand coming up to my face.
Moving down, he grasps my chin in between his thumb and forefinger, tilting it up so that we can stare into each others eyes.
His are so dark, even in this room where there's plenty of natural light.
"Let's get one thing straight, Beth. I'm clearing any room to make sure we're safe.
You're walking behind me so that you can be prepared if anyone decides to ambush us.
I won't make apologies for that. The second we joined up, I became responsible for your safety, and since I had you last night?
That responsibility became something I take very seriously.
Either you're ready for that, or you aren't."
The heat in his voice sends chills up and down my arms, gives me a jittery feeling in my stomach, and makes my heart flutter faster. I'm not sure how to answer, but I manage to croak out. "Okay."
And that acceptance is more than I've given anyone since all of this started.