11. Sara
11
SARA
A makeshift cushion, formed from a fluffed-up blanket, brings a small degree of comfort to my corner of the tent. I hug my legs into my chest while I wrap my sweater tighter around my shoulders. The temperature’s dropped a few degrees in the hour we’ve been out here, but despite that, the tent seems to be withstanding the harsh winds and cooler air the storm has brought with it.
Jack continues to extract gadgets and appliances from his bag. When he’s satisfied with the arrangement, he produces a container packed with energy bars, jerky, and dried fruit that looks like its withered beyond human consumption. He sets it in front of me, a hesitant offering, before casting his attention back to the radio.
I peek at the contents, inspecting the miserable selection before reaching for something that looks like it could either be dried mango…or a thick shaving of hard skin; the distinction is impossible to decipher. My nose wrinkles as I try to keep a neutral expression.
“What? No smart-ass comment about the snacks?” He seats himself opposite me. Even when sitting down, his enormous frame demonstrates how this tent is not made for two people. There’s little room to do anything, especially when it comes to concealing disgusted facial expressions.
I chew on what indeed turns out to be mango before swallowing tightly. “I’m trying not to be…what was it you called me earlier… entirely ungrateful ?”
The corner of his lips twitch.
My eyes track the gesture, watching him a moment too long to figure out what I just witnessed. It couldn’t possibly be a smile.
Whatever it was, it’s gone now.
I shrug, popping another piece of mango into my mouth. “But seriously, what do you eat out here?” I try not to focus on his obnoxiously large biceps when I consider that a physique like his needs more fuel than a handful of almonds and processed, dried meat.
“Fish mostly. Caught a couple earlier. This stuff comes in handy in times like these.” He motions to the container before a huge gust of wind howls around the tent, sending the walls shuddering.
“Are we okay in here?” I ask, shifting away from the quivering exterior, and closer to the center of the tent. Something about my movement causes him to stiffen. Perhaps I’ve crawled too close to him, invaded his personal space. I shuffle back an inch, noting how a muscle in his jaw eases when I do so. “I mean, what if we get a leak?”
“Impossible,” he replies proudly above the tapping of raindrops. “This thing could survive a tornado. Sturdier than a house. You’re safe here.”
The claim forces my eyebrows to rise while I bite back the urge to list the reasons he can’t compare a house to a sagging tent. Instead, I manage to obscure my reaction with another inspection of my surroundings.
As far as my tent expertise goes, I conclude that sagging is perhaps un unfair description. The lining is tightly sewn and double layered in the areas where it matters, and although the material shakes against the battering wind, the rods that hold the structure above our head stand firm. Stronger than a raincoat after all. In fact, all his equipment looks to be on the fancier end of the scale. An almost-compliment nearly slips from my lips, but when I turn to find his gaze already resting on me, it hangs in the air unspoken.
“What exactly were you doing on that abandoned road?” His voice is different now, laced with a trickle of suspicion. “How did you end up crashing?”
Ah.
The part I’d gone over in my head a hundred times already. If only to invent a different account, which didn’t begin with, there was this bee…
“I was just exploring.” I rearrange my sweater as a chill snakes up my back, causing me to shiver. “I suppose I took a wrong turn. My screen fogged up…somehow, and I lost control.”
Jack remains still, his eyes straining as though considering if he buys my excuse. Eventually, he shrugs, and, I guess, decides demolishing a tough strip of jerky is a better use of his energy than grilling me.
“You’re lucky to be alive. Not many people walk out of car wrecks without so much as a scratch to show for it.” His eyes dip for a moment. “I’m . . . sorry I couldn’t get you out of here before the storm. You should be with a doctor right now.” He jams the empty jerky packet into the side compartment of his bag .
“I don’t think I need a doctor. I feel fine, apart from my ankle, but I’m sure it’s just a sprain.” I shiver again, then realize I haven’t thought about the minor injury for the past hour, noting how the pain has dulled.
He’s right, things probably could’ve been a lot worse. I suppose I’ve been too wrapped up in everything else to consider how lucky I am to be alive.
I’ve been consumed with other more pressing thoughts. Anxiety inducing things like where I’m going to pee, because although Jack’s bag holds a multitude of supplies, I don’t think a toilet is included in the mix. I chew on that thought, mulling over the impossibly ironic situation I find myself in.
How did I end up here? Trapped somewhere in the depths of the wilderness with the very man who made me the nature-hating human I am today. How did the long-haired boy from my childhood find me all the way out here? God, I hate this.
“What?” Jack looks up, my trance disappearing in a puff of smoke.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You just said you hate this.”
Oh. So, I’d been voicing my internal thoughts aloud. Great .
When I make no attempt to convince him I said otherwise, he fills the silence with his low, bored tones. “I get it. You hate trees, and rain, and moss, and being anywhere you could get mud on your shoes. And, if you are who you say you are, I get that I could be partially responsible for that, but?—”
My jaw hangs open. “If I am who I say I am?” My brows knit together before I splutter, “And you are entirely responsible for the way I am now. ”
Jack rakes a hand through his hair before fluffing up a sleeping bag.
“I was a dumb kid. I don’t do that kind of shit anymore. But if you’ve reached this age and you crash your car because you fogged up your windshield with insect repellent”—I gasp— “yeah, I recognized the smell when I pulled you from the car, then that’s on you.”
The painstaking arrogance returns with blinding force. I swear I liked this man better when he was bleeding to death.
I can’t believe I mentioned my screen fogging up earlier. Worse, I can’t believe he’s pieced together the embarrassing truth.
I shuffle uncomfortably, knowing that the only acceptable course of action is to deny his accusations. I draw in a breath like I’m about to deliver the damning evidence that would see the accused doomed for an eternity.
Jack straightens, waiting for my retort to rupture out of me. The air is taut, the storm outside a mere whisper compared to the friction that boils inside this tent.
“You…are…” I stammer, “ Wrong .” It comes out limp, weak, like a slow puncture.
The tension wilts to ash.
Jack’s mouth forms a straight line. Sighing, he leans back onto a sleeping bag. He throws his sweater over his face, then tucks both hands behind his head.
I should be using the silence to claw back at my defense. However, I’m distracted by a swirling black tattoo that spans the underside of his bulging upper arms. Then my eyes flick to his wrist where I spy a gold watch that almost disappears beneath his head. I can’t quite make out the model, but it looks expensive.
Suddenly I’m less interested in rescuing my pride, and more curious about the man I’m about to spend the night with.
“Okay fine, think what you like about me. But what about you, Jack?” I sit up with a straight spine.
“What about me? And I told you, I don’t go by that name anymore,” he mumbles from under the sweater.
“Exactly.” I throw my hands in the air. “What’s with all the suspicion? First, you asked me what I wanted from you, then you thought I was lying about who I am, like I’ve got some kind of agenda, like I planned to be out in this hell. And now you’re telling me you don’t even go by Jack anymore.”
I lean back on the scraps of material he’s given me as cushioning, then I tug a thin blanket over my body. “If anyone should be suspicious, it’s me.”
A muffled yawn comes from under his sweater. “Yeah? Why’s that?”
I toss the blanket to the side, grab my sweater, and climb to my feet, my head narrowly avoiding the low swinging lantern.
“Because my presence here is an accident.” I take a couple of unsteady strides over the uneven floor toward the entrance. “You planned to be out here, choosing to hike off trail, with camping equipment that looks like it was issued by Central Intelligence, and—” I can finally see his watch clearly. Rolex, very limited edition. No wait, custom, definitely custom. Any New York fashion brat could tell that—“that thing on your wrist looks like it cost the same as a penthouse apartment.”
He shuffles around in the sleeping bag. “So?”
The arrogance of this man, not even attempting to deny it.
“So, if you can afford such luxuries, then why couldn’t you stretch for a radio that has built-in SOS?” I gaze at the radio that looks like it came from a nineties cereal box. The thing is a piece of junk, practically a fossil.
He’s twisting uncomfortably now the heat points his way.
I continue, “And why the name change? Are you on the run? Are you a criminal? Are you some kind of…assassin?”
He springs from his position on his back, swiping at the sweater before peeling it from his face. He pinches the bridge of his nose, a rumble vibrating deep in his chest. “I’m not a fucking assassin.”
“But you do have a knife. A big one.” I cast a glance toward his hand, still wrapped in the towel. He probably needs to change the dressing, or at least wash it out or something. I shake my head because how dare I concern myself with this man’s discomfort when I’ve been shivering in my corner for the last hour and a half. “Maybe you aren’t an assassin, maybe you’re something worse. Maybe you’re a cold-blooded killer. Am I going to die tonight?”
More rumbling.
“No. But I might die from irritation,” he utters flatly.
I wrinkle my brows together at the unnecessary response.
“I don’t think I like your tone,” I say as I whip my head around to face the entrance before yanking on the zipper. Immediately, a gust of cold air rushes into the tent.
“What are you doing?” Now his voice sounds exactly like he might die from irritation. “You can’t go out there.”
“I have to pee.” I grab his jacket, slinging it over my shoulders as I march into the thick of the storm.
Wind and pouring rain comes at me from every angle as I trudge ahead, scraping away clumps of hair that blow across my face and impair my vision. I lean into the howling wind that threatens to knock me onto my ass as I search for the least life endangering spot to turn into a bathroom.
The entire experience is humiliating.
I’ve never peed outside. Ever. I don’t know how to squat and angle my body in a way that won’t degrade every inch of my being or cause me to accidentally pee on myself.
The only thing to provide a fragment of a distraction is the jacket. Specifically, the scent coming from it. A torrential downpour is soaking me to my core, yet I can’t help but inhale the leathery fragrance of whatever Jack’s scent of choice is. It’s something old and timeless, familiar even. Something from childhood perhaps.
Maybe it’s the Baker family themselves I’m recalling. However, if that is the case, there’s no way the scent would have the same calming effect on me. This is something…pleasant. Something that warrants deeper inhalation.
I close my eyes as I breathe in a couple more times.
Leather and childhood . Strange, yet, weirdly comforting.
I contemplate the combination as a leaf slaps against my temple, drenching my face like an oversaturated sheet mask. God, what I would give for some skincare right now. I tear it off, cursing into the night.
My mind wanders back to the scent, to Jack, as I trudge toward the glow of the tent, a surprising beacon of comfort given the circumstances. My eyes narrow as I study his huge, silhouetted frame within the structure.
I can’t figure him out. He’s messy, his hair lacks any style or order, his face is dotted with grime resulting from a lack of showering no doubt, and no, washing in a stream didn’t count. Yet beneath the dirty nomad, there’s a polished, refined side to him too. Like the way he’d neatly packed away the trash from our snacks instead of tossing it into the corner. Or the way he’d laid out the equipment from his bag, arranging each piece in an orderly way rather than shoving them in a heap with no care. He pays attention to details. He hikes wearing a Rolex. It doesn’t fit with his baggy, mismatched clothes, and grizzly appearance.
Even though I can see he's content out here, something about him doesn’t quite belong in the wilderness either. It makes sense that he belongs to a larger city, his accessories certainly support the notion.
Yet somehow, I can’t help but think that he doesn’t quite belong in either world. Maybe that’s why he hikes off trail, maybe he doesn’t quite know where he fits in either.
I’m several feet from the tent when a noise rises above the storm. It’s somewhere between a wet cough and a grunt.
“Jack?” I whisper as my eyes scan the area wildly. The rain lashes down against my cheeks, and the forest wails as the storm rages through the woods, but somehow all of that melts away and dulls into the night, because the only thing I can feel is my heart thudding against my ribs.
Another noise sounds in the distance, like a heavy boot striking the earth.
Someone’s out here.