Page 59 of All Your Days
“Are you—are you okay?” Jacob asks, shifting closer. He rests his hand on my shoulder. It’s not quite the hug that I need, but then, Jacob’s never seemed like a hugger, so the simple touch feels like more than a hug from anyone else.
“Can we just go to bed?” Tears are building and there is no way I’m going to be able to hold them in. I would rather they come in the dark. I swipe at the strays that have already made their way down my cheeks.
Jacob squeezes my shoulder gently and my heart aches. I wish… I wish it could mean all the things that I know it doesn’t. He stares at the fire for a second and nods sharply.
“Yeah, let’s go.” He shoots upright, so I stand, too, brushing the dirt from my pants.
Too soon, camp is too dark and too quiet, Jacob and I squished into a too small cot, with our emergency bags and his rifle within immediate reach.
Neither of us take off our boots.
Getting back home as a two-man team is just as good a distraction as sex. Well, notgood. Sex is definitely my preferred option out of the two, especially sex with Jacob. But I guess survival works in a pinch.
Home.
The idea of it gives us a purpose. Something to work towards. A reason to keep putting our feet one foot in front of the other. It’s not easy. Not a single second of it. The sun seems determined to test our very limits. Sweat coats our skin, our clothes sticking and rubbing, chafing painfully. The sweat stings the palms of my hands, too, where I cut them to shreds on the rough handle of the bore pump when we refilled our tank.
It’s not easy, either, when the fence for the Blue Creek station begins. We don’t say a word about it. Just keep to the clear side of the road and our eyes straight ahead.
“Do you wanna stop and get some of those flowers?” Jacob asks, pointing to a small bundle of pink flowers popping out of the dirt.
“Yeah, thanks. I didn’t see them.” It’s one of the few things we’ve said to each other—him pointing out interesting bits to slip between the pages of my notebook. He even stopped the whole train just to dig out an old stew jar so I could safely collect an interesting moth I found with a furry body and big patterned wings. It’s a perfect specimen, and I know Moby will love it.
Jacob has been nothing but sweet, kind, and attentive ever since we woke up from our night in the trailer. And while he wasn’t exactly the sweetest apple before that, he wasn’t a total dickhead either.
Something’s changed. The wall he’s always kept himself hidden behind has gone. It’s nothing obvious. I can’t say one particular thing that points to it. It’s his entire being. The way he exists. It’s just… different. He’s open. Happy.
I don’t trust it.
More specifically, I don’t trust that it’spermanent. I don’t trust that it’s not just a reaction to what happened and that we’re not going to get back to The Facility and he’s going to be the same closed off Jacob he was before we left—and I’ll be left out in the cold, to deal with the fallout of this shitshow of a trip on my own.
Well, not entirely on my own. I’ll have Jessica and Matty and Moby. But they won’t know. They won’t get it.
Oh, wow.My moment of mental clarity has my feet tripping over themselves. Jacob’s free hand catches me by the arm, then slides around to my lower back to keep me steady. Not that I feel it. Dimly, I register he’s asking if I’m okay. I just grunt and nod, hoping it sounds appropriate.
Because Igetit—for real now. I understand why Jacob’s been closed off. About why he has avoided attachment to everyone and everything all these years.
Cale killed his friends. Turned on them in a vicious, blinding, murderous, almost unstoppable rage. And Ryan, in his own final moments, was forced to kill his friend. To saveus.
Every single person at The Facility has faced the infected. They’ve been our friends, our loved ones, sometimes residents we only know in passing. Everyone who’s turned, everyone sent below is someone we know in some way.
The risk is ever present and always real. So much so that it’s become a part of our existence, something we’ve become sickeningly used to.
Even so, they’ll never understand how different it was here. How there were no backups for the overrun guards, or panic locks to separate ourselves until help came. There was only terror in the dark—where only more danger waited—until the dawn came and we saw the gory remains of our camp.
What if one of us turned right now? Or in our bed overnight? Every day, every night weallput ourselves and our loved ones at risk of the monsters we can become at any moment.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
“What’re you lookin’ forward to doin’ most when you get home?” Jacob asks, thumb stroking my back. He hasn’t moved his hand. I wish it was as comforting as it should be—I just want to shrink from it, terrified to rely on it.
“I don’t know. Seein’ Jessica and Matty I guess.” I shrug, chewing on my lip. The energy in my answer isn’t right. I see him frown at me from the corner of my eye.
“You’ll be able to find out if they are havin’ a baby. That’s pretty cool. Jessica’s immune right?”
With the dark cloud in my head I can’t summon the same—completely out of character—enthusiasm as him.
“Uh, yeah. She is. Immune, that is. It’ll be good if they are. They really wanna start a family.” Fuck knows why.
