Abandon (6 page)

Annalise felt her feet start to tingle with the urge to take the couple steps back to her car, start the engine and drive all the way to Tennessee to be with Meredith.  She had made a mistake in coming here.   She hadn’t even realized the fact that she had mentally assumed if Cort was bringing her here that he wanted to be with her.   It was only confronted with his girlfriend that she realized all her dreams and expectations had suddenly been shattered.  Cort had moved on.  Cort was with someone else.  Cort had put her here, in the middle of nowhere, with his someone else.  

The next emotion to rise inside of her was fury and she mentally started a countdown in her head from one hundred to calm herself.  She had to remain calm for at least tonight.  She couldn’t leave without at least getting them into the house safely and she probably shouldn’t drive all the way to Tennessee with this anger inside of her anyway.  She’d get them in the house, text Meredith and tell her she’d meet her sometime tomorrow.  It was only one night.  She could definitely make it one night.

“So, how do we get into the house?” Cort asked, looking at Annalise.   Her hands balled up into fists at her side and she took a deep breath.  He wasn’t even going to introduce her.  He was just going to let her stand there looking bored, and let Annalise wonder who she was.  What a coward Cort was being.  It was infuriated her.  Just get them into the house, she reminded herself.

“I’ll check for a key,” she responded walking towards the front door and looking for anything that would be an obvious hiding place for a key.  Looking for the key at least gave her focus on something besides the perfect blonde.  “There might be a st... ah ha!”  

She found the stone that looked out of place, picked it up, and saw the compartment for the key under it.  Reaching in and pulling out the key, she stepped towards the door.  The house inside was dark like every other house they had seen on the way here but upon opening the door a rush of warm air hit her face.  The power must not have been off for long for the house to be so warm.  Taking a step inside, she pulled her phone out of her pocket to use it as a flashlight.  There were candles in the foyer and she reached for a lighter out of her pocket to provide them with a little light.  

“Wow,” Jenna said after following Annalise into the house.  “This place is gorgeous.  I’m going to find the bedroom with the biggest bed.”

Kevin chuckled as he stepped in behind Jenna, handing her a bag which was probably full of clothes.  “Might want to drop that in there to claim it.”

Annalise moved towards what she imagined was the kitchen or living room, opening doors along the way.  There seemed to be two bedrooms on the lower floor by the front door, and she guessed the other bedrooms were probably upstairs.  Towards the back of the house, which faced the lake, there was a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room.  She immediately went to the kitchen to see what kind of stove it had.  Shining her flashlight into the kitchen, she smiled.  Gas.  Even if the power never came back on, they’d still be able to cook.  

She heard heavy footsteps up the stairs and knew instinctively it was Jake searching for a room.  With the amount of nights she had spent at Cort’s house, in Cort’s bed, she would know those footsteps anywhere.  She stepped back to into the hallway to go out to her car and get one of her duffle bags, and ran right into the blonde.

“Umph!  Watch where you’re going!” the perfect specimen exclaimed, taking two or three steps back, her heels making a clack every time they hit the hardwood beneath their feet.  

“Sorry, it was dark, and I didn’t see you,” Annalise hurriedly apologized.  She stepped around the girl quickly, rushing for the door as fast as she could without looking like she was running away.  Stepping into the crisp winter air, she looked back to make sure the blonde wasn’t following her before running to confront Cort as he took stock of equipment in the back of his SUV.  

She shoved him hard enough to knock him off balance and onto his ass in the driveway.  “You brought your fucking girlfriend?!” she whispered with as much anger as she could get out in hushed tones.  “You’re a real piece of work Cort McCoy.”

Cort stood up and dusted his jeans off.  “What the hell Annalise, who said she’s my girlfriend?”

Annalise laughed bitterly.  How like Cort.  “Let’s skip the semantics Cort, you’re sticking your dick in her and you’ll probably be sharing a room.  For all intents and purposes, as far as I’m concerned, she’s your girlfriend.”

Cort reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes, offering her one.  She snatched it out of his hand and lit it up as he explained, “Yes, I brought her.  Her apartment burned down and she had nowhere to go.  What was I supposed to do?”

Taking another drag of her cigarette she hissed at him, “Not invite me.”

Cort looked genuinely wounded by her words, his big green eyes staring at her like she had said something that just wasn’t possible.  Cort had always had the power to make her lose her anger at him by giving her that look, and she fought the urge to reach out to him, and ease his pain.  He brought them both here.  He should feel a little pain.  Of course, Annalise was already examining her own motivations too.  Cort had never said they would be getting back together, she had just hoped it.  Maybe that was something that had been incorrect on her part.  It wasn’t like he had said anything to this point, besides the fact that he wanted her with him, that would make her assume he actually wanted to get back together.  

Fortunately, they were interrupted by the perfect blonde yelling at Cort from the doorway about which room they were taking and where he could put her stuff.  Apparently the blonde was bossy too.  Serves Cort right, she thought as she walked away from him to her car.  She opened her trunk and grabbed the bag which had her sleeping clothes and toiletries.  Putting it over her shoulder she giggled bitterly in her head, this was also the bag that had condoms in it.  The condoms she had brought along with her because she subconsciously had thought she’d be able to use them with Cort.  Maybe she’d leave them here with Jenna and Kevin before she took off in the morning.  She walked past Cort, who was still standing against his SUV looking dumbstruck.  Flicking her cigarette into the snowbank on the side of the driveway, she stepped into the house took the bedroom immediately on the right.

Throwing her bag in the corner by the closet, she flopped on the bed and looked around.  The room was nice, if a little small.  It was the kind of room she could stay in for a while, if Cort hadn’t brought the blonde.  Across the hall she heard the muffled tones of Cort speaking to who she assumed was the blonde.  They seemed to be fighting, or at least arguing over something.  Shoving her face in the pillow, for the first time since she and Cort had broken up months ago, she let tears flow freely from her eyes.  She cried for the man at the gas station, for the people in DC, for the fate of the nation, but mostly, she cried for herself and the fact that in the span of twenty-four hours her entire world had collapsed upon itself.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and looked at the service bars.  Still no service, so she couldn’t call Meredith.  She was about to put it back in her pocket when she noticed the date.  December 12th, 2012.  So the Mayan’s prediction came true nine days earlier than expected.  

“Well played Mayans,” she whispered.  “Well played.”

Chapter 8:  Cort

Deep Creek Lake, Western Maryland
December 13, 2012

Cort woke up early the next morning, throwing his feet over the edge of the bed and stretching quietly.  Katy was sleeping beside him and he didn’t want to wake her this early.  He had argued last night over the situation with Katy, which he had expected, and he was in no mood to resume that discussion.  Besides, he had to somehow figure out a way to handle Annalise this morning, which would be much easier to do with Katy asleep.  He hadn’t expected the anger that had come from Annalise last night and he wasn’t quite sure what he did to provoke it.  He searched his brain for the text messages he had sent her, it wasn’t like any of them had professed an undying love or even suggested they were getting back together.  He just wanted her here.  Anything she assumed from them, well, that was her problem.  As much of a hard ass as he was trying to be this morning though, he remembered the quiet sobs coming from her room across the hall last night while he unloaded the rest of the car.  Every single one had wracked him deep inside his soul.  He didn’t want to be the harbinger of pain to anyone, least of all Annalise.  

Slipping out of bed, he reached into his duffle bag for the blue robe he brought with him and put it on, tying it tightly around his waist.  Hopefully he was up before everyone else and he could have a conversation with Annalise without being interrupted. Stepping out into the hall, he looked towards the living area to see if anyone was awake.  Annalise was standing in front of the sliding glass doors that overlooked the lake.  The light of the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon making the lake glimmer in the distance.  He held his breath as he watched Annalise rub her shoulders slowly.  He had imagined this before, only it wasn’t in this situation, and they were together.  He felt a tightness begin to unravel below his waist and fought a battle to calm himself before her took a step towards her.  On his second step, she turned around, her impossibly blue eyes meeting his.  She always had the most expressive and beautiful eyes.  A guy could get lost in those eyes.  

“Good morning,” she said when he reached her at the window.  

“Good morning,” he responded.  “It’s beautiful out there.”

Annalise nodded but didn’t say anything for a while.  She just kept rubbing her shoulders and staring out at the lake.  

“About last night...” Cort began, unsure of what to say next.  Annalise seemed calmer this morning, and he supposed that would be a benefit to the conversation they were about to have.

“What’s her name?”

He thought for a second about not telling her, asking her to pretend that Katy wasn’t here and she didn’t exist.  “Katy.”  

Annalise nodded again and he supposed she was digesting the information.  As he tried to find the words to say next, Annalise began talking again. “You know when I was 7, I almost drowned.”

Cort shook his head, trying to catch up with where the conversation was going.  Another trait of Annalise’s that he had missed.  She would come up with the most random pieces of information that he never knew how it fit with the story at hand.  Part of the game, in his mind, was fitting how it all worked together before she came to the end.  She had always kept him on his toes. “No, I didn’t.  What happened?”

“I snuck out to the beach one night while my parents were drinking.  They hadn’t let me go into the water earlier in the day and I guess I wanted to prove a point that I could.  There were some pretty strong currents and they pulled me pretty far out into the ocean.”

Cort was surprised he had never heard this story out of her before.  “Well, you’re standing here today so you must have been rescued,” he hypothesized.  

Annalise shook her head.  “I had read the poster that was hanging in the house before I snuck out.  It said when you’re getting pulled out you swim parallel to the shore.  I was floating on my back until I lost sight of the house, and then I started swimming parallel to the shore.  I guess eventually I got to a place where the currents weren’t so bad, because the waves started bringing me in with them, as long as I was swimming parallel.” She took a deep breath before she continued.  “That night, I was running away from my parents drinking.  Since then, I’ve been running my entire life.  I think in a weird way I’m trying to recreate that moment.  There’s something about not knowing if you’re going to live or die that is makes life after so much sweeter.”

Cort couldn’t respond because he had never been a situation like that, so he stood in silence and waited for her to continue.

“Living a life on the run tires you out though.  Eventually the sweetness of not knowing brings its own set of insecurities and loneliness. I think, I know, I want to stop running.  I’m not pissed that you brought me here with her Cort, I’m pissed that you didn’t warn me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you,” Cort said.  In truth, he was only half sorry because he didn’t think Annalise would have come if the message had said, ‘oh yeah, and this girl I’ve been sleeping with is coming.’

“No you aren’t, because you wanted me here.  That’s okay though.  You’ve got me here, and right now I’m not planning on going anywhere.”  

Upon hearing those words, Cort felt a wave of relief wash over him.  He hadn’t allowed himself to think that she might actually leave last night, but hearing the words that she wouldn’t be allowed him to recognize just how fearful he was that she would.  He felt the urge to hug her and spin her around to show her how much it meant to him that she was staying but he didn’t know if that would be overstepping his bounds.  Instead, he just pulled one of her hands out from under her arms and squeezed it.  “Thank you.”