Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

moment together, he’d said he was sure that I was going to tell him I loved him before he was done with his life. But I hadn’t done it before we’d left to do our recon and rescue mission. I hadn’t told him; but now I knew that I should have. I fell asleep listening to the sound of rain hitting the leaves around me and dropping into the swamp below, wondering if Bodo were somewhere out there, alive, thinking about me too. My mind wandered to the more likely scenario - that he was dead, his body left alone and cold, lying in the wreckage of our battle.
    ***
    It was late afternoon when I woke again. This time it was Coli waiting for me to open my eyes. She was sitting on the mattress next to me, staring at me silently.
    I took one look at her and closed my eyes again. “Geez, Coli. Do you have any idea how creepy it is to wake up and find you staring at me like that?”
    “No.”
    “Well, trust me. It’s a lot creepy. Go away.” I rolled over, turning my back to her.
    “Kowi wants to see you at dinner.”
    “I’m busy.”
    “Busy feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah. I can see that.”
    “Go to hell, Coli.”
    “Already there.”
    Tell me about it . I refused to comment out loud, hoping she’d eventually give up trying to engage me in conversation and leave.
    “You have to get up and go to the bathroom, eventually. Don’t you have to go now?”
    Now that she’d mentioned it, I realized that I did really have to pee. Damn her.
    “Come on,” she said, standing. “I’ll walk with you.”
    I sat up slowly, battling the dizziness. “I don’t need a friggin escort to the outhouse.”
    “You haven’t eaten in two days, you lost a lot of blood, and you look like hell. I think you do need an escort, and so does Peter.”
    “Screw Peter.”
    “I’ll pass along the message. Now come on.”
    The rain had finally let up, so at least my walk to the toilet wasn’t going to get me soaked. It was too late in the day for the sun to do much more than light up the really wet landscape, but it was a nice reprieve from the blanketing grayness that I’d seen through slits in my eyes over the last I don’t know how many hours. Lucky for us, the chickee hut roofs were so well-made that not a single drop of the monsoon that had dumped on us had made it through. At least I had a dry mattress going for me.
    I stumbled on the path and Coli caught me. I pushed her away after I’d regained my footing, and she laughed.
    “What’s so funny? Me falling down?”
    “No. You refusing help when you so obviously need it.”
    I scowled at her, refusing to admit she was right. “I don’t like having help from you.”
    “And I don’t particularly like giving it to you. But we do things out here that we find unpleasant all the time, so…” She shrugged.
    I had to smile. She was so rude, it was comical. She totally didn’t give a crap what I thought either, which was kind of nice in a way. I needed brutal honesty right now.
    “What are you smiling at?” she asked, scowling.
    “You. You’re like a cactus you’re so prickly.”
    “You’re not all that warm and fuzzy yourself.”
    “Yeah, well, if your boyfriend hadn’t come back from the fight, I don’t think you’d be all that cheery right now either.”
    “So he’s your boyfriend now? We’re talking about Bodo, right?”
    I stopped walking, my smile disappearing in an instant. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    She stopped and faced me, her legs spread apart and her eyebrow lifted in challenge. “Well, before you left, you kept making sure all the guys around here knew he wasn’t your boyfriend. Now he’s missing and suddenly he is . Seems like you’ve had a change of heart, that’s all I’m saying.”
    I shook my head slowly in disbelief. What a bitch. “Screw you, Coli. And don’t friggin walk with me any farther or I’m going to forget how helpful you were trying to be and punch you in the face.”
    I stalked off, trying to ignore the spinning, spinning, spinning of my brain; but my feet wouldn’t obey. They walked me diagonally instead of straight, and I got tangled in some roots that were just off the side of the path. I went down like a drunk sailor into a pile of rotting weeds, landing on my hurt arm which caused intense pain to shoot up into my shoulder. I screamed with the frustration and hurt, rolling over onto my back.
    “Goddamn it! Fucking swamp! Fucking asshole canners!” I was crying now, big fat tears rolling out of my eyes.