I headed to my room and pulled out a book. How to survive. I opened it to the bookmarked page and stared down at the horrific memories that came flashing back. I wrote notes on the sides of the pages to help me remember things, but I had done so in blood, because it was the only resource I had that I could write with.
"Use big logs for teepee, smaller ones for tents"
The very fact that I had to write stuff like that down shows that I was much too young to be fighting for myself in the woods. Alone.
I stared at the pages marked up with useless information for another 30 minutes until I was called in for lunch.
I marched down the hallway following the smell of soup through my apartment. Rabbit, carrots, peas; It smelled amazing.
Sitting at the table both of the girls were staring me down.
"What did I do now?" I finally asked.
"Nothing." They both said smiling, eyeing me creepily.
"Okay…" I scowled at them. "So.. Soup?"
"Yes definitely." Her mom said serving some into my bowl.
We ate for a while in silence, but her mom broke it with a real subtle, "So you guys have kissed right?"
I spit my water out onto the floor beside me.
"Uh…" April said, hesitating.
"It's okay, your dad isn't here so no one is going to stop you guys now." She said with a smile.
"Okay… but that doesn't change the fact that we haven't."
"Oh come on, I know you both, you couldn't keep a secret from me if your life depended on it."
"Fine. We have, once." April finally admitted.
"Good. I hope you guys do again."
"MOM." April stood up and left the room, I stayed at the table though, laughing to myself.
"How much do you like her?" Her mom asked me almost immediately.
"Oh very much Mrs. Katz, your daughter is amazing."
"That she is. She's a very special girl."
"Very," I repeated, slowly. After a minute I stood up and walked down to my room.
"Oh geez, I didn't realize you had come in here." I said, staring at April, sitting in my chair.
"Sorry, I can go." She said standing up again.
"No, no, sit down. I didn't mean it like that." We sat in my room and talked about her awkward mom, and how we would go about confronting her again.
"We should just makeout right in front of her face," April said. "That'd get her to shut up."
"That's… Definitely an option." This family really just says what's on their mind don't they.
"Sorry, that was a little much, huh?" April said, seeming to have read my mind.
"No, let's do it." I kind of startled myself when I said this, it doesn't really seem like me to say something like that.
"Really? We don't have to, I just thought it would be funny."
"No yeah, let's do it. What's the worst that could happen?" I was excited now, was this really going to happen?
"As long as it looks like we don't think she's there, but we obviously will, you know?"
"Yeah definitely, this is going to be really fun."
"So I guess we should practice?" What. The. Heck. Is. My. Life.
"I mean… yeah?" Obviously I'm going to say yes to that.
"Okay, so I'm thinking we should be in the kitchen because she's in there super often."
"Good idea, let's wait a day or two to actually do it, and we'll seem kind of distanced when she's around during those days."
"How many times have you done this?" She asked, laughing.
"Once or twice." She laughed again.