I woke up in my bed. I could hear birds chirping. I rolled onto my back and opened my eyes. Light from the window assaulted them. I put my hands to them and rubbed. Slowly my eyes adjusted to the warm yellow sunlight. I laid in bed and looked up towards the ceiling. I focused on a little knot on the beam. I don’t remember going to sleep. Staring at the beam I thought long and hard about the last thing I remember. I remember shooting a mule deer. And dragging it to the house. I remember the fall.
Suddenly there was a massive pain in my leg. I winced hard. Then I remembered the rest. The long hobble to the cliffs the cauterizing, but nothing else. How did I get in my bed? I sat up and felt the massive pain in my leg. I bit my lip as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and looked down. I saw the upper part of my left leg wrapped in lots of gauze. It looked clean and nicely taken care of.
I also noticed I wasn’t wearing pants, which brought up another question. Where were my pants, and did any of the guys see me without them? I took a turn around the room and found them in the corner. I stood up and saw spots. Unable to reach the bed I crashed to the floor causing a huge amount of pain. I waited for the spots to clear before I tried again, and this time I took it slow. I bent down and retrieved my pants. They had been cut from the ankle up to the top of the thigh. “So much for brand new pants,” I said amusing myself.
I dropped the tattered cloth and hobbled over to the closet. I opened it and took out a pair of baggy sweat pants. I pulled them up my right leg easily. The left took a bit of maneuvering. Finally, it was up around my waist. I took I t-shirt out of the closet and slipped it on. I struggled over to the door and opened it. The cabin was silent. That worried me a bit.
“Where is everyone?” I asked to myself. I hobbled down to the bathroom flipped on the lights. My reflection looked like something that crawled out of a horror movie. My hair was matted with dirt blood and leaves.
The skin on my arms was smeared with dirt and bruises the color of berries. There was a scrape on my chin that reached back to my ear. I looked like I was ran over by a car. Not being able to stand the grunge that was my person I tore off my freshly dawned clothes and jumped into the shower.
Before I turned on the water I removed the carefully placed bandage wrapped around my leg. The more I removed the more of my abused skin on my thigh was revealed. With the last bit of gauze wrapping there was a waterproof patch over the gash.
The wrapping was the size of my palm. The skin ten inches spread out in each direction of my leg was a deep purple almost black. Everything purple was extremely tender. Placing a light finger on it caused horrible pain.
Looking away from the wound I held my breath and turned on the water. There was no point in waiting for the warmth. The cold felt good on my bruised skin. I washed my body to the best my sore limbs would allow.
I turned off the water and as carefully as possible stepped out of the shower. I was very close to losing my footing, but extra concentration made sure I didn't. I wrapped my wound and myself brushed my hair to the best of my ability and got out of the bathroom.
I hobbled down the hallway until I reached the top of the stairs. There was no way I was going to be able to hop walk down them. I carefully lowered myself down on my butt using the wall and scooted myself down the stairs. I’m sure that this was a record length descent down a single flight of stairs. By the time I reached the bottom I was worn out. The pain that was my body was everywhere. Everything hurt everywhere. I clasped the banister and worked myself into a standing position.
“Hello? Guys? Is anyone here?” I called to my friends. Not an answer. I stood there and listened for a few moments and then I heard them speaking outside. I used every piece of furniture and wall to brace myself on as I made my slow journey to the door.
I sort of fell against it once I reached it. I braced myself up and turned the knob. Natural sunlight hit me in the face and I covered my eyes with my hand. I looked around and saw everyone over by the storage house. I began to hobble over. Halfway there Max turned and saw me, “Sophiene!” he yelled and rushed forward.
“Oh please be gentle,” I begged as he reached me. With his cry, everyone turned and started coming over. After Max gave me a gentle squeeze my body was taken into Trevor's arms.
“I was so worried,” he said gently rubbing my back. He pulled back a bit and placed a gentle kiss on my lips.
“I told you I was tougher than you,” I whispered after his lips left mine. Justin cleared his throat. Trevor and I separated a small bit from one another, but he wrapped his arm around my waist and braced me up against him.
“I feel like we are owed a few explanations,” Justin said in a semi humorous tone.
“What do you want to know?” I asked pretending to look like I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“First, why don’t we discuss how you almost died, and second why you guys are kissing now?” he said crossing his arms pretending to look stern.
“Well, the first is easy to explain. I was dragging a very large deer back to the cabin, and I end up falling down a huge hill getting an antler shard stuck in my leg. Then I am pretty sure my second fall on the way back for help only made things much worse,” I said looking at him.
“Alright seems legit. Now answer the second question,” he said pretending to look harder at me.
“Well, you wouldn’t know this is possible, but when to people like each other a whole awful lot they like to express that by putting their lips together in what society calls a kiss,” I said explaining it to him like he was five.
“Oh blow it out your back end. I know you guys are a thing now, but when did that exactly happen?” he asked sarcastically.
“You idiot, they have always been a thing, but they were both too stupid to realize they were a thing,” Sasha said in a teacher like tone.
“We have not always been a thing,” Trevor said defensively.
“Oh, yes, you have and everyone, including you, knows it. Neither one of you has ever been in a relationship with another person. You both spend almost every waking minute of free time with each other, and you both bicker like an old married couple,” Meagan said as if it was common fact. Trevor opened his mouth in what must have been a comment that would contradict everything she just said, but he closed it. I think deep down he knew what she said was true. I knew it.
“Well I’m glad we got this whole Jerry Springer episode out of the way, but now we should probably get back to work. Not that I am not overjoyed you are alright Soph, but we need to figure out how we are going to store and divide everything we have collected,” Aaron said ending the conversation.
