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JENNA
I stare at the empty space only seconds before occupied by Carter. The memory of his hard blue stare hangs in the air.
I try to align the angry guy to the person I’ve dated for six months. I almost don’t recognize him, and not because he shaved off his beard and hacked his hair. He’s never looked at me the way he did just now.
I have royally fucked up. How can I fix things if he won’t even look at me?
Heart aching, I decide the best thing I can do is keep myself busy. It’s time to start stockpiling supplies and organizing them. I’m sure there’s a scientific ratio to figure out how much food is needed to feed the seven of us, but I’ll worry about that later.
I head to the dorm suite we cleared yesterday. Between that one and the partially burned one, I have two rooms guaranteed to be zombie free. Maybe when everyone sees what I’m doing, it will be easier to enlist help for the clearance of other rooms.
I dive into the nearest cabinet and pull out food. It’s a jumbled mix of refried beans, mashed potato flakes, cereal, and boxed cake mixes.
Eric will like the cake mixes. He’s good at making cakes on the barbecue, even if we don’t have eggs. He—
I stop, reaching back into the cabinet. My hand emerges with a bag of Carter’s favorite granola. Cinnamon apple from Granny’s Kitchen. Imagining him smiling at me as I hand him the bag, I hug it to me.
Against my better judgment, I go to the window that overlooks the back of the dorm. Peering through the slits of the cheap metal blinds, I see Carter and Kate with paint brushes and a can of blue paint.
It’s a gorgeous robin’s egg blue paint that I picked especially for our Ultra Brew logo.
It should be me down there painting with him, not Kate. Hell, we should be working on beer recipes, not preparing to survive the zombie outbreak. Life is shit like that, I guess.
“It’s you,” Reed says, wandering into the room. He grips a joint between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. He’s shaped his afro into three mini mushroom plumes, each going in a different direction on top of his head. It’s the first time I realized hair could be multidirectional.
“I thought I heard a mouse in here,” he says.
“Really, Reed?” I gesture at the joint. “It’s not even ten in the morning.”
“Best breakfast a guy could ask for. What are you doing?” He flops onto the sofa, pulling a blanket around his shoulders.
“What does it look like I’m doing? It’s not like we can run to the grocery store and get food anytime we want. I’m going through all the kitchens in the building and organizing the supplies.”
“Jeez. Someone is testy this morning. But don’t worry, I get it.”
Thinking he’s making some stupid PMS joke, I whirl on him. “You get what?”
He takes a puff off his joint. “You and Carter got in a fight.”
I turn my back on Reed, not wanting him to see how upset I am. I move onto the next cabinet, which contains pots and pans. I slam the door and move onto the next cabinet.
“You want a hit?” Reed holds out the joint. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“No.” I fling open the cabinet. This one has a mishmash of stuff, everything from half-open rice bags, to trail mix, to crackers.
“You know what would make me feel better?” I say.
“What?” He blows two smoke rings.
“If you would help me.”
He wrinkles his nose. “I’m allergic to work. Besides, I promised to share my joint with Eric. Will you keep an eye out for pot while you’re cleaning? We’re down to the last few grams.”
And then he leaves.
Just leaves.
A scream of frustration builds in my throat. I’m trying to make sure we don’t starve to death, and all he can think about is weed. What would he say if I refused to share any of the food I gathered? That would get him off his lazy ass.
I don’t have it in me to pick a fight. The last thing I need is an argument with two people in the dorm.
This is not the first time I’ve pissed off a boy.
There was the football jock who lost his shit when I refused to shave my armpits, but I’d been hoping for that reaction. It was the only way to get out of the prom date my mother had coerced me into.
There was the journalism boy who had me fooled into thinking he was sweet. Then he went through my underwear drawer and posted pictures of my bras and panties on Instagram. That earned him a hole in the radiator of his car.
There was the rich dumb kid my mom bribed me to go out with because his dad was some fancy corporate lawyer. I should have known better. That asshole only wanted to take me to the restaurant where his ex worked to make her jealous. The prick got a pitcher of water dumped on his head. The new pair of track shoes I received for the ordeal had been worth it.
So yeah, I’m no stranger to having guys pissed at me.
But this is the first time I’ve hurt someone I care about.
It takes me several hours, but I finally have every scrap of food pulled from the kitchen and organized on the floor and table. There are groups of grains, pastas, canned vegetables, canned and dried fruit, desserts, and other snackables like granola bars, crackers, and chips.
I pick up the bag of cinnamon-apple granola, again hugging it to my chest. I peek out the window. Carter and Kate are still working on the van.
Maybe Carter is cooled off by now. Maybe the granola will make an effective peace offering. He must be hungry by now, right? It’s lunchtime, after all.
Steeling myself, I grab two energy bars and the bag of granola. I head outside to Skip, determined to make things right with my boyfriend.