Abandon (16 page)

Annalise bolted up into a sitting position looking around the room for someplace to hide Cort.  As she did, the force of her movement jolted him unceremoniously off her body.  Unfortunately her room didn’t have an adjoining bathroom like theirs did.  Shaking him furiously with her right hand, she covered his mouth before he woke up.  His eyes opened violently and she put her free finger up to her lip and pointed towards the the door.

The knocking continued at a more frantic pace.  “Annalise, if you’re awake, I want to talk about last night.”

She didn’t respond, but she could see Cort looking around the room for a place to hide.  He was about to move out of the bed towards the closet when the handle began to turn on the door.   Annalise noticed the door was unlocked and she tried to jump out of the bed as quickly as she could, but it seemed like time itself stopped, and every bone in her body began to move in slow motion.  Katy’s head was already peeking around the door and her eyes were peering into the room.  Katy’s eyes locked on something just beyond Annalise and she turned her head to follow Katy’s wide eyed gaze.  Cort was standing on the other side of the bed in nothing but his birthday suit, both hands covering his penis. If it wasn’t such a horrible situation it would almost be comical and Annalise mentally memorized his pose for future reference when all of this blew over.

“Cort... what... why... oh my god...” Katy stuttered, pushing the door open all the way.  There were already tears in her eyes as she continued to speak.  “You didn’t.  You couldn’t.  How could you?”

The need to protect Cort kicked in immediately and Annalise started rambling something unintelligible about how it was her fault, Cort hadn’t wanted to, she had seduced him... but as she threw Cort’s boxers, which had been discarded on the floor by her side of the bed, she noticed that Katy wasn’t paying attention to her at all.  She stopped her rambling and watched Katy and Cort stare at each other.  Neither said anything, they just stared.  Cort hadn’t even attempted to catch the boxers or put them on and they were lying at his feet.  The air hung heavy with the betrayal that Katy was facing, and Cort’s inability to speak.  It was one of the most uncomfortable situations Annalise had ever been in.  

Katy moved first, and with amazing speed.  She turned out of the room and ran straight down the hallway, not even stopping at her own bedroom.  Standing there, Annalise and Cort both heard the sliding glass doors open and slam shut.  Annalise winced at the sound and then collapsed on the bed.  “I’m so sorry Cort,” she began, rubbing her eyes.  This was the last headache they needed.

Cort sat down beside her head very carefully and pulled her hands from her eyes forcing him to look at her.  “I’m not,” he said forcefully.  “I will not apologize for last night.”

Staring at him she felt joy pump through her veins.  His eyes staring intently into hers told her everything she needed to know.  He wasn’t taking back last night, he wanted to be with her.  It crossed her mind for a brief second that she must be one of the most horrible people on the planet; the fact that she was feeling so much joy and happiness at the expense of someone’s feelings wasn’t something she particularly enjoyed.  She grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly.

“I will talk to Katy, I will make her understand, but you’re it for me Annalise.  You’re the one, my survival partner for life.  I can’t pretend it’s anything else anymore and we will find a way to make this work.”

She felt tears start to fill her eyes, and his look changed from intense passion to extreme worry in a heartbeat.  “Oh god, please don’t cry, I didn’t mean to make you cr...”

As he had done to her the night before, she raised her face to his and silenced him with a kiss which was salty from her tears.  “They are good tears,” she whispered against his lips.  “I’ve waited so long to hear you say that Cort, I was beginning to think it would never happen.”  

She wrapped her arms around him, her naked body clinging to him as if she would never let go.  In a way, it made sense.  She had spent days on end out here waiting for him to realize they belonged together, and now that he had voiced the words out loud she was afraid it was just another dream.  Feeling his body against hers, skin to skin, was a way to make sure that this was reality.  He was here, and he was hers.  He nestled his head against her shoulder, breathing softly on her neck.  It was perfection.

Perfection can never last though, and finally Cort broke away from their embrace, reaching for his boxers.  “I should go find Katy,” he said.  “I need to explain to her, make her understand.”

Annalise didn’t think there was a way to make someone understand what had just happened, but she wasn’t willing to deprive Cort of trying.  She understood that somehow he needed Katy to forgive him for his indiscretion, just as she understood it would take Katy a long time, if ever, to fully forgive him.  She reached for her own nightgown, slipping it over her head.  “It’s going to be hard for her to understand Cort, if I was in her shoes I don’t know that I would forgive you.”

Cort sat down on the bed, resigned to the words that Annalise was saying.  “I know ‘Lise, but I have to try.”

“And that’s why I would follow you to the end of the world and back,” she said, kissing him lightly.  “You’re a good man.  Go find her, I’ll start breakfast.”

Cort grabbed her face and kissed her again, a long, lingering kiss that brought chills from her toes to the tip of her head.  When he released her, he looked into her eyes, unmoving.  They were speaking in a silent language that only they understood.  She knew he was searching her soul, looking to make sure that she wasn’t going to run away if he let go of her face.  She reached her hands up to cover his, and stood on her tiptoes, kissing him again.  “I’m not going anywhere Cort.  Go find Katy,” she urged again, pushing him towards the door.

He silently walked from the room to the one he had shared with Katy.  That would have to change, Annalise thought as she picked through her clothes to find something to wear.  There was a lot that was going to change, but it would all be worth it.  

Chapter 22:  Cort

Deep Creek Lake, Western Maryland
December 23, 2012

Stepping into the bedroom he looked around for something to wear.  The clothes he had worn the night before were crumpled in the corner where he had discarded him.  He hadn’t known coming in from the lake the night before with Annalise that this morning would be like this, but he still couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.  He knew Katy would be hurting right now but he would talk to her, and she would move on.  In fact, this might be good for her.  She had been using him for far too long as a crutch.  Perhaps by removing himself she would find her own strength.  

He knew he would have to talk with Kevin, Jenna and Jake about everything.  The group dynamic would shift, and Katy’s anger at Cort and Annalise would require an outlet of some sort.  He expected Jenna would be the most sympathetic to her plight and he made a mental note to get to Jenna as soon as she woke up.

He was five steps from the door, with one boot still needing to be put on when he heard the loud crack and the shrill scream that followed it.  He froze for a second, trying to figure out what he had just heard.  When it finally registered, his body responded as if compelled by some force greater than him.  He was out of the house in less than fifteen steps, and looked out at the scene before him in horror.  There were footprints in the snow leading from the doors to the dock.  Then they led around what he thought was the lake.  If it weren’t for the crack in the ice where he saw Katy’s tiny hands grasping to the ice he wouldn’t have known.  The snow had covered the ice making it blend in seamlessly with the shoreline.

Cort ran towards the lake at breakneck speed.  His mind searched every piece of knowledge he had ever gathered about broken ice.  Movies in his youth of rescue missions in the arctic stuck out in his head.  Scenes of people yelling at each other, saying he would need to find a way to distribute his weight evenly or they both would fall in.  He would have to be on his stomach and rely on his arm strength to pull her up.  Cort wondered what her body weight was, and if he had the ability to pull her out of the water alone.  

Reaching the shoreline he saw Katy’s tiny hands gripping the ice and how it was crumbling beneath her grasp.  Her lips were already starting to turn blue and her head was barely above the water.  He paused for a second and looked back to the house just in time to see Annalise turn from the door and rush up the stairs.  She was probably going to wake up Kevin and Jake.   He got on his stomach in the snow and started crawling towards Katy.  “I’m coming!” he shouted.  “Just hold on!”

He thought Katy’s head bobbed in acknowledgement, but then he saw her hands slowly release the ice.  He crawled even faster towards her sinking body.  It seemed like an eternity before he reached the edge and began checking his weight distribution.  He seemed stable, God he hoped he was stable enough.  If he wasn’t this could become an even stickier situation that it was previously.  He hoped Annalise was rounding everyone up as fast as she could in case he failed.  

He reached his arms into the frigid water, wrapping his hands around Katy’s arms.  The water was so cold it felt like a million needles pricking into his skin which assaulted his brain trying to trick it into releasing Katy and pulling his arms back up into the cold winter air.  It took everything he had inside of him to force his arms to start pulling her up.  He had her half out of the water when he realized she had nothing but a robe on.  The water must have permeated every inch of her body the way it did his arms in amazing speed.  Some part of his brain started to recognize that if she made it through this, it would be a miracle, but he wouldn’t allow himself to concentrate on that.

Annalise and Jenna were on the shoreline, holding onto blankets.  All he had to do was haul Katy the rest of the way out of the water, and get to the blankets.  They could warm her up and she’d be just fine.  He began pulling, exerting an amazing amount of strength he didn’t know he had, until finally her slippers tore free and her entire body was on the ice.   He turned her face up to his and he could see that she wasn’t breathing, her lips a color of deep blue.  He had to start CPR, thin ice be damned.   He tried to remember how to do them from the various classes he had taken over the years, and started with chest compressions.  Katy started to cough up water almost immediately and breathing on her own.  Her eyes still weren’t open, but she could breathe.  That was good enough to move her, it had to be.

He started pulling her body low against the snow and ice until they almost reached the shore.  The ice here would be strong enough to hold both of their weight, and he reached down and scooped her up in his arms.  He was moving as fast as he could, but it didn’t seem fast enough.  He had to get her out of the robe, and into something warm.  Upon reaching the shoreline, Jake appeared at Annalise’s side and immediately moved to begin wrapping Katy in the blankets.

“Stop!” Annalise said, moving between Jake and Katy’s body.  “You need to get her out of the robe first.  All the blankets in the world aren’t going to help if she’s still in that wet robe.”

Annalise began peeling off the robe with the ease only a female could have in this situation.  Kevin and Jake immediately turned their heads away when Katy’s breasts became apparent to them.  It was silly, Cort thought, because modesty was probably the last thing Katy would care about in this instance.  Jenna grabbed the blankets out of Jake’s hands and began wrapping the parts of Katy up that Annalise exposed until she was a barely recognizable bundle in his arms.  He was about to start moving toward the house when Jake reached over and pulled Katy out of his arms.

“I’ll take her,” he said already starting towards the house.  

Cort stood in a stunned silence, watching Jake run with Katy to the sliding glass doors that would provide her the warmth she so desperately needed.  Jenna began wrapping Cort’s arms in the remainder of the blankets and began ushering him towards the house.  This must be what shock was, he thought as he let Jenna’s gentle hands propel his body forward.

He couldn’t help but imagine what the last half an hour had been like for Katy.  She had been confronted with a horrible betrayal and gone out into the elements barely wearing anything.  She had probably been crying, and she probably didn’t even notice she was out on the ice.  She must have been terrified when she heard the crack and began to fall through the ice.  And it was all his fault.  Everything that happened to her from this point on, if she lived or died would be on his head.  Cort felt the guilt settle over him and he shuddered.

“You should get in a warm shower Cort, we’ll take care of Katy,” Jenna said as they reached the house.

Cort nodded and stepped inside walking towards the bedroom that he and Katy had shared.  She was on the bed, with Jake and Kevin trying anyway they knew how to warm her up.  He walked past them, not saying a word, to the bathroom they had shared and turned on the shower.  He didn’t even strip off his clothes before he stepped inside, letting the warm water run over his body.