Common Ground (The Common Ground Trilogy Book 1) (35 page)

“That may have been boring, but you can’t possibly tell me this place is!” she exclaimed, picking up the last of her gear, a small grill and some charcoal. “This has to remind you guys of home, right?”

“Yeah, minus the snow,” I joked.

“Well, the campsite is a little bit of a hike up this trail,” she laughed, nodding towards a small opening in the dense forest that surrounded us. “Why don’t you guys grab your stuff and follow me, everyone else should be up there.”

Annie leaned against the car with her arms folded while Hope and Steph passed. Steph gave her a half smile when she passed, but Annie’s gaze was focused on the dark forest we were about to enter. The moment Hope and Steph were out of sight, Annie walked towards the trunk, which she threw open in anger and started throwing bags out onto the forest floor. With each bag that was thrown out, Annie mumbled insult after insult under her breath.

“Stupid bitch thinks she’s the center of the world,” she said after tossing my duffle bag to the ground.

“Always has to know what’s going on in other people’s lives,” she muttered as her backpack was the next victim.

“You alright?” I asked, approaching her with caution. Annie was emotionally unstable at best, and I knew the slightest, most innocent question could be construed as an attack.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Why?” she asked, slamming the trunk door closed.

“I just heard you ranting, so I thought I’d see what’s up,” I said.

“You heard that?” she replied, sounding mystified.

“Yeah, you said it pretty loudly,” I chuckled. “Are you sure you can handle this?”

“Well we’re not heading back now. I didn’t come all the way up here only to turn around and go home.”

“Okay, I just had to check,” I said. “But we should probably get moving, they’ve got a pretty good head start on us. You’re positive that you’ll be okay?”

Annie just smiled her beautiful, wide, warm smile and started to pick up some bags. It was one of the few, rare times her smile had come out since Thanksgiving. Any worries about Liam being there seemed to melt away with the warmth of her smile. The last thing I wanted to do was to bring him up, especially when she seemed to be calming down a bit. If he really was there, I decided to just deal with it when it happened.

“We had better catch up, I’d hate to get lost out here,” Annie said, lifting Hope’s bag into her right hand. I threw my backpack over my shoulders, returned her smile with one of my own, and followed her into the darkness of the trees.

Steph and Hope must have been walking at a breakneck speed because we had lost them in the trees. We followed the trail for about ten minutes before we reached a spot where it broke off into two separate trails. Annie stood on the spot and her eyes gazed back and forth between each trail.

“Hope?” I yelled out into the trees. “Steph?”

There was no answer. Frustrated, I pulled out the map and tried to figure out where exactly we were supposed to go. Annie dropped Hope’s and her bags and waited patiently while I scanned the map with my finger and traced our path from the car. My eyes wandered up the map, and noticed the ranger station resting to the west of where we were. Knowing our site was directly east of the station, I chose to go right.

After another five minutes, the path reached an end point and we stood at the brink of a wide opening which was our campsite. Five relatively large tents were spiked into the ground around the camp, and in the middle was the “living area”. Four large, thick logs were resting around a fire pit, which was full of black ash. A cooler and the grill Steph was carrying were resting behind one of the logs. While my eyes studied the layout, Chase and Tyler came bounding towards us from their tent.

“It’s ‘bout time!” Tyler beamed, stopping on a dime right in front of us.

“Yeah, no joke,” Chase chimed in next to him. Both guys were smiling widely.

“Can we help you with those?” Tyler said, leaning down and grabbing all three of our bags.

“We were going to camp outside, we don’t have a tent,” Annie started to say.

“We actually set one up for you guys right over there,” Chase said, jerking his head to the right. Tyler carried our bags over and put them inside the largest tent of the group. It must have stood over seven feet high and looked wider than our bathroom at campus. Annie and I walked slowly towards the center of the campsite, both of our mouths hanging slightly open in shock.

“Damien said that Liam put an extra one in his truck because he knew you didn’t have one, so we set it up for you,” Tyler said, emerging from our tent without the bags.

I looked over at Annie to gage her reaction.

“So, is he here?” she asked cautiously.

“No, he couldn’t make it,” a familiar voice said from behind us.

I turned on the spot and was almost face to face with Damien’s lanky frame. My eyes rested on his face which was spread into a malicious grin. “Too bad too, I’m sure he would have had an awesome time out here,” he finished, glancing over at Annie.

I could feel my blood start to boil at the absolute carelessness in his voice. There was no doubt he knew all about Liam and Annie, and to have the audacity to be so heartless in front of her made me want to punch him right in the face. I then glanced over at Annie, who looked solemn. Instead of fighting back, she shuffled her way slowly towards our tent and out of sight.

“Dude, you really need to quit sneaking up on us,” Chase said, grabbing his chest.

“Sorry bro,” Damien said casually. “Anyway, Steph, Hope and I are headed towards the lake, anyone want to roll? We’re going to meet the others down there.”

Tyler and Chase just shrugged their shoulders. “Got nothing better to do,” Tyler said. “I’ll go grab some booze before we head out.”

“Not much else to do around here besides get plastered,” Chase added lazily.  He plopped down on one of the logs around the fire pit, waiting for Tyler. 

Damien then stared at me and waited. After his rude and inappropriate comments, there was no way I’d put Annie in a position to deal with him anymore. On top of that, Annie would have killed me if I’d agree to go on a hike with Steph.

“Sorry, but I think we’re going to get settled here,” I said shortly.

“Are you guys sure? I think you’ll really like it,” he added hopefully.

“No, we’re both pretty tired. We’re going to take a nap while you guys are gone.”

Without another word, I turned on the spot and headed into the tent, ready to spend the next few hours being Annie’s sounding board.

There was something about a picture perfect, beautiful sunset that always lightened my mood. The magnificent image of the sun setting behind snow capped mountains pushed all of Annie’s drama from my mind, even if it was for just a minute. The brilliant mix of purple, red and orange in the sky reminded me of a painters easel, where many colors combine to make a masterpiece of art.

A pleasantly crisp wind blew through my hair while I stood at the edge of the campsite and stared at one of the mountain peaks.

“Aren’t you freezing?” Steph’s surprising voice came from behind me.

I spun around, grabbing my chest.

“Geez Steph! You could have warned me,” I panted.

“Sorry,” she half smiled. “I just wanted to check if you needed a jacket. It’s pretty cold out here and you’re only wearing your sweatshirt.”

“Oh,” I stammered, when she stopped at my side. I hadn’t really noticed but outside of the light grey sweatshirt and worn down jeans, my body wasn’t really protected from the bitter chill that was apparently in the air. If Steph hadn’t said anything, I would have thought it was a perfect 70 degrees outside.

“A little bit, yeah,” was all I could say. “It’s not bad here in the sunlight.”

She eyed me for a second, somewhat skeptically and then started shaking her head. “You’re so weird Zoe, it’s freaking freezing out here!” she said with a slight chattering of her teeth. I looked her up and down for a moment before releasing a small giggle.

“What are you wearing? How many layers do you have on?”

Steph was bundled up in a heavy ski jacket, thick ski gloves and at least a combination of three sweatpants. Her normally athletically toned frame seemed to balloon in size from all of the clothes. Her face was almost completely covered by her hood jacket and a thick scarf.

“Just a few,” she said defensively. “What are you doing over here anyway?”

“Oh, just enjoying the view,” was the best I could come up with.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Steph said, with a slight frown. The tone of her voice was sad, as though something was missing from the trip.

“Is everything alright?” I asked.

“It’s Annie,” Steph muttered in a heartbeat. “I just don’t know what I did. She got so mad at me yesterday, and all I did was ask about Liam. Damien didn’t tell me what had happened so I was in the dark on it. Why’d she have to bite my head off?”

“You don’t know Annie like I do,” I said. “Everyone has their things. Mine is school, yours is exercise and Annie’s is guys. Liam was her first love, and he just dumped her with no explanation. She can get way too emotional, but it’s her thing. It will take some time for her to cool off.”

Steph stared back at the campsite for a second, and I turned with her to see what she was looking for. Annie was sitting on one of the logs by the campfire, absentmindedly poking at the wood in the fire with a stick. Steph turned back to me after a moment of watching her.

“Could you talk to her for me?” she asked hopefully.  “I don’t know what else to do Zoe. Every time I come within ten feet of her, it’s as though I’m invisible. She’s been one of my best friends this semester, and I just hate having her mad at me. ”

I felt a lot of pity for her. It was the first time I had ever seen Steph so subdued and sad. It was actually quite depressing. Her normal flare and energy seemed to have been replaced by sadness.

“I don’t really know what I can do,” I started to say.

“She listens to you Zoe. We all know your opinion is the most important to her. Could you at least try?” she begged.

“Sure, I guess I can talk to her,” I replied.

Steph’s eyes lit up. She leaped towards me and pulled me into a rather powerful hug. “Oh thank you Zoe! You’re the best! I owe you one.”

I gave her a reassuring pat on the back. “Don’t worry about it,” I smiled back.

Steph then gave me one final smile and swept back towards the camp, with what looked more like a skip than a walk.

I stood in awe for a moment and finally looked back towards the mountain. The sun had fully set and darkness started to creep over the peaks. Even though Steph’s energy was amusing, I still felt uncomfortable. For some reason, my mood seemed to darken with the rapidly approaching night. Annie’s emotional state was like a teeter totter, and if she wasn’t ready to forgive Steph for her innocent queries, then my efforts would potentially get her and I back on rocky ground. On top of that, I was still uneasy over Annie’s safety and being out in the middle of the woods with no help made matters worse.

“Zoe!” I heard Annie yell from behind me.

I turned on the spot and saw her standing with a plate full of food next to the log. She motioned for me to come join her with a wave of her hand, and carrying all of my worries and fears with me, I headed off to dinner.

The campfire was ablaze and added a comforting light to the rapidly impeding darkness. Tyler, Chase and their two dates, Jaime and Audrey, were huddled close together on the log to our left. Sean and Emily were cuddling tightly to our right, while Damien and Steph were directly across the fire from us. It was an eerie scene to watch the two of them through the fire because it enhanced Damien’s creepiness.  Hope, Annie and I shared a log, but were not as closely attached as the rest of the party. The steaks that Sean and Chase grilled up were extremely tasty, and while everyone else enjoyed some type of alcohol, my bottle of water complemented the meal perfectly.

Dinner went on for hours. There were conversations going on all over the place, most of which were coming from the other logs. Annie, who was still not happy, sat and stared at the fire for a majority of the time, only responding to comments from others with either a half smile or an almost inaudible chuckle. Hope was, well, Hope. She just gazed off innocently into the trees, and nobody really paid her much attention. Since I was also more of the quiet type, nobody really bothered including me in their conversations. Every now and then, Steph’s and my eyes would meet through the fire and she would give me an encouraging nod and turn back to a conversation with someone else. To make matters worse, there was an abnormal amount of alcohol scattered around the campsite. Tyler, Chase and their dates had been drunk for hours, and were more often than not singing random songs or theorizing about the stars instead of talking to everyone else. Damien and Steph, who had both been drinking, seemed to appear rather sober while they engaged in deep conversation with Sean and Emily.

As the night wore on, and most of the beer bottles were emptied, each person, or couple for that matter, started to head off towards their own tents. One by one, they stumbled towards their tents until it was just our log and Damien and Steph huddled around the campfire.