The Hunter and His Prey

Chapter 1: Couples Trip

The birds chirp wildly in the trees around me, gracing us with their unstructured tune. They are the sovereign of the birds. All the rest have flown south to escape the cold weather that descended upon us a month ago. These elitist birds hide their petite bodies in the abyss of twigs and snow covered branches above us, only letting us hear their melodies as proof they exist. The dense wall of snow above and around us makes it difficult to see anything that isn't on the path we create below our feet in the fresh fallen snow.

The wind traveled through the air swiftly. It danced across our faces before greeting the branches above us with an auditable shake to and fro as it took its new dance partner, releasing a sprinkle of snow flurries upon our capped heads.

More sounds tried to attract my attention, but it was quickly torn from the beauty of nature to my best friend Heather laughing and snorting loudly at something she was watching on her phone.

I turned backwards with a glare to see her and Jeremy looking at something on her phone. Jeremy's arm draped lazily over the her blue puffed jacket covered shoulder. Her laughing making the light blue pom pom of her navy blue hat jiggle back and forth.

"Really," I huffed, making my annoyance known in my tone, my breath billowing out around me exaggerating my point further.

Heather looked up at me and smiled. "Sorry, Vi," and slid her phone back into her coat pocket.

"Weren't you the one who said there is more to life than being glued to your phone. I didn't even bring my phone on this trip. I decided to "immerse" myself in nature ," I said with a hand on my hip after making finger quotes around the word immerse. Words Jeremy had said while being glued to his phone when he had been talking about this trip a week ago.

Jeremy tolled his eyes as the continued up the forest path to me. "Chill Violet.  It's not a big deal.  We haven't even gotten to my secret slopes yet. I promise I'll put it away when we get to the slopes. Scouts honor," he added with a cheesy wink and the crossing of his fingers.

I rolled my eyes in rebuttal, knowing it was a lie. That his phone would be out as we skied and boarded down the hills making some video to post to his "followers". "You were the ones who wanted to take this trip. Let's enjoy nature, they said. It'll be so much fun to stay in a cabin away from it, they said. It'll be an escape from reality, they said. It will be a fun couples trip where we ski, they said," making sure to mock each thing they had said to me a month earlier when we had planned this trip together. The last sentence caused me to pause in my mockery, as it stung leaving my lips.

This was meant to be a couple's trip, yet it was only the three of us now, and I was the third wheel.

A week before our trip my boyfriend Cody of two years decided to become a couple with someone else and leave me for her. Apparently they had been seeing each other the past six months. I had been none the wiser until I went on a girls night out and found him and her cuddled up in a booth at dinner together.

Heather decided we'd still take the trip anyways. That we could make it a girls trip, but here Jeremy was, rubbing it in at ever moment that he was here.

Heather was a great friend and she meant well, but she was a pushover. All Jeremy had to do was say please and her response was yes, of course.

Heather detached herself from Jeremy, noticing the effect my last statement had on me and gave me a hug. She hooked her arm in tightly in mine. We began walking forward down the path again.

"I'm sorry, I won't do it again," she apologized and took her phone out to turn it off for me to see. "There you go. Just you, me, and nature."

Jeremy deliberately coughed behind her causing her to smile and laugh and add on, "And Jeremy."