Love, Blood and Wilderness | YELLOWJACKETS

Chapter 8

Ben instructed Nat and Travis to search for animal tracks, as well as scratches on the trees that could've been caused by antlers from a deer. He also said to look for holes under trees to hunt for rabbits and foxes, which a lot of girls didn't agree with, but the noises in their stomachs were a lot louder than the thoughts in their heads.

    Nat and Travis wandered off together in the woods and something stirred within me. Something that I forced myself to ignore because I was the one who said that my feelings wouldn't change for Lottie, and they won't.

But I didn't realize that just because I said that didn't mean that my feelings for Nat could change as well.

    We hiked behind the cabin, trailing to find anything that could be of use to us. Ben told us maybe the dead cabin guy had another shelter or shed that could have a phone line or other tools or something.

I walked beside Lottie, who was silent, staring at the trees around her. I didn't like not talking to her, her presence was the only thing that gave me any sense of comfort.

I had so much blind faith in Lottie, she could do anything at all and I knew that I'd be safe.

    "Hey," I mentioned, "remember the time I tried to convince you that we should go camping? So we made a plan to go to a camping ground and I showed up at your door with an old tent and you had a furnished RV waiting in your driveway? I didn't even know you owned it."

    She giggled, "I hate tents, and sleeping on the ground was just not appealing to me."

    "I had to drive the RV all the way to the campground because you didn't know how to."

    "I suck at driving," she claimed.

    "Oh I know," I laughed. She offered me a warm look of gratitude and relief. I was so entranced with Lottie Matthews, everything about her just switched a light on inside of me. I loved her more than it was possible for someone to love a person, in every way possible.

    Once we got a little further in the woods, everyone started to inspect trees and bushes, looking for berries.

    "Are any of these, like, maple syrup trees?"
    "What?"

    "I don't know."

    Luckily, we ran across some berry bushes and began to pick them, not even bothering to inspect them.

    "Don't eat that kind! It's poisonous," Akilah exclaimed, knocking the berries out of our hands.

    "Like, "kill you" poisonous, or like, "trip your balls off" poisonous?"

"What? I don't know, My Girl Scout troop leader didn't get all that specific about it."

The girls were determining what plants were safe to eat and which ones weren't, Taissa pointing at different ones to Akilah who was governing whether or not they were safe, and she was oddly good at it.

    To be honest, if I had no one out here telling me which plants were edible and which ones weren't, I'd probably keep eating them even if I was foaming at the mouth.

Lottie laid her head on top of mine and I leaned into her shoulder. We were all so tired, so nutrient derived that our bodies were exhausted.

    No one wanted to admit it, but it was true.

"Uh, guys...," Jackie alerted us from afar.

"What? What?"

"Jackie? What is it?"

"Guys!" She exclaimed and started laughing, pushing away vines and leaves as we caught up to her.

"Look! Holy shit."