Playlist for the Apocalypse

Chapter 20: Bridge Over Troubled Waters

She pushed the intrusive thought from her head. She should not have been thinking it. Jonathan suddenly winced in pain and Evelyn's eyes went wide with concern.

"Where?"

"No, it's fine." He said, gathering the shirt in his lap and then moving a hand to clutch at the bruised bare skin at his midsection.

"Guess the ribs are still healing, huh?" Evelyn said, trying hard not to stare.

He nodded.

"I think I'm too stubborn to die." He quipped.

She could tell he was trying to make her laugh, but she simply leaned forward to clean the wound with a small flask of alcohol and a cloth she'd dug up from the backpack. After she'd dampened the cloth with the drink, she handed him the flask and he taken a sip as she got to work.

"Do you want some?" He asked, holding the flask out to her as she finished taping the gauze in place.

"No... thank you, I'm fine." She said, tucking the supplies back into the backpack. This was good. Normal. She just needed to focus on other things.

"Evelyn. You, okay?"

"I'm fine." She repeated. Did she not seem fine? She grabbed the flask from him and threw it into the bag perhaps a bit more forcefully than she'd intended. His expression was as indecipherable as ever.

"Dammit, it's still bleeding," she said in frustration as she looked back up at him and noticed the blood soaking through the fresh bandages she'd just finished, "Where did I just put those? I just had it."

"Evelyn."

"I said I'm fine." She snapped, "Oh, here it is, okay, hold still—" She said, snatching the bandages out of the bag again and stretching it out to cover his shoulder.

"Evie." He said gently, "Stop."

She stopped. Her hands were shaking. She could feel his eyes watching her, but she knew she couldn't meet his gaze because she knew if she did, she wouldn't be able to keep herself composed.

"You are not fine." He repeated her words back to her, "You don't have to talk about it or deal with it if you aren't ready, but it's okay that you are not fine right now."

He placed his hands on top of hers, stilling them. His hands were large enough to cover hers completely. They were marred with signs of hard work. There was the trauma of life in the apocalypse and weather-related eczema, but she'd never noticed before that there was an odd little scar above his knuckle like the nick from a thorn and the thickened calloused skin that only comes from wielding a spade or trowel in the garden. It was something she recognized because that was the way her Popo's hands were too.

"I'm sorry for putting you in danger," she said, still unable to meet his eyes. "I'll stop now."

"Stop what?"

"Stop all of this." She said, pulling her hands away from his to gesture vaguely at him, her, and their general surroundings, "None of this would've happened, if I'd just listened to you and stayed put."

"Look, Evie, I—"

"No, I'm telling you that you were right. You find the first place that seems somewhat safe and you lockdown. I don't know who I thought I was leaving the bunker in the first place, thinking I could go on this whole adventure and find my family—I don't even know if they are still out there and now I've lost the one clue I had for finding them so now it's probably impossible—"

"But—"

"And if I hadn't left the bunker then, Adam—" Her voice caught on his name and she wasn't able to finish her sentence. It wasn't tears that came just a hollow, numb feeling. Guilt.