Natural Disaster

Chapter 6

She was shaken awake, a low, low voice calling her name and she instinctually punched the air above her, smacking her assailant in the face, who jerked back and groaned. Launa bolted upright, not entirely awake but ready to defend herself, raising her fists to defend and attack. “Whozerr?” she slurred, shaking her head to clear it of sleep, “Oh.”

Avi sat in the dirt by her feet, holding his cheek in his hand and glaring up at her. “You’re welcome.” He spat, angrily.

Her wits snapped back as she awoke fully and she knelt next to him, panicking. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry,” she was flustered and embarrassed, “Are you okay? I’m so sorry!”

He shook his head and waved her away. “I’m fine,” he assured her, “I was just trying to wake you up. You sounded upset.”

Launa buried her face in her hands. This day was not going to go well, she could feel it. “I think I might have been having a bad dream. Gods, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to punch you.” She apologize once more to be sure.

"Don’t worry about it," Avi ran his hand over his face for a moment, "Good morning."

She shrunk in embarrassment.

______

After the eventful morning, or early noon, rather, they quickly ate breakfast and started off down the side of the river. They had woken up late, which she suspected had to do with the copious amounts of adrenaline that had been dumped into their systems the previous evening when the second earthquake hit. She didn’t mind sleeping in, but it had cut into their travel time, and Avi was grumpy.

Of all the things she had learned about them in their four days together, she found that there were two things about him that she didn’t like: First, that he didn’t like coffee, which was a sin in and of itself, in her opinion. And second, she didn’t like him when he was cranky. Goddamn the man could be bitchy. She tried to start a conversation and he quickly shut it down with a grunted reply.

Three hours into the day, she couldn’t handle it , anymore. “What the hell,” she snapped, “has got your panties in a twist?”

He stopped short and whirled to glare at her. “Excuse me?”

"What. The. Hell. Has. Got. Your. Panties. In. A. Twist?” She articulated each word, far angrier than she had meant to be, but found her temper flaring.

Avi huffed. “I hadn’t wanted to start so late in the day,” he stated, calmly, but there was an undertone of anger, “but, we did. I’m just annoyed.”

"Annoyed?"

"Yeah," he snapped, raising his voice as he turned and started walking, again, "Annoyed.”

Launa stormed forward to walk in-step with him. “Look, I know that I’m the reason we started late,” she said, pulling angrily at the strap of her bag, “but, you don’t need to be rude to me.”

"Says the woman who asked me what had ‘my panties in a twist’." He didn’t look at her.

She glared at him and clenched her fists, walking faster to be ahead of him. She seethed. She hated being made to feel guilty. She knew he wanted to get home- hell, she did, too- and she knew that she’d been a hindrance, this morning. Everyone makes mistakes, and I get it. I’d be annoyed, too, but I wouldn’t start taking it out on him unless he’d done it, to me, several times. We lost a couple of hours, big fucking deal. Shit stain.

______

Launa refused to speak to him for the rest of the day and through the evening, not caring if she was being childish. It wasn’t as though he had tried to speak to her, again. She was starting to wonder if this had been a bad idea- travelling with him. No, she thought as she laid down, her back to him, I would’ve had to have made it out of the building faster in order to have changed this, at all, and I took the time to grab supplies. I am obviously meant to be here.