Save the Date (Complete)

Chapter 30

"IT'S KIND OF DARK HERE." Elijah said, coming up behind May as she sat in the black woods.

"I got lost." May managed to hide the true fear out of her voice.

"Come on. I'll take you back."

"Thanks," May accepted the hand that was held down for her, and she felt Elijah pull her to her feet. Her leg was nearly immobile, but she started to hobble next to Elijah instead of taking the time to work out the muscles in her leg.

As the silence stretched out, May finally spoke. "I'm sorry for how the camping trip turned out. I don't think you were expecting Matthew and Jamie to show up."

"I have to admit, I was kind of mad that Matt came in and stole you away. But the camping trip was still a good get-away from New York."

"Camping is the worst form of entertainment, Elijah."

"Not all the time. Sometimes it doesn't rain and if you camp up north by Minnesota in the middle of the winter, there aren't any bugs around."

May smiled. "That sounds heavenly. No bugs."

"But the temperature is always below zero."

"Oh." Her face dropped at that. Perhaps exchanging bugs for freezing cold wasn't the best option. "Oh, well, I guess camping is just never going to be my forte."

Elijah brought her to the camp. Matthew wasn't there, but Jamie stood up the moment the two walked into the campsite. "Where were you, May? Matt is madder than a hornet waiting for you. Now he's out there looking for you. What were you thinking?"

"I got lost."

"Why did you send Shilo back? You were supposed to keep the dog with you."

May glanced from one man to another. "I didn't send Shilo here. He just took off and didn't come back. By the time I tried to follow him. He was long gone. That's how I ended up lost."

Jamie saw May's face for the first time as she stepped closer to the firelight. She was pale and her hands, which she held clenched in front of her, were shaking. Her leg was stiff despite the walk with Elijah, and she barely put any pressure on her left foot.

"It's okay now, May." Jamie turned his reprimand into a softer talk. "Matt has Shilo, and he'll be back in a little bit."

"Where did he go?"

Jamie looked a little surprised with the question. "To look for you. May, it got dark out almost an hour ago. I mean really dark out. Matt was anxious for you to get back as dusk fell. When Shilo came out of the woods, Matt finally relaxed, until you didn't come with him. Finally, when you weren't back when evening came, he went out to look for you."

May nodded her head. "I'm going to sleep. Sorry for making you worry."

The moment she turned towards the tent she let the tears, caused by her leg and the fear from being lost in the woods, fall unheeded. She walked to the tent careful of the amount of pressure she put on her leg. But some couldn't be helped.

"May," Jamie called from the fire, "did you hurt your leg out there?"

May fell to the ground, three feet shy of the tent. A cry was ripped out of her mouth before she was able to silence it. Immediately she felt hands picking her up. The hands were slightly familiar, and she saw Jamie's face above her.

"May, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." May tried to push herself away from Jamie, but he held her close to his chest.

"How did you hurt your leg?"

"It's nothing, Jamie. I just need to lay down." May pleaded, "Jamie, please just let me lay down. I'll be fine. I didn't hurt my leg."

Jamie angrily put May down. "I'm going to tell Matt about your leg."

"There's nothing wrong with it. Matt won't get mad." May managed to walk on her leg the rest of the way to the tent, wanting to scream in pain with each step. She wasn't sure how she made it into the tent, but she managed to get it zipped up and found her way into her sleeping bag before turning her head into the pillow and crying.

Half an hour later, Jamie looked into the darkness. "May's back, Matt."

Matthew cursed as the weight lifted off his shoulders. "Is she okay?"

"She got lost," Elijah put in.

"Matt, there's something wrong with her leg, but she wouldn't let me see it." Jamie gave the information and was expecting a blow up. But Matthew only nodded.

"Where is she?"

Jamie pointed to the tent.

"Thanks. She'll be okay, Jamie, her leg does this every once in a while." Matthew eased the stress he saw on his brother's face.

He slipped into the tent. Using the soft light from the flashlight he could see that May had cried herself to sleep. She was curled in a ball, her hand resting on her leg. She had fallen asleep without changing out of her clothes. Her jeans were going to pose a problem as he tried to fix her leg.

He had two choices. He could leave her in pain or he could take off her pants. Pain was not an option. He reached for her pants and saw May's eyes flash open. He saw no pain. The only thing he saw was fear. Fear of him.

"May, it's just me," Matthew said as he realized that it was dark enough in the tent that she might not know who he was. But the fear didn't go away and this time it was accompanied by tears. She tried to move away from him, but her leg wouldn't cooperate. "May, I'm going to help you. Hold on." Matthew reached for the button on her jeans again.

"Please, don't." The tears choked most of the words out of her throat. "Please, don't rape me."

Matthew froze and moved away from May. He said nothing to the distraught woman lying on the ground. He was too angry to say anything. Angry that May would even think that he was trying to rape her. Matthew left the tent without saying a word. He silently told Shilo to enter the tent, ordered Jamie to watch the campsite, and then left for the river.

Once there, Matthew stripped off his shirt and dove into the stream. The cold water did nothing to soothe the anger that permeated his blood stream. He swam until his arms were tired, and he could no longer feel his body as the cold of the stream had attacked it.

His mind, during the swim rested only on May and why she was afraid of him. Her only fears he knew of were bugs and the dark. Now she was afraid he was going to rape her. He frantically searched back to where she would have gotten that fear. The one thing he hoped, besides that it hadn't come from actual experience, was that it hadn't come from him.

With no answers and only more questions Matthew came back to the camp nearly four hours later. Only Jamie was up tending to the fire that didn't need it.

"You want to talk," he asked Matthew quietly, as he tossed him a dry pair of pants.

"Not really." Matthew pulled the pants on and sat next to the fire.

Jamie remained quiet for a few moments before speaking again. "You have to remember that she was in a lot of pain. Whatever she said the pain probably caused it."

"Not this time, Jamie. This time it was my fault. Sorry for making you come out here on your leave."

The pain that Matthew was going through had to be pretty bad for him to apologize. Jamie watched his brother trying to figure out what was going on inside his head.

"Did she tell you what happened to her leg?" Jamie began to pry into what was eating away at his eldest brother.

"I know what happened." Matthew lay on the ground and rested his head on the log.

"You're not sleeping in the tent tonight? Matt, what happened?"

"Nothing. Get some sleep, we leave tomorrow." Matthew closed his eyes and his brother recognized the fact that Matthew had shut him out. Satisfied that his brother was going to be okay eventually; Jamie left the fire to be attended by him and crawled into his own tent.

Matthew waited until he heard the tent zip shut before opening his eyes and staring at the cloudless sky above him.