Ripped and Stitched

35: Uncovered

After Alison stopped crying, the four of them walked back to the cabin in silence. No one was quite ready to go home yet, and the three friends still had questions for Alison. Nothing was going to get resolved until morning though.

"There's two bedrooms," Alison said, her voice a bit hoarse still.

Everyone looked between each other. If this had been the situation a year ago, they would have known at once who was sleeping with who. However so much had changed and no one was quite comfortable sleeping in the same room as anyone else.

"There's a couch in the office," Max pointed out quietly.

"And a couch here," Brady said, nodding to the couch in the living room they were standing in.

"Boys should sleep on the couches then," Julia decided.

"There's some extra clothes and blankets in the laundry room," Alison whispered before retreating to the bedroom in the back.

Everyone else looked at one another and then slowly Max went to the office and Julia went into the other bedroom. Brady went to get a blanket and then laid down on the couch. Tomorrow they would all talk and come hell or high water they were going to resolve things.

***

"So, how are the eggs?" Julia asked, hopefully.

Things were still a little tense between everyone. In the morning, Max was grumpy from being too tall and the couch in the office being too small. Brady was tired from not being able to sleep at all, his nightmares were more frequent these days. Julia was a little too concerned over everyone's well-being and Alison, well Alison was back to her normal self. As if she had not been sobbing in Julia's arms the day before.

Alison looked up meekly from her plate of eggs that she had taken exactly one bite of. She didn't really want to tell Julia that she had somehow messed up a dish that requires quite literally one main ingredient.

"Good," Alison said in a tiny voice.

Brady and Max both looked up at her from across the kitchen table. She gave them a pointed look and they mumbled praises as well. Content, Julia happily sat down and took a sip of her coffee. Perhaps this was some test of their friendship, would good friends be honest and tell her the eggs were terrible or suck it up and pretend for her sake? Alison didn't know which to do which felt appropriate given her tumultuous relationship with Julia anyway.

"So, you were talking to Kiera too?" Brady asked Alison as he ate his eggs, clearly trying to act unbothered by the burnt taste or lack of seasoning.

Alison shrugged. "She emailed me a few times."

"Were you going to see her?" Brady asked.

Alison raised an eyebrow. "Why would I?"

"She wrote to you, she said she was thinking of ending it all," Brady said quietly.

"I know. I saw that, is she dead?" Alison asked curiously.

Brady nodded woefully.

"Sucks for her," Alison said indifferently.

"You don't care?" Brady questioned.

Julia and Max glanced at each other nervously. Brady and Alison may have become closer during their time in captivity, but they were fundamentally different people. Brady was empathic, he always had been. Alison however, had learned to be apathetic. When you're hurt time and time again, you learn to stop feeling for others.

"I have a question for you," Max said, changing the subject. "How did Oliver get involved in you disappearing?"

Alison looked up at Max. She seemed surprised, and ever so slightly worried. "Did he say something?" she asked.