Wildfire: The underdog

Chapter 30: "And he is all you have."

Day 200

A force dragged the hook in one brusque line, making the canoe teeter as Heath chanted for me to reel it in.

The pole bent at a dangerous angle, inching closer to snap with each counterclockwise rotation. I followed Heath and his twenty-plus years in how to catch the big kahuna he mastered well. Breathe steadily, tug necessarily, not too forceful, but not slow enough for the prey to unmangle the earthworm from its hook.

Once the surface began to boil in bubbles, I knew my patience was worth the effort. A glimpse of a dirty green blubbering at the end of the string attempted to struggle itself from the bait.

And before either of us knew it, a black bass the size and weight of a boombox player added its pounds onto the canoe, ensuring a meaty supper that'll last about a week.

"Well, I'll be damned," Heath said, snagging my prize from the floorboard and locking the struggling creature into the ice box, making the prop ricochet with each flop.

I'd caught my fair share of trophies back with Paul—small fry, even land critters that no one ate. But this one was my best catch. (So far) And I couldn't be any more proud.

It distracted me from Jonah, of how it's been two days since we spoke.

We exchanged a few words yesterday, but it was more like fillers—times when it was obligatory, like when Mark asked me to announce dinner time or whenever Jonah and Heath were out hunting in the woods. It always felt like we purposefully excluded each other by having extended conversations with Mark and Heath, exchanging one or two sentences.

Pretending to be unbothered became a pathetic, repeated form of self-defense. A mechanism that was supposed to convert me into someone levelheaded. Someone who had faith in our titanium-like friendship that would not be hindered by how negatively we felt toward each other. But then the anxieties began—a foreboding much more tenacious than the fear of Jonah casting me away because my coldness was too noticeable for Mark and Heath to ignore. Jonah was reasonably upset about what I'd said. But how severe was it? Was the anger too unbearable for Jonah to reciprocate my apologies toward him?

This pestering stress simmered in the back of my head, hating the liability sensation that bore within.

My anguish led me to make an excuse to leave the cabin. With Heath, a fishing rod, a buoy he made from foam and aluminum tin, and hooks and another pretext to bring food to the table.

Jonah had been asleep when I left. The morning had lingered: fog swallowed the trees and peaks. Its density reduced to mist, and once Heath rowed to the center of the lake, among the vast body of water and the rainbow trouts and bass, it disappeared. All the equipment fix inside the spacious mattress-wide canoe. Heath had pushed the oar against the dock as gravity pulled us toward the center, exposing us to the neighboring cabins that looked the same: silent, unmoving. The people here, before the C-Virus, hibernated often and didn't come out unless a special occasion arose. But thanks to the conflicts of the world that collided with everyone's mental sanity, this upcoming December looked like it was going to be a still one.

Heath didn't have to instruct me on how to use a fishing rod since Paul had shared his wisdom. Back with Paul, we had quiet conversations while waiting for a bite. One hour, sometimes two.

It was there he'd tell me anecdotes about the wives he'd had and the nephews he'd lost to gang wars. Being there in the tranquility, away from our superiors, felt like one step closer to speaking what was on our minds. Self-expression was easier when they were out of earshot.

And now it was the same with Heath. After our early celebratory catch, we sat back-to-back in asymmetry with our line on the still waters, waiting for the sun to draw some heat into the lingering dew, biding our time into possibly snagging another bite.