Short Stories

4. Secrets

A chorus of birds was the first sound that she noticed in the morning. The sun didn’t shine directly through the window, but the shadow of dancing leafs swept over the wall by the foot of the bed.

She took a deep breath and considered sleeping for a bit longer, but it felt like she had slept enough.
She turned her head to see if Zander was awake.

She found him lying on his back with his eyes closed, so he was probably sleeping. He looked really peaceful. The dark lashes was completely still, which showed he wasn’t on the brink of waking up either, so she took the risk to glance at him for a moment. She could barely hear his breaths, but she could see the movement of his chest. He looked unique when everything was so perfectly balanced. Perfect lips, nice jaw line, cute nose… He was more build like a swimmer than a football player like his brother. An interesting detail she noticed was his slightly uneven mouth. The upper lip was slightly thinner on his left side, which made his smile a bit crooked. Or if he just smiled crookedly and that caused his mouth to look more uneven.

The realization that she was staring at him almost made her blush, but she could be honest and admit she was a bit fascinated by him. She had no idea why he didn’t have a girlfriend. She'd never seen him with a girl, which made her question if he didn’t have the interest. In school people had considered him a bit of a nerd, but with his looks, he should have turned a head or two.

The sound of footsteps outside the room made her turn her attention to the door. She thought she could hear the others move around. Someone moved from room to room as if to wake the others up. They then took turns using the bathroom.

Cora laid quiet and listened to them for a while before she carefully got up. Their movements almost sounded systematic, as if they were leaving.
When she heard them gathering in the living room, she stepped out to see what they were up to.

She found them fully dressed and some of them had backpacks. Sam smiled at her when she showed up in the doorway.
“Good morning. I hope we didn’t wake you?” He didn’t seem nervous, so she guessed they didn’t plan anything illegal at least.

“Not really. Going somewhere?”

“We have plans on exploring the woods a bit. I was gonna leave a note. We'll eat lunch in the woods, but we will be home for dinner.”

“Right…”

Zander stepped out of the room and walked up to her. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Like I just said to Cora, we’re planning on exploring the woods. I’m sure you two can find something to do around here on your own. Go on a pick nick or something.” Sam put on a backpack and corrected the straps. The others stepped outside to wait for him by the stairs.

“Are you going far?” Cora asked.

“We don’t know yet.”

“It’s pretty irresponsible to not even give us any direction. If anything happens, we need to know which way to start looking.”

Sam sighed when her voice got a bit sharper, but Cora didn’t care. As a ranger, she was well aware of the risk of just walking straight out in to the woods without letting anyone know where you were heading.

Sam rolled his eyes. “We’re heading north-east. Okay? We have maps and a compass, and it’s the end of summer. We won’t freeze to death or get stuck in a blizzard.”

Cora crossed her arms and gave him a sharp look. “Would you like to know what could kill you? The cold is the least of your problems if a bear spots you, or if a snake bites you, not to mention poisonous plants or insects, ravines, pits or other places where you can fall and break a foot or crack a skull.”