Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 45

There were many times I had tried to rationalize every decision I made that put me where I was, and if I chose another path, I might have saved more lives or might end up dead. But life did not play by someone's rules. It made its own list time and time again, and there was nothing I could do to change it, no matter how powerful someone was. Everyone was equal in its eye.

I tried to replay the events on the cliff many times, all concluding that I wouldn't be able to save the people in the water. They would swamp the boat, sink it, and let loose dozens of vectors on the deck. I would be dead. My friends would be dead. Everyone on the boat would be dead.

I heard my mother's voice at the back of my head: Let it go, she would say, the past is the past, darling. Don't forget to look ahead.

It was tempting to look back. The temptation so high that everything around you turned dull and gray, and you couldn't help but cry until your eyes ached. As of right now, the point of these diaries was a big ol' fucking telescope to the horrors I endured, the friends I lost along the way, and the pain...so much pain that it made my bones brittle and my heart numb that all I could do when I woke up at night was scream. And then to find out I had no voice, and no matter how hard I screamed and yelled, I wouldn't find it. No matter how hard I dulled the pain through drugs and sex, I wouldn't feel it.

But I knew it was the only thing that could fill the holes in my memory, and once they were all smooth and paved, I could look forward again, and sometimes, it would fill me with so much hope. Warm, tingling feeling that I held onto like a raft in a raging river.

I had to.

For my sake.

——

There was a knock on my cabin door. I told them it was open, and Aria's head peeked in, telling me that lunch was ready. Miguel had made soup instead of the pasta, seeing as how the weather had turned cold. I hollered back that I would be right there.

I appreciated how everyone gave me a little space to think and ponder whatever was going in my head that made me nauseous. Felipe was kind enough to brew everyone some tea, so I drank a full cup of that, which loosened my mind. Everyone was already sequestering themselves to the quieter parts of the boat, trying to forget what happened at the bridge.

I must have stayed in the cabin for a lot longer because Logan came into my cabin, carrying a bowl of chicken soup when I didn't come out as I told Aria. I thanked him and devoured the soup, surprised that of all the things that went down in a couple of hours, I had the energy to be hungry.

Suddenly, something seized in me. I was staring at a motivational poster across the room of a hiking woman overlooking a trail on a hill, the sun behind her as she struck a power pose, and a large-printed quote below her that read: MAKE EVERYDAY COUNT.

Everything cleared, and I groaned out loud, thinking how pathetic I am that I'm hiding away from the problems out there, waiting for us to make a mistake. Being inert was a mistake, and I couldn't be like this forever.

"That's it," I said to myself, "quit sulking, Bren, for fuck sake. You're better than this."

I rose from the bunk bed and peeked out of the portholes. It was still sunny outside, with the high noon in full swing. We should be getting closer to West Point.

I put on my Oxford shoes, which were already scuffed and worn-down since the outbreak started. My parents only bought it last year, worn it three times, and now I needed a new pair. I put it in the long list of stuff I had to do in the back of my mind. I grabbed my shotgun, slung it around my shoulders, and marched out of my cabin.