Morning sunlight is bad enough when you're not prepared for it. Add a hangover to it and it becomes nearly unbearable. Graham pressed his face further into the couch cushions. There was a strange smell faintly in the fabric like a mix of perfume and food. Just how many people had sat on that couch over the years?

The distant sounds of birds were coming in from the open window across the room. Each tweet was like a spike through his head. Thankfully, the rest of the house seemed to be completely silent. Then he heard it, the soft clink of a cup being set down and a page turning.

Graham reluctantly lifted his head and spotted Scarlet sitting on a barstool at the counter.

The sun was glinting off her long hair which she'd braided down her back over the green and blue jacket. Every few minutes she would lift the white coffee mug and take a long sip, then turn the page of her thick book. She paused to look up at him. "I didn't expect to see you awake."

"What time is it?" he muttered.

"After ten." Scarlet slid her bare feet to the floor and grabbed a clean mug. "Everyone went out hiking, almost everyone anyway. Devynn is upstairs still passed out and I think Moira and Amy went out for just a walk."

The now full mug was warm in his hand when she passed it to him. "Why didn't you go with them?" Graham asked while he slowly sipped at the coffee. The taste wasn't unpleasant, but he had every intention of pouring it out to get tea when Scarlet wasn't looking.

"I wanted to  go out on the lake. There's a little motorboat so I'm just gonna float around and read a book or something," she explained. The couch sank as she sat next to him. Her mug was half empty by then.

"It's going to be super cold out there. Lakes are a summertime thing," he pointed out.

A set of footsteps shuffling down the stairs halted their almost argument. Devynn stumbled over the last step and quickly straightened himself. There were dark circles under his eyes and his hair was more fit to be a home for birds. He mumbled something about a walk and dragged himself out the door.

Scarlet shook her head slowly. "I've seen a lot of guys walk out after a drunken night, but he is really scraping the bottom of the dignity barrel." Her eyes tracked him as he walked by the front windows. Someone had taken care to pin back the curtains so that every bit of light could stream in.

"Should we put a tracker on him? In case he gets lost?"

"How far could he get?" Scarlet asked. She set her empty mug in the sink and grabbed her shoes from beside the fireplace. The sneakers and jacket looked just barely enough to keep her warm on the lake. She looked determined though, and picked up a full thermos of hot coffee from the counter. "Obviously you're not about to catch up to the hikers, so what are you up to?"

Graham shrugged. "Might follow in Devynn's footsteps and go for a walk. There aren't any bears, right?"

"It's the woods, assume there is something out there that wants to eat you," she joked. The heavy oak door swung shut behind her.

Now alone in the cabin, Graham immediately went to the sink and poured out the still hot coffee. The kettle was half full on the stovetop and he settled back onto the couch to wait for the shrieking whistle that signaled his morning caffeine.

The signal on his phone was at a complete zero no matter what angle he tried to tilt it at. After the water had boiled and he'd set his tea to steep, he went upstairs to try the balcony. The air outside wasn't as frigid as he'd assumed it would be, but it made his toes want to retreat into his body. The rev of a motor shattered the morning silence. Even from the back of the house he could hear Scarlet's celebratory cheer when the boat surged forward.

Graham could just barely make out the top of Devynn's head as he shuffled away. He took note of his direction. Just in case, he told himself, but now he would also be sure to go in a different direction. It wasn't that he hated to be alone with Devynn, he was very nice. However, he only had three topics of conversation that he bounced around to, and two of them were his cars.

There was a second thermos in one of the cabinets that poured a second round of tea into. He'd changed up into something warm enough to spend some time outside. Hiking was nowhere on his list, but his family had gone camping before and there were parts of it he enjoyed. It was always better when they had solid walls and warm beds to return to. One family activity that always stood out to him was pressing flowers.

Every trip involved at least a few hours following his mother while she picked only the best. He knew she'd been nervous about him being anywhere near home. Just because he'd changed his last name didn't mean people had forgotten his face. No information could ever be truly deleted. He could still remember when his new team had looked him up on line and the cold shoulders he'd walked into before their first game. When the announcer had brought up his old name, Graham had been violently sick.

He shook the thoughts away as a wave of nausea rushed over him.

It took some trial and error but Graham did manage to find a partially full field of flowers. This far into fall he knew his options would be slim to none. He'd be giving his mother a pressed bouquet of muted colors without a doubt.

Graham got lucky and grabbed a handful of purple and yellow and a few scraggly red flowers. He settled into a clear space on the ground and unscrewed the lid of the thermos. Steam puffed out of the top as he poured the tea into the lid. While he wasn't one for hiking or the great outdoors in general, the quiet was pure bliss. He closed his eyes and fell back to lay with  his head next to the bundle of flowers he'd gathered.

The headache had faded to almost nothing by then. The exhaustion from the long drives, late nights, early mornings and the party on top of it was still very much there. He didn't even try to fight the invisible weights dragging his eyelids down.

A cold wind washed over him. It wasn't a breeze, it was too forceful and came out of nowhere. With his eyes closed and his brain still foggy from the sudden nap, he could believe someone had fanned a towel over him. A shadow fell over him, blocking the sun for a brief delightful moment and he started to drift back to sleep again.

Someone was making tea and the kettle was going off. The whistling scream grew louder and louder but it was like the noise was coming from under water. He reached out for it and heard his father's voice over the screaming kettle. The words were jumbled and partially in French, which he would most likely fail with how little he understood. Graham mumbled about a test and the kettle stopped.

The wind hit him again and he sat up sharply. Barely any time had passed based on how far the sun had moved. The thermos was still warm to the touch when he picked it up. A black feather drifted over him and he grabbed it before the breeze could carry it off. Birds were never something he'd put much effort into studying, despite the tattoo on his arm. The most he could tell about the feather was that it was from a bird. He tucked it and the flowers into his inner jacket pocket.

Movement in the trees caught his eyes. Wide set antlers bobbed slowly in the shadows. From the way they stood on either side, Graham knew the deer would be facing him head on. "Hey, it's ok, I won't hurt you," Graham called out softly as he moved to his feet. He reached a cautious hand out towards the deer.

A scream cut through the air and Graham felt a cold sweat overtake him. The screams were meant to be in his dreams only. Shouting followed the screaming and the deer took off further into the trees. Graham could just barely make out Scarlet's voice letting out a wave of obscenities. He turned towards the noise and broke into a sprint. The few fallen trees slowed him every time he had to climb over them.

The lake came into view and he spotted Scarlet shouting at the opposite shore. She was standing in the boat which rocked precariously with each shake of her fist. Slowly, her shouts became clearer. "...taking pictures of people, jackass, disgusting perv!"

Graham ran up to the edge of the dock and cupped his hands around his mouth to call for her. He watched her turn and tensed when the entire boat rocked hard to one side. "Would you just sit down?" he begged. "What's going on?"

"That gross creep took a picture of me. I saw him," she shouted back at him, pointing an accusing finger at the house across the lake. She did sit down, so that she could turn the boat's motor back on and rocket across the lake back to the dock. She took Graham's outstretched hand and let him pull her out of the boat. "Disgusting. Can't even go to the woods without running into some depraved cockroach."

"Do you want me to go kick his ass?" Graham wrapped an arm around her shoulders but the deep furrows between his eyebrows was anything but comforting.

Scarlet shook her head and leaned into him. "Nah, I just want to go inside." They collected her things from the boat and headed back to the cabin.