Chapter Text
You pull the last few pegs from the wall and zip them up in your backpack, shoulders heavy as you start taking the walk of shame back to your house.
There’s not a doubt in your mind that nobody noticed you were gone, at least not until you start to cross the street and see Ron standing on your porch.
His eyes are puffy and bloodshot like the nights he spent crying after Jessie’s death and the particularly violent incidents where his father beat him within an inch of his life– crying not because of the pain, but because he couldn’t understand why the man would say such hateful things while doing it.
He looks worse off than you do, which is really saying something.
You half expect a fight when he steps down off of the porch with his fists balled up, but then his lip quivers. –It’s pretty obvious that he has to fight to keep his face even, as he simply lowers his head and walks away from you.
He noticed you were gone. He waited for you to come back alive, and now that’s that. He’s gone.
Finally having him leave you alone after everything is nowhere near as satisfying as you imagined it would be when you asked. You just wanted him to realize how you felt about him. He was your oxygen when you were drowning in that house, those people pulling you into the depths, but… now that you’ve seen what it’s like to be on his bad side, you’re afraid of what that’d mean for the rest of your life if you ended up together.
There’s a part of you that wants to go after him, a deep, still bleeding wound in your chest aching for the comfort you found sobbing in one another’s arms, the bond you built still so tight within you that it feels wrong to be separated…
You’re pretty sure that feeling will always be there.
But now you know that you can’t be together. Not when he can switch on a dime and say hateful things he knows will break you apart when all you’ve done is try to be good for him. You love him the most, your soul is practically intertwined with his, and unfortunately that means you have to stay as far away from him as possible. For your own sake, and for his.
It hurts more to be together than it will to be apart.
As you watch him walk away in silence, you let the backpack slip off your shoulder and fall onto the porch with a heavy, metallic thunk.
You can’t spend too much time dwelling on him, because you’re going to need some sleep. Real sleep. –Come tomorrow, you’re going to have a lot more to do than sit around arguing with the other kids your age and scavenging every week or so.
You collapse onto your makeshift bed –still in the living room and still reeking of sweat from previous events, but better than sleeping directly on the floor– letting your hand flop out at your side.
As your eyes close you smile slightly.
You want to try everything.
*
*
*
The next morning the first thing you do when you wake up is go into the room at the end of the hallway on the top floor, the one you mentally barred yourself from going into, your sister’s name scrawled across the door in colorful wooden letters. Letters you helped her carve and paint.
It feels strange to be in there after all this time, the carpet soft under your feet despite the destruction the Saviors left behind when they ransacked the place. There’s chips of wood and glass shards every few feet. It doesn’t matter. What you’re looking for was hidden contraband long before those people came looking.
You kneel down and shift yourself under her broken desk, cracking open the vent down there and searching through her most prized possessions until your hand hits something small and rounded. Her MP3 player, headphone still halfway plugged into the device.
You know for a fact that the device still has some of her original music on it –her voice– and if there’s any chance of you moving on from this household and everything that happened in it, you need to remember everything she was. She deserved so much more credit than she was given after she died, supposedly too young to have a real impact on the world.
After retrieving the item you push the remainder of her private belongings back into the vent and stick the cover back on, shutting the door behind you as you leave her room, then the house entirely.
You shove the buds into your ears, hearing the familiar acoustic beginning of To All Of You, heart racing until you hear the first note in her voice.
“To all of you–”
It hurts. Badly. You want to cry, just like you did at her first choir concert, but you don’t. –You’re proud.
“American girls, it's sad to…”
Trying to smile to yourself only makes the pain rooted in your chest hurt worse, so you settle for a small frown as you make your way down the street towards the farm.
“Imagine a world without you,”
Aaron might not be the only one who works on the farm, but he's by far the most invested in its daily maintenance. Even though he hates apples, most of the day when he's not on patrol or with Rick, or Eric, that's where you'll find him, tending to the crops with sweat on his brow.
Come to think of it, maybe that's why he hates apples so much, –aside from his mother force-feeding him apple sauce, of course– if anyone spends too much time with something it’s a sure bet they'll get sick of it.
“American girls, I'd like to,”
You come to a stop just on the edge of a small patch of crop rows, a handheld rake stuck in the dirt next to a pair of rubber gloves.
It looks… gross. Or at the very least, unpleasant to stick your hands into. The mesh on the palms prevents the wearer from getting any real protection from whatever they’re touching, but you suppose that’s why they call it a green thumb. Gotta get your hands dirty to have any real success.
“Be part of the world around you,”
“Noa?” You hear faintly from behind you, turning around to see a very concerned Aaron, your last interaction with his husband still fresh in his mind from what the other man told him. He sets the rake he’s holding aside. “What are you doing all the way over here?”
“Driving a car by the seaside,”
You pull one of the headphones from your ears and give him the most sheepish, apologetic smile you can muster. “I’m– uhm… Well, I want to help… kind of?”
“Watching the world from the bright side,”
He cocks his head at you, eyes squinted like he’s trying to pick up on a secret message. “What do you mean you kind of want to help? If there’s something specific you want, I would suggest asking Rick about it. He’s the one managing ration distribution now.”
Olivia’s role has been filled, you realize with no small amount of horror, trying to school your face.
“To all of you, American girls in the movies,”
You take a deep breath, dropping all pretenses along with the polite smile you’d been offering him as an out. “I mean that I want a job here. –But just for the day, and I have to admit that it’s actually for a very selfish reason.”
“And what would that be?” He asks, cocking a brow.
“No one can tell where your heart is,”
“I want to explore everything the world has to offer,” I want to figure out how to make myself less useless. “–Which is stupid in a life like this one, believe me, I know, but…” You trail off, shaking your head slightly. “I think I kind of owe it to myself to at least try this out? I just… I-I don’t want to be such a disappointment anymore. I want people to like me because they see what I do, and it’s actually… good.”
You stand by what you said to Enid. People like you, pawns, are needed. But who said those pawns have to drain their blood in battle?
“American girls like dollies,”
His face softens at your words and his eyes drift down to what the headphones are connected to, clipped to your pocket. “Is that…?”
“Yeah,” You answer quickly.
“WIth shiny smiles and plastic bodies,”
“Nn…” He starts to answer how he originally planned when he heard that you wanted to help him out for the day, but he luckily (for you anyway) decides to bite his tongue and give the idea a chance. “Okay. –You can start by helping me water the vegetable garden here, but Noa, if this goes poorly… I won’t hesitate to cut this off early. Your behavior has been extremely disappointing lately.”
You bite back a sarcastic comment about him trying to parent you and nod rapidly. “Sounds good, I’ll go get the hose!” You shout, unable to keep the obvious excitement out of your voice.
“I wish I had an American girlfriend,” She finishes abruptly with a sigh, then you hear her soft, breathy laughter in your ear along with muffled shouting voices. “...They're so loud.”
Aaron sighs and shakes his head, picking the rake back up and making lines in the dirt with it to check the soil’s moisture.
You return not long after with one end of the hose, the other end still attached to the shed. The snake-like tube is actually several hoses duck taped together to make it easier to water all the crops, but it works, and that’s what Deanna was aiming for when she asked for it to be made like that.
“I’m back,” You announce, knowing he already saw you return. “Here I go.”
You let go of this end of the house and let it run over the vegetables and their leaves, careful not to overwater them even though this would be a pretty hard task to mess up. You can’t risk him kicking you out just yet, so you’ll have to take all his sassy bias and match it with overly cautious perfectionism.
He nods dismissively, all but ignoring you as he leaves the area to grab a basket and harvest some ready crops. “Good.”
When you’ve finished with the vegetables you see that he’s still pulling potatoes from the ground elsewhere and decide to take it upon yourself to pull all the easily handled weeds out with your bare hands. The first few come out easily, but you finally reach one that’s firmly rooted in the ground and have to plant your feet and lean back to get enough traction to pull it.
That’s when you realize this whole section of the garden is like this. There’s even vines growing over what could be more farm land.
“Aaron!” You call over your shoulder, wincing when you see him sigh heavily at your constant interruption and start exasperatedly walking over to you.
“Yes?”
“Uhm… How come we don’t use this area? It seems like it would be prime real estate,” You try to say jovially, but it lands flat –scratch that, dead– seeing as the person you’re talking to looks like he wants you to get out of his way as soon as possible. “I mean, I know this is your thing… I was just thinking ‘cause there’s only so much room in the walls… and stuff… I saw at Hilltop they had to start growing herbs outside… There wasn’t enough room… I guess…?”
His eyes narrow before softening when he sees how hard you’re trying to get a regular response out of him. He rubs a hand down his face. “You’re right. –But it would be a huge pain in the ass to weed, then cut and try to revive the soil there, so nobody bothered. Could be concrete under that patch for all we know.”
You grin. “Well? You have a faithful servant for the day. You could make me do it.”
“Thanks,” He says, nose scrunching. “But no, that would take days, and I would have to constantly direct you on how to fix certain things, then we’d have to draw up new plans for the area… It’s just not a good idea right now. There’s other things the group needs.”
Your shoulders slump at his stubbornness, but you try not to let your simmering frustration show.
“How about you…” He looks around the garden, working his jaw. “–You mentioned herbs. Why don’t you go collect all the herbs and get started on drying them out for me? I heard you… might have had some experience with something like that.”
You cringe at the mention, mind suddenly assaulted with memories of Ron showing up to your house wasted, –touching and touching but never enough, never the right way– sweet smoke filling your lungs while he raised his voice, pushed your boundaries and–
“Yeah, I…” You swallow dry. “Yeah. I’ll go do that.”
It takes forever, and it doesn’t help that in order to keep all the different herbs separated you have to take all the different bags outside of the shed to lay them on the ground. The sun is beating down on your neck like crazy. You keep licking your lips to wet them like you haven’t had any water in days, when you know you drank plenty this morning. Enough to survive at least.
You should be fine, but your hands are clammy and they’re shaking a little. Just tiny tremors when you flex your muscles.
Weird.
Your only respite is when you have to figure out what a plant is because you don’t initially recognize it, not so accidentally eating a bunch of mint leaves. It helps the queasy feeling in your stomach, but it does nothing for the rest of your symptoms, your headache, or the antsy feeling you have.
“Noa,” Aaron calls when you’ve almost finished, looking a bit concerned at the state you’re in. “Why don’t you take a break and eat something? Eric made lunch.”
He hands you a sandwich in a plastic baggy, but it only makes you feel guilty.
“He made you lunch,” You say, the words coming out more spiteful than you’d meant. You weren’t jealous at all, you have no idea why you snapped like that. “Sorry, it’s the heat… I just mean that his food is good. He wouldn’t want you giving it away like this.”
“Right. Well…” He trails off, growing cold again. Damn it. He retracts the sandwich and the offer. “You can keep working if you feel like it, but I’m going to take a break. Next thing you can do is pick enough apples for the week and prune the trees.”
He walks away and you curl in on yourself, wondering why you reacted the way you did.
*
*
*
So, farming is definitely not your thing.
I mean, you probably should have known when you saw those musty gloves, but worse was when you had to put them on and help Aaron "fertilize" the crops with waste.
Aaron gives you a hard pat on the back that scares the crap out of you and knocks you forwards.
“You did a… decent job today,” He praises, looking thoughtful. “I’ll admit I was a little hard on you, but you took it well. If you ever want to come work here with me again, I’d be glad to have your help.”
The corner of your mouth quirks up in a bittersweet half-smile you can’t bring yourself to really mean with the emotional tidal wave you’ve been hit with recently. “Thanks. –I’ll definitely keep that in mind.”
“I mean it,” He repeats, seeing your lackluster response. “Next time I won't give you such a hard time. If anyone else needs a helper I’ll send them your way. –Oh.”
You look straight at him when he startles, seeing the surprised look on his face. “What?”
“I think it’s me,” Carl says, appearing behind you. “Hi, Aaron.”
You whip around, heart dropping to your stomach at the sound of his voice.
He’s going to be pissed when he finds out that you told Enid what was going on between the two of you. –But also… fuck him for what he said the last time you were face to face. You really thought you were getting better talking to each other and then he just…
You glare at him, the hatred practically radiating off of you in waves.
“Hi, Carl…?” The man greets, looking between the two of you uncomfortably. “I think… I’m going to go. –Don’t kill each other, please.”
“Probably for the best,” The boy mutters under his breath, turning his full attention to you. “I assume this is gonna get messy.”
You take that dig as the first shot and immediately fire back. “Why are you talking to me right now?”
His shoulders are squared back like he’s itching to pick a fight with you, the fading bruises on his face telling the story of another fight he must’ve picked already, but the second Aaron is out of sight he drops the act for something only the two of you know exists when you’re alone. He steps closer, then closer still, until if he wanted to he could wrap an arm around your waist. –Close enough to stop you from doing something stupid.
“Because I made a mistake,” He admits without much reluctance, head lightly bobbing as he speaks. “And it hurt you, and I don’t want that to be the way we leave things even if we never speak again.”
“I’m not hurt,” You spit back like a petulant child. “I knew what this was when we started it.”
He frowns at your attitude. “If you weren’t hurt you wouldn’t have run away crying.”
“I didn’t cry!” You shout, throwing your hands up into the air and turning away from him to storm off. –He stops you of course, because he'd been expecting it, but you shove him in the shoulder and he stumbles back. “Do not touch me.”
He huffs, touching the spot where you slammed the heel of your hand against him.
“Fine, no touching,” He agrees. “But you'll listen.”
“No, I won't, and you can’t make me,” You growl, continuing to walk away from him.
He falls into step beside you, silently observing your facial expressions as you try to evade him. It doesn't take long before the frustration on your face starts to crack under his gaze and the underlying sadness and desperation makes its way to the surface. You don’t feel well enough to fight like this right now.
“Stop it! Stop looking at me!” You shout, crouching down on the ground and hiding your face in your arms. “Leave me alone, asshole!”
“Stop being a brat and I will,” He snaps back, making his way in front of you and mirroring the way you’re sitting on the ground. “I'm trying to apologize to you.”
You slap your hands over your ears, dropping down until you can hide your burning face in your knees. “Just go away! You don't want anything to do with me, and you shouldn't! –I told Enid about us, okay?! I went to talk to her and I told her!”
From what you can see through the slat between your knees, Carl's posture shifts, head downturned and letting the brim of his hat shadow his face.
“I'm sorry…” You say softly, tucking your feet closer to yourself. “She wasn't angry with you. She knows you don't like me. All she wants is for you to come back to her when all this stuff with… Negan is over.” His name is still hard for you to say, but you're getting over it. You kind of have to.
He looks up, the raw emotions on his face making you uncomfortable. You shrink back.
“Go away.”
His lip curls at that. Angry. Hurt. –And why shouldn’t he be? He supposedly came here to apologize to you and you just told him that you told his girlfriend about fucking him, presumably to fuel your ongoing feud with her. It sounds petty, and childish, and you’re not going to correct him because maybe it really was just that, even if it didn’t feel like it was.
The curl in his lip peaks and you wonder what he’s going to do, some underlying fear dormant within you wondering if he’s going to snap, but his lips flatten. He takes a deep breath, his whole body moving with it. Then another. And another. You realize his eye is closed.
Then he lets out one last breath, almost like a sigh and one of his hands comes up to stroke the skin of your calf –because that’s what’s closest to him at the moment, and he has to remind himself why he’s even here– as he thinks through what you've just told him.
Technically speaking, the girl had already dumped him before she left just like she did with Ron, but it was expected that unlike the two of them, Carl and her would link up again. –Maybe even officially establish their relationship. She refused to kiss him because “it would make it easier” for the both of them, but in the past she had made it pretty clear she wasn’t interested in anything exclusive yet. She was still dating Ron, and she wasn’t ready to get locked into another shitstorm like that.
The person he’s most worried about finding out is his dad, anyway. That would not turn out well.
“You are tryin’ to hurt me…” Carl says slowly, and your heart breaks a little because even though you don’t want to, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re pushing him away. “–To take the easy way out so that it’s me that walks away and not you, but that’s not what’s gonna happen here. Okay?”
He pushes so gently for a positive response you can’t help the, “Okay,” that tumbles from your lips before you can think better of it.
He regains enough composure to look at you again and he gives your calf a reassuring squeeze. “I’m going to apologize to you, and then I’m gonna give you two options.”
Uh-oh. You don’t think you like the sound of that. That’s the kind of thing someone says before they divorce you and take your three cats, half your bank account, and then your phone case just to be petty.
“It’s nothin’ bad,” He says, seeing the way you frown. “I’m just… I’m really sorry for what happened the other day.”
“It’s fine,” You mutter under your breath, frustrated but trying to make it sound as unbothered as possible.
“It is not fine,” He snarls, shaking his head with frustration. “I shouldn’t have let him do what he was doin’ to you, but I froze and then it felt like I had no other choice… I didn’t want to say no, and I didn’t want to admit that the answer was yes.”
Your head snaps up faster than you can actually process the words, your brow furrowing with confusion, and the cruelest sliver of excitement that maybe he actually does feel the same way you do. It’s more than just the spark now, isn’t it? You’ve come to enjoy each other’s company and you worry for one another’s safety. You’re basically a team.
It hurt when he swapped you out with Ron, sure, but no amount of that could ever come close to denting the friendship you’re building. You see that now. All the distinctly separate objects of his affection come into focus before you and you smile.
It’s like tin cans.
…Kind of?
The more thought you put into it, the less sense it makes, but there’s one for Rick, another for Michonne, one for Judith. Another kicked, dented one, pushed to the back of the shelf for Ron, still just waiting to see the light of day. –There’s one stored for you too, somewhere. Love, all kinds of it, doesn’t have to be divided. The affection you have for everyone you’ve ever loved is still there, waiting to be looked for.
You don’t love your sister any less after all this time, all the people you’ve met and come to care for. You haven’t suddenly stopped caring about your best friend from the third grade, a girl with curly blonde hair, who once knocked three of her teeth out when the two of you were jumping in rain puddles on the walk home. You haven’t forgotten the old man who used to hold the door for you when you went to the library before all this started, the woman from the corner store who snuck you and your sister candy when your parent’s backs were turned, or the angsty, acne covered teenage boy from down the street who once rode his bike during one of the biggest rainstorms in the state’s history just to get flowers for your sister’s recital because he knew she liked him.
It feels weirdly emotional to remember all these little things, but at the same time it’s like breaking free of a bubble you hadn’t known you’d trapped yourself in. –I mean, you’d meant to try and forget what you thought would make you weak, but you hadn’t realized just how much of that had been positive memories that used to keep you going every day even before the apocalypse started.
You squint one of your eyes at the boy in front of you, one corner of your mouth quirking up fondly.
Then there’s Carl. The end of the world’s best big brother. The one who let the boy who shot him have his back on a run because he knows his community is struggling and needs any amount of supplies they can get their hands on. The one who faithfully delivered the girl breaking his heart to Hilltop, because that’s where she wanted to be. Who gives up all his free time to making sure his family has everything they need, and smiles on their faces.
The one that wrapped your ankle. And protected you from Negan. And checked to see if Olivia was alive before he did anything else, despite knowing what a bad idea it could be to make sudden movements. –Who came here now, because he’s still worried, and he still cares about you.
It’s all too easy to imagine him –before the world ended anyway– showing up soaked, with his hair sticking to his forehead and his bike hastily abandoned in the middle of the street, flowers in his hands, kneeling down to tell you how amazing you are. Tipping your chin up like your parents hadn’t. Complimenting your silky, clean dress and carefully styled hair. Letting you down easy, but somehow leaving you feeling on top of the world.
“Ugh, don’t look at me like that,” He groans, turning away to hide the flush on his cheeks. “This is not sappy, okay?”
The first laugh you let out is involuntary, but the snickering that comes after is curated purely to tease him. He glares at you, whining in the back of his throat.
“I’m serious!” He says exasperatedly, unable to hide the way the corners of his mouth tip upwards at the sound. “I’m tryin’ to tell you that I want more than just a quickie from you. –That there’s more here, and I shouldn’t have abandoned you like that.”
“Then say it.”
His brow furrows and he tips his head in a very Grimes-like way. “Say what?”
You can’t help the shit-eating grin that finally breaks through and spreads across your face.
“That I’m your frieeeeend,” You say in a mocking sing-song, knowing that you really do actually want to hear it from him. “And how much you love and miss me when we’re not hanging out,” You say with a few exaggerated kissing noises.
He gulps, refusing to back down from such an easy challenge. If what you want right now is to play, then he’ll play right along with you. Whatever you want.
He puffs out his chest, dramatically placing a hand over his heart as he delivers, “You, Noa, are my friend and I missed you. A lot. Like way too much for what a pain in my ass you are,” He adds with a false grimace. “–But I do not love you.”
You try to feign playful offense, when really his words just tore something you refuse to admit is blossoming in your heart to shreds.
“Oh, how dare you,” You gasp through laughter, reaching up to your neckline as if clutching pearls.
He laughs once, softly, and you drink the noise up like it’s the only one you ever need to hear again.
Oh.
You poor thing.
You are just smitten aren’t you?
“An-y-way,” He annunciates, holding his hands up and pulling out of your personal space. You wish he wouldn’t. The warmth that lingers on your skin fades all too fast and leaves you feeling chilled to the core. “Your options.”
There’s no way this turns out well.
“My options,” You parrot back, trying to be enthusiastic about it.
You sound too eager, shut uppppppp, you scream at yourself in your head, fighting back all the other thoughts trying to tear you down.
“I don’t want the only two things we do to be havin’ sex and goin’ on runs, so how about sometimes we… I don’t know, play a game or somethin’? Have a sleepover?” He suggests, looking shy about how juvenile it sounds. “It’s kinda hard to think of things to do when you don’t really leave the walls all that often.”
“That sounds fine,” You say coolly, trying to nonchalantly shrug off the suggestions that actually make your heart jump. “What's my other option?”
He turns around and looks pointedly at the shed.
“We go in there. And then you say yes to the first option.”
The smile that creeps up your face is borderline wicked.
“Oh, Grimes,” You laugh awkwardly, looking away from the shed with embarrassment as you nearly fall over. It wouldn’t be so bad. At least then you’d have good cover for how red your face is getting. “You're such a jackass… That– That wouldn't have worked on me if I didn't want to be friends with you.”
“Ah-ha!” He exclaims, pointing at you. “You admit it.”
Jesus christ this is getting way too close to flirting. You're not sure if your heart can take much more with the condition it's in. It feels like it's about to burst from your chest.
“Mmmmaybe…” You say coyly.
What are you doing? This isn’t what you planned on doing today! You were supposed to finally take the reins on your life and get your shit together before you end up hopelessly codependent again.
Carl has his own life and girlfriend waiting for him, plans for his future. You need to find that too, for yourself. On days where you dedicate yourself to working, you can't goof off like this, it's too close to your old patterns. Who knows? Maybe eventually Carl will realize what Enid did, and he'll leave you too because you never gave this a real chance!
The look on your face sobers and his smile slowly fades, replaced by what looks like confusion. Things had been going so well and now you just look… sad.
“We can’t do any of that stuff today,” You say sadly, lips turning into a pout. “There's some things I need to do, and I can't do them if I'm off somewhere with you. –I’m sorry. I really do want to spend time with you, I just…”
“No, I get it,” He cuts you off, looking embarrassed by the rejection. “I kind of ambushed you. It's a lot. You don't have to apologize.”
“No really, I would but–”
“It's fine–”
“But it's not that–!”
“It’s okay–”
“No I–”
You go back and forth talking over one another for a moment before you decide you've had enough.
“Carl,” You say sternly, trying to get his attention back on you instead of the awkward bump in the conversation you hit. “I really want to spend time with you. –Actually, if this were any other day I probably would have dropped everything for the chance to… but I'm trying to be better and give myself enough respect to do that,” You explain, biting your lip nervously at how similar this sounds to Ron's whole deal lately. “I'm not holding anything back or secretly resenting you for not saying anything. I'm actually busy today.”
He seems to consider this for a moment, deciding whether or not what you’re saying is true. It seems weird –if you’re not going on a run– to be busy on a random day, but he really wants to believe you. He’s been pretty open about thinking you deserve more respect than you give yourself since the day he saw that hickey Ron gave you on your cheek, not to mention that whole conversation with his dad…
Carl nods, rising to his feet. “Can I walk you home?”
He figures it's the least he can do considering how things are going. Actions speak louder than words, right?
“Yeah,” You smile.
The two of you fall into step side by side and start walking in the direction of your house, shoulders brushing every few steps. It would be annoying because of the heat, but you find that it doesn't bother you nearly as much as it normally would. You're sure he feels the same way. His nape is visibly dripping with sweat, semi-sunburned already from days of working in this heatwave, but the high of making up with you must be encouraging him to play nice for now too.
He catches you staring and you try to play it off, but he shifts away so that you're not touching anymore.
You start to silently curse yourself for ruining the moment when you could have just as well enjoyed it without looking, when about half way through your walk he laces your fingers together and gives your palm a squeeze.
“When we first left King County…” He mumbles so quietly you almost can't hear it, laughing slightly as he looks down at where you're linked. “Sophia used to say I was the only one who knew how to hold hands right… –Well, other than her mom. Carol would always kiss the back of her hands.”
Your heart squeezes almost as tight as your hand does in response.
“She's okay,” You whisper back, the worry you felt the day she left working its way through you again. “You know her, she's strong. Sophia is going to be just fine.”
“I know she is,” Carl says firmly, but it sounds like he only half believes the words himself.
You look down at where your hands are linked, knowing that he’s only going this far because he’s trying to make it up to you. If these were normal circumstances the best you would have gotten was a brush. –But it’s been so long since the two of you had a proper conversation where your head actually felt clear, you cherish the touch nonetheless.
In three days, this touch will probably be gone. Reserved for the people he considers his family again.
“I have a question…” He says after a moment, sounding uncharacteristically nerve-wracked by whatever’s going through his head.
“Okay…? Shoot.”
“That pill bottle,” He swallows, blinking a few times as he adjusts his grip on your hands. “What was that all about? My dad found pieces of it, and when I was watchin’ your argument with Ron I couldn't help wonderin’ if…” His voice cuts off with a choked noise, as if his throat is closing up. “Have you been high every time we…?”
“No,” You reject immediately, brow furrowing. “I didn't start taking them until after Olivia– when you both came back from that pharmacy run. One of the bottles never made it to the infirmary and I started popping them.”
That's as close as you're willing to get to the truth right now. You don't know how he'd react if you told him that Ron was the one to drop them, or about the smiley face written in sharpie over the label, but it seems like a bad idea with all the bad blood between them. It's better just to let Ron do his thing now that he's decided to walk away than pointlessly drag him back into this. What's done is done.
Carl makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Why?”
He sounds genuinely curious.
“At first I wanted to sleep better,” You answer thoughtfully, cocking your head. “But then I realized I couldn't sleep without them, let alone exist… It was easier to numb what I was feeling out like I've been doing with everything else than to sit alone with my thoughts. They can get pretty… ugly.”
Ron smokes. And drinks. Sometimes both, sometimes with you and Enid, a lot of the time alone. The adults too. It just seemed normal.
“Mine are too,” He says quietly, averting his eye when you look up at him for clarification. “–Ugly.”
“I think everyone's are…” He continues, giving you a half-shrug. “Anyone alive, anyway. We're monsters. The only thing we can do when things get too dark is look for the people we care about, who care about us.”
You give him a clipped, slanted smile in response. Carl doesn't miss it.
It almost looks like the smile someone would give a child while they innocently rambled on about something they know nothing about. As if you don't think what he's saying applies to you, when it absolutely does. If you would take a second to really look around and appreciate what he's saying instead of writing it off because of all the crap your former crush used to say to you, you'd realize that.
“Ron told me that–” He cringes at using information from the other, unreliable boy. “–You both feel like no one's really cared about you since Jessie died. I get it. I know how it feels to not have anyone on your side, to constantly have to fight to be recognized for the bare minimum when you're tryin’ so hard that it hurts… But I want you to know that it's not true,” He pauses, quietly sucking a breath in through his teeth when you narrow your eyes at him dangerously on the precipice of another fight.
This is your reality. Loneliness. Loss. Reckless self abandon. And at that, one you and Ron have been living in for a long time with only each other's backs to lean on. Carl has to admit he did see the rest of Alexandria drawing away from you. He saw their support dwindle and the daily check-ins become weekly, then monthly, then stop completely. It's not going to be easy to hear, but you need to realize that you aren't alone anymore.
Otherwise, you're just going to do what the other boy had done. Slip, and slip, until you're too far to reach without your help.
“You can always come to me if you don't want to ask anyone else for help. –I'm here. I don't want you feelin’ like this alone, and I can promise you everyone else would say the same thing if they knew,” He pauses, suddenly feeling embarrassed by how much he's spoken without you interrupting him. That never happens. Someone always says something and he ends up the man of few words, which is funny because when he was younger he was constantly talking. Mostly talking crap, but still, talking. “...Plus, I could always just annoy you, that'd be fine too,” He tacks on for good measure.
You give him a bittersweet quirk of your lips, feeling some of your anxiety about making it through this quell with his words. “Thanks, Carl… I really appreciate that.”
“Mhm,” He hums, looking away bashfully.
Your house is within sight now, so close that you have to wonder how you didn't reach it sooner when you realize that at some point during the conversation the both of you nearly slowed to a stop. Had he done it on purpose? It doesn't seem that way. You see him look up at the house, slowly regaining his walking speed and think he's probably wondering the same thing about you.
“You sure I can't help you with whatever you're doin’ today?” He asks again when you both step onto your porch, looking like an abandoned puppy. “I can be quiet,” He offers. “You won't even know I'm there.”
You give him a small smile, ignoring everything screaming in you to let him stay because you know things would devolve into… that.
“I'm sure,” You reply softly. “But tomorrow, I am going to kick your ass at whatever you decide we're doing.”
He returns the smile to a lesser degree, tipping his hat down over his face before stepping off of your porch and walking away.
You try to ignore the nagging feeling that part of you is going right along with him, stepping into the house and kicking off your shoes to get started.
You need to make a list or draw up a checklist or something. There has to be some way for you to keep track of all the different jobs you try –And oh!– some way to rate your ability to do them.
The most logical choice would be a chart, no?
But that's so boring, and it does nothing for the community... That makes what you're doing feel too numerical, like someone assigned you community service and now you're waiting to fill boxes with good will.
So not a chart. –Something else.
You pace the living room for a while, blank paper sitting on the kitchen counter still within your sight when you decide on something stupid. It’ll do for now, but you’ll have to come up with something better.
You scribble out a poorly drawn map of Alexandria, the walls a completely different shape than you know they are in real life and start dividing the areas into different jobs you know either take place or are based there. It's not the worst thing, but if you were trying to invade Alexandria, this kind of shitty map would surely get you killed. –You have your afternoon apocalypse garage school education to thank for that…
Well that and skipping it frequently.
But if they didn't want you kids to skip, they should have taught something more than reading clocks and rehashing multiplication with old world examples, you think while furiously erasing a few lines to redo them.
On the side where a map key would usually be, you write farming in little letters towards the bottom of the empty list. You can rank the jobs you do there until you think of a better solution.
You sigh.
Farming is not something you would want to do again, but it wasn't so bad you'd try to avoid going if Aaron or anyone else asked for your help. You made quick work together, and by the end of it Aaron (kind of) admitted you were helpful.
But it's also gross and your body seems to be screaming at you that the manuel labor was too much right after hiking your way to Hilltop and getting into back to back fights with everyone you used to be close with. –Long story short, the moment you actually get some rest, you're going to be sore.
You really don't understand why you feel so sluggish, even moving to the fridge to pin the map up has you nauseated.
Gross.
You walk to the living room with your head in your hands, barely pausing to look outside of the window before you let yourself collapse into your sheets and pull them as tightly around yourself as you can.
Everything is looking up.
Isn't it?
*
*
*
It's only when you wake up a few hours later, drenched to the bone in your own sweat that you get the answer to that question.