Author's Note: These words really struck a cord with me and inspired this story. Sure, Beth's sweet as pie, but I wonder if she's always been a caged bird - since long before the world ended. I like the idea, in stories like a zombie apocalypse, of people being set free. I think it's the one good thing that could come from such a miserable way of living. I think Beth has a lot to say, and I wanted to give her the fight to say it that I think she deserves.

You rare girl, once again, you have a body that belongs to no lover, to no father, belongs to no one but you. Wear your sorrow like the lineson your palm. Like a shawl to keep you warm at night. Don't mourn the love that is lost to you now. It is a book of poems whose meters worked their way into your pulse. Even if it has slipped from your hands, it will stay in your body.

You loved a man who treated you like absinthe, half poison and half god. He tried to sweeten you, to water you down. And now you have your heart all to yourself again. A heart like a stone cottage. Heart like a lover's diary. Hope like an ocean.

-Clementine Von Radics

...

She remembers the way they used to look at her. Sometimes, when she's cleaning her hands of congealed blood or skinning her most recent prize, she thinks about it.

Her father and mother, eyes so kind, widening in surprise if anything but syrup and sweetness came out of her pretty little mouth. Her brother and sister, wary and watchful, making sure always that she was safe safe safe. She loved them all, she truly did. Her stomach twists whenever she thinks on them – grief and guilt swirling together and making her sick. She wonders if they did her a disservice, if she really has a right to be angry. She had been treated like fine china for so long – fragile and beautiful. And in this world, she should have broken a long time ago. Had they really prepared her for what life had in store?

Sean had been allowed a wild streak a mile wide, and Maggie had pushed and prodded her parents until she had tasted freedom. Beth had never really gotten the chance. Or maybe she felt like she just couldn't disappoint. She didn't have the strength of Sean, didn't have the beauty that made the things she wanted come to her like Maggie. She was pale and the kind of pretty that boys stared at reverently but never touched, the kind that people liked to admire through glass so as not to dirty her.

It had been building for a while now, since before the end of the world. She could feel it bubbling up her throat every day when she looked out on the green pastures of her home. The fresh air could never settle the restless feeling in her lungs. It had led her into the arms of Jimmy, because what else livens up a life like first love?

But he had treated her just the same. She had pushed him, her thoughts about the outside world and adventure tearing out of her. She just wanted someone to hear her. But he had pushed her back, nudged her into a familiar sense of safety and warmth. And she had hated him for it. But the world went to shit and there was nowhere for him to go and her wild heart was the least of his worries. And she clung to him because she heard once that love was important in times like these. Her father said it was what people lived for, why they kept fighting.

And now they were all gone. All that love that she had resented, felt stifled by, had dried up. Jimmy had died alone, her father had died tragically, her mother and brother had fallen long before Beth had accepted the horror of her life. And Maggie was just plain gone. Her heart was entirely hers, and she had never really had ownership of it before. It had always belonged in pieces to other people. People who had tried to shape her, tried to fix her when the world had gotten too ugly. She had nobody left to save her from her tangled mind.

She had to do it alone.

She kinda liked that.

...

And then, slowly but surely, she became aware of the presence next to her. They hadn't talked much before, and they didn't talk much now. He was strong – the kind of man who seemed wild and unable to be tamed. She envied that about him. He let her cry and he let her be optimistic – somewhat grudgingly of course – as she knew he would. It was what was expected of her, her perfectly filled role.

What she didn't expect, however, was the anger. So sudden and fierce, brought on by just a tad too much moonshine, and all of a sudden he's screaming at her. Nobody had really done that before – after all, how would Beth Greene handle such harshness? She's staring wide-eyed up at him, not quite sure what to do.

And then she's matching him word for word, spewing anger and thoughts she's kept bottled in for fear of once again being muffled. She lets him have it. He's being an ass and he should know it. And when all the anger comes crashing down and her face is pressed into his shoulder, she takes the first clear breath of her life. He wasn't pushing her away, folding her into her familiar box. She was right here, as wild as him, breathing the fresh air, and that was okay with them both.

She's distrustful, naturally, of this acceptance. She's lived her whole life a caged animal – she doesn't want to get to use to the sunlight if it's just going to be taken away. But he's burning down a house with her, saying fuck it to the world and damn it if this isn't what freedom feels like. He's teaching her how to hunt, listening to her talk, and believing her when she waxes on beauty and goodness. For once, she doesn't feel stifled. She's not ready to run.

Instead she's pressing closer, eager to feed her open heart. It belongs entirely to her now. She's taken it back from her ghosts, and it sits heavy, but happy in her chest. She's not ready to give it away. But sometimes, when his arm brushes hers as they skin their dinner for the night, she thinks on it.

Maybe she wouldn't mind sharing.