How would you react if you knew that you were destined to die young? Would you become depressed? Suicidal? Live life to the fullest? Or maybe a bit of all three?

Abby Blackwell did none of the above. She had known that it was more than likely that she would die before she ever hit her eighteenth birthday. She had been diagnosed with Leukemia when she was just six years old.

Growing up she was always very weak and almost always had a low immune system, so in order to stay as healthy as possible, she wasn't allowed to go to school like the other children her age or even go outside to play most of the time for fear of getting even the smallest of colds.

Her parent's ended up working almost all the time so that they could afford to get Abby the best possible treatments. They even packed up everything to move from their big home in Michigan once her health began to deteriorate, to a small southern town in Georgia so they could put as much money as possible toward getting her a bone marrow transplant in hope that it would help their daughter.

Their new home was a small trailer in a seemingly run down park on the lower-class side of the neighborhood. Their little trailer was a pale shade of yellow with two bedrooms and one bathroom. Over all it wasn't as run-down as some of the others they had seen among the area. Some of the homes were to the point of being condemned.

After everything was unpacked and put in its proper place, her parents told her to stay inside and not to leave unless they were home, which was maybe a few hours a week, and seemed pointless to her since she was now only six months away from turning eighteen.

A few days letter she was home alone in her small bedroom doing her school work when she heard a loud bang from outside, causing her to jerk back and fall off of her bed and onto the hard wooden floor below. Rubbing her back where she hit it on the corner of her nightstand, she gets up and crawls across her bed to the little window and slowly peeks out, wondering who was making such a racket so early in the morning. Glancing around she can see two older men standing in their yard a few feet away arguing over the hood of a pale blue pickup truck that had seen better days.

The older looking of the two men glanced up and caught eyes with Abby from over the hood and nudged the younger man towards her and both turned to look over. The older man winked causing Abby to flush scarlet and the younger man just scowled at her and went back to working under the hood.

The older man of course continued to look over and shouted towards her.

"ey sugar, Why don' ya come on over here and get a closer look?" He howled. "I promise I don' bite much!"

Startled she jumped and quickly shut her window and closed the curtains and could still hear the obnoxious laughter coming from outside. Feeling embarrassed she could feel her heart pounding in her chest and took small breaths to calm the beating.

"Yea right..." she mumbled to herself. Sitting up and taking care to avoid the window she glanced around her bedroom and eyed the clock. It was only 9o'clock in the morning so she still had a long while until her parents came home from work.

Feeling claustrophobic from being stuck in the house all day, she decides to go outside and walk around. She has been living in this small town here for almost a week and had only been outside a handful of times and it had always been when her parents allowed it. Grabbing some clothes she changed from her panda bear shorts and white tank top to a knee-length skirt and a tee-shirt.

Walking into the bathroom and running a brush through her light brown hair, Abby stops and takes a quick look in the mirror and frown as she sees her reflection. Sighing at her pale, sickly complexion. Her green eyes seemed dull and sunken in and her cheeks were starting to lose what little color she had left.

"Well I guess this is as good as its going to get..." she mutters to herself.

Outside she can see that only the younger man was out and he was still busy working under the hood of his truck and seemed to have a permanent frown on his oil stained face. There are only a few trailers and it seems as though the place was deserted. The only noise in the whole place was the occasional grunt and the sounds of tools hitting metal.

Slowly walking around she smiles at the summer heat that was slowly warming her pale skin and the small breeze. Happy that for once, she felt calm and at ease. It was very rare that she felt good enough to go outside even without permission.

Roaming around the area that was supposed to be her back yard, she can see a few patches of wild flowers and clovers underneath the scarce surrounding trees. Looking around she notices an old storage shack and with that she realizes that she had wandered further away than meant. While still enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face and the small breeze, she wasn't paying attention to where she was going and walked into something and fell down hard onto her back.

Sitting up and wheezing, she sees that she had knocked into the younger man and caused both of them to end up falling down onto the ground. Too shy and scared to say anything she decided to just keep quite.

He quickly sits up and glares down at her while standing up and dusting off all of the dirt.

"Are ya stupid or something? Cover ya self up and get!" He sneered. Cover up? Cover what up? She just looked up at him in confusion.

Daryl was extremely pissed off. First the hose in his truck busts, right after he just installed it and Merle keeps on talking about "a sweet piece of jail-bait ass" next door and now said girl knocks into him and is too damn stupid to notice that her fuckin skirt is up around her waist and her panties are on display. Groaning he bends down and grab the end on her skirt and pull in back down so she covered and walks away. He can already tell this chick is gonna be trouble.

Later that evening, Abby could still feel her heart in her throat and it felt like all her blood went to her face. She had never felt so embarrassed in her entire life. Even though it had been hours since their encounter, she her face was still bright red. Even as she showered, ate, finished her school work and watched TV she could feel her heart thumping. Maybe she was getting sick? She'd have to get her mom to take her back to the doctor.

The next day her mother took her to the doctor and turns out nothing was wrong with her physically. She was so lost, why did her body react like that?

The next few days went by slowly and every time she saw that man, she could feel her heart skip a beat. He was so handsome. He had short dark brown hair with the most amazing blue eyes she had ever seen. She also found out that his name was Daryl Dixon and the older man was his brother Merle Dixon. She was beginning to feel like a stalker but when he would be outside she couldn't help but watch him while he moved about. His figure was skinny but he also had muscular arms and it seemed like her never wore anything with sleeves and even his jumpsuit that he wore when he went to work had the sleeves torn off. He was even more good-looking when he was dirty and covered in oil and sweat and a few times she had seen him when he wasn't frowning but not even close to smiling.

She wanted to talk to Daryl and apologize but the time never seemed right. Finally a week later she waited for her parent's to leave for work and she got dressed and decided to go to town to get her mind off everything. She was excited to go out so she put on her best dress and she even put on some light make-up. Her dress was a pale blue that was a spaghetti strap and snug at the top but flowed out at the middle of her stomach. She pair the dress with some white flats and she even straightened her hair and put some light blue eyeshadow on to complete the look. She actually felt pretty and hoped today would be a good day.

The town was small but a lot of the people were really nice. She went into a few stores and window shopped. An older lady even told her there was a pet store a few blocks down and Abby had always wanted a dog but since she was sick her parents wouldn't allow it, so going to look couldn't hurt anything.

"Oh wow!" she says in awe. She had never seen a pet store this close and it was amazing! The store was a small brick building across from an auto shop and can't wait to go in to explore. Walking in there were little cages filled with hamsters and rats on one side and the other had kennels with a few dogs and cats and there were a batch of newborn kittens running around inside. She could feel a big smile pulling at her lips and couldn't help herself from going over to the kittens and watch them play.

"Well I don't think I have seen someone look that happy in a long time."

Looking up she sees a young Asian guy standing beside me smiling. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt and on his head was a baseball cap. "Oh, Hi." she says shyly. When it comes to meeting new people she is extremely shy.

He didn't seem to mind that she was shy and his smile just grew bigger. "My names Glenn. I haven't seen you around before. You new to town?"

Giving a small smile and nod. "My name is Abby. I just moved here a few weeks ago."

"Well Abby it's nice to meet you." Glenn says. "I hope this isn't to forward, but would you like to hang out some time? I could even give you a tour of the town?"

"Sure" she replies. It would be nice to have a real friend for once.

We talked for a few more minutes until he had to leave to go to work and before he left he gave her his phone number. Glenn was hands down, the sweetest boy she'd ever met and he was only two years older than her so they would have some things in common.

Abby was leaving the pet store when she looked over at the auto shop and what she saw made her heart stop and her face to flush all at the same time. Right across the street was the man she couldn't stop thinking about, Daryl Dixon.