A/N: I do not own the walking dead or any of its characters. This will remain cannon up to a point, but rest assured, I like happy endings.
To me she is just "June Bug." I was hoping to have learned her name by now, but the girl threw me on her desk a week ago, and that is where I have stayed... Waiting for the moment when she casts a glance in my direction. I desperately long to share with her the old man's loving inscription, and I wish beyond measure for her to share with me the stories of a world beyond these four walls... Her world.
Whenever she is here, June bug spends her time reading, or playing music on a guitar, that when not in use sits idol in the oppisite corner of the colourful room from where I lay discarded. I listen to her angelic voice as she sits on her bed, singing along with the cords she strums, and it is within these moments that I catch a small glimpse of the pure warmth and hopeful joy that gleams within her soul. She is a beautiful story yet to be told.
Alas, I am left only to daydream of the magnificent words she might someday scribe across my skin. Over time I see her weaving those words into a tightly knit tapestry of a life well lived, and I may one day know who June bug really is. The wind blows through the open window and I can almost feel the ink tickling my fibers as I envision the young girl's hand gliding the pen along my parchment with a gentle touch. Not yet knowing if what I imagine is correct because it is another with whom June bug shares her inner-most thoughts while I lay empty, collecting dust and wishing it was me.
"Goodbye old friend. I will never forget you."
Beth sighs as she closes the overstuffed notebook, quite possibly for the last time, and then wraps an elastic band around its ratty cover. It is never easy for the quiet farmgirl to say goodbye, and the truth of it is, she has been silently dreading this moment since she first infused her thoughts onto the notebooks welcoming pages two years earlier. Ever so carefully, the young girl pulls out a box from under her bed and blows dust off of the cardboard lid, before opening it up and running her hands over the many notebooks, diaries, and binders hidden inside.
She pushes a stray honey blond curl out of her face, and begins to reorganize the contents so as to make room for her lastest journal. Once the book is safely placed in its new home, she closes the lid and slides it back under the space between her matteress and the floor.
Sighing once again, Beth takes a seat at her desk and turns her attention to the birthday gift her daddy had given her a week prior. Her blues eyes tentatively gloss over the stiff leather binding, and she mindlessly trails her fingers down the green velvet ribbon meant to mark the pages, and then over the silver lines embossed on its cover. The book is quite safisticated actually. Far superior than any journal she has owned thus far. More pages too. But no matter how hard it is to say goodbye to the old, starting fresh is positively terrifying. It is like sharing everything about yourself right down to who you are on a base level with a complete stranger. There is no history here, no shared experience. The book is empty and devoid of life.
It is only when she cracks the spine that she sees how mistaken she is. She is overcome with emotion. Instantly a lump forms in the back of her throat and a tear drop falls, crinkling the paper slightly, as she smiles down at her daddy's words that are written in black ink on the very first page.
"To my dearest June bug. Happy birthday.
I know, I know, you said no presents this year, but what kind of father would I be if I didn't at least acknowledge how far you've come, and all the hard work you put in to getting here. You know as well as I do that addiction is a beast not easily tamed, and can take a lifetime to conquer, but you are leaps and bounds ahead of me my sweet girl. You make your momma and I so proud. We look into a future when you will no longer be living under our roof, and as sad as it makes us, we rest easy in the knowledge that you are destined for happiness. Years ago I came across this empty journal in an old box of your grandmother's things. I saved it because I knew there would come a time when you would finally be ready to fill it with the heartfelt words of love and inspiration that you give so freely to everyone around you. Trust yourself honey, for you are wise beyond your years, and always remember that no matter what trials life thows your way... You will always have a home to come back to. -Love Dad"
"I love you too daddy," Beth whispers into the air. She knows he worries about her. They all worry about her. No matter how much time goes by, or how many books she fills, it will always linger in the back of their minds. The gigantic elephant in the room, hiding behind the face of a seventeen year old girl who can just barely hold it together. Beth closes her eyes for the briefest of moments, taking a shaky breath as she prepares to rip the bandaid off of an old wound. It is the story that begins each and every journal she has ever written. No sense in blanketing over it. This is after all, a critical turning point in her life.
Picking out a pen from the purple mug on her desk, she places it between her fingers and begins to write.
" April 15th, 2008
Hello. We don't know each other yet, but we are going to be great friends. I can feel it in my bones already. Let me properly introduce myself. My name is Beth Greene, and I live on a farm just outside senoia, Georgia. I feel it only fair to warn you right from the beginning of things, that I am screwed up. I live here with my momma Annette, and my daddy Hershel. My brother Shawn also lives here, but spends a great deal of his time these days fixin' up cars at his friend's garage in town, while he works towards his mechanic's licence.
My half sister Maggie will be coming home next week. Soon as finals are finished. She plans to spend the summer exploring her options. At least that is what she told Daddy when he asked why she wasn't staying in Athens to look for work now that she is graduating. I look forward to seeing her. We haven't spent a whole lot of time together since she headed off to school four years ago, and I miss her terribly.
Anyway we moved here from Atlanta when I was six, shorty after my abduction. They call it a miracle that I was found alive. I don't really remember much about that week, only that I can no longer tolerate small spaces for any length of time. What I do remember is the strange mixture of relief and bone crushing sorrow, displayed on my Momma's face when she and Daddy rushed into the hospital room after the police had found me. The image is unrelenting, and will forever be burned into the forefront of my brain.
Life moves on though. Daddy hired Otis and his wife Patricia to help run the farm, and Daddy went back to what he did best. Turns out Senoia is a perfect place for a veternarian such as my daddy to set up shop, and slowly things went back to a new normal... Almost.
I started to have nightmares. Sometimes even now I wake up gasping for air, and shaking. By the time I was eight I was cutting myself. I don't know what made me think to do it that first time, but when I did, I felt closer to normal than I had felt in a long time. It also quieted my dreams some. I can't explain why or how, but it took the away the anxiety, and the pain that still lingered. It felt good. It made me feel clean.
When I was ten, Shawn walked into the bathroom unannounced and caught me with a razor blade in my hand. He screamed bloody murder, as I chased after him down the hall, thin red lines running horizontal up my thigh as I did. Shouting for him to stop. Trying to explain that it wasn't what he thought. That this made it better. That it made me better.
I remember the sadness and guilt it caused for Daddy when Shawn told him what I had been doing. He started going back to AA after that, and I started to see Dr. Stone twice a week. She was the one who gave me my first journal. A small binder that she asked me to write in everytime I felt the urge to harm myself. She didn't understand that it helped either.
For Daddy it was worse.
But even still, he has been sober again for the past three years now, and I haven't cut myself in eight months. We both struggle, but it is our struggles that have brought our family closer. Maybe I won't truly understand until I'm a parent myself, but I see guilt and saddness lingering there behind his eyes sometimes. Momma and Shawn's too. And I still feel responsible for it. They baby me now. They treat me like glass, and walk on eggshells around me. I hate it!
God I can't wait till Maggie comes home.