Writing anything for this universe makes me so damn happy. This will be like Jellyfish and will just be a little story.
…
"Would you want to go out with me?"
For a moment, Abby Dixon thought he was talking to someone else. Out of curiosity, she even pulled her head from her locker to look around to see who it was. But there was no one there. Just her. And Max Moraine was looking right at her and if she didn't know any better – and she told herself that she probably didn't – she would say he looked nervous.
She couldn't help but frown a little in his direction.
She figured it must be a joke of some kind – funny to him and his friends and everyone, but her. She was more than used to her classmates making fun of her and telling jokes with punch-lines at her expense, but things had gotten considerably better since her best friend, Rebecca "Becks" Conway, had moved to town.
There was something about Becks that just made her instantly to be considered one of the "cool" girls even though Becks showed absolutely no interest in any of them. Maybe that was why they thought she was so cool; her complete indifference to the school hierarchy. Becks was the one to approach Abby after her first day at her new school and came over to the Dixon farmhouse that evening for dinner and since then, the two girls had nearly been inseparable. Abby had never had a friend before – let alone an actual best friend – and she sometimes wasn't too sure what to do; how to act or what to say. There had even been moments of paranoia that perhaps Becks was only her friend as a part of some elaborate joke everyone in her grade was pulling on her.
But Becks had shown her that she is her true friend, her only friend, and that was why Abby was blinking at Max, not understanding what he had just asked her. She had her aids turned on and had heard him just fine. However, it was the actual question that left her confused. With having only one friend – no matter how cool the others might have thought that friend to be – the rest of her classmates still seemed to hardly tolerate her and that was only when they seemed to actually be admitting her actual existence.
No one in her grade besides Becks liked "Feral Abby" and no one certainly asked her if she wanted to go out with them.
When she didn't say anything and just continued to look at him, Max stuffed his hands into the front pouch of his hooded sweatshirt.
"I was thinking we could go get pizza or something," he said. "And then maybe the arcade. Unless that's too loud for you. I know you don't like loud noises," he added quickly. "I know it's Thursday tomorrow, but I just thought since we don't have school on Friday, the pizza place wouldn't be that busy…"
It took Abby another second. Was he asking her out? Actually asking her out? They were thirteen years old. Wasn't that too young to go on a date? She had no idea. Would her parents even let her go? And if she was thinking about what they would say, that must have meant that she was actually wanting to go out with Max Moraine.
… did she?
That was surprising to her. If there were cool girls, there were cool boys, too, in their school and Max definitely fell into that category. He was a football player and there was just something about the way he carried himself. He was confident and comfortable with himself and people seemed to want to be around him in hopes that it would rub off from him onto their own awkward budding teenage self-doubt.
Abby could think of no reason why Max would want to go and eat pizza with her. He had said a couple of his own mean comments in the past directed towards her, but not nearly as many as others had, but still… he hadn't been silent. Abby knew her classmates considered her strange. Not just because she was nearly fully deaf and wore hearing aids and rarely spoke. That didn't make her strange. Her deafness made her different and at their age, being different was just as bad.
She was strange because she wore dresses every day and walked barefoot in the woods and her hair was always down and looked like a wild mane. They called her Feral Abby because she liked to be in the woods than any other place in the world – it was in the Dixon blood – and the kids began thinking that that was where she was born and that was where she lived even though the town was small and everyone knew Daryl and Beth Dixon and they all knew – and were afraid of – her older brothers, Luke and Hunter.
There was no way that Max was asking her out and actually meant it.
"Okay," but she said softly anyway.
"Abby!"
Abby looked past Max's shoulder to see that Becks was coming her way down the hallway. She had stayed behind in class after the bell rang to discuss an upcoming science project with their teacher, Ms. Brandt. Science was both Becks' least favorite and worst subject and she was talking with their teacher to see what the least amount of work on this project she could do to at least earn a C. Becks had asked Abby to wait for her at her locker and of course, Abby had agreed.
Becks didn't even seem to notice Max standing there, looking at Abby, as she walked past him and exhaled a heavy breath, coming to stand at Abby's side.
"You ready?" Becks asked.
Abby was still looking at Max as Max stared at her, but she then slowly moved her eyes away and looked to Becks. She nodded slowly and Becks, still not even noticing Max standing there, looped her arm through Abby's and they headed towards the stairs. Abby did her best to listen to Becks as Becks talked about her plea to Ms. Brandt to just let her grow some crystals and be done with it.
"What are you going to do?" Becks asked as they headed down the stairs and out the front doors of their school. The bell had rung nearly ten minutes earlier and few students were still lingering around.
Abby was so deep in thought though, she admitted that she was hardly listening and Becks thought that maybe, she just didn't hear so she signed the question to her instead.
"How much sugar is actually in different kinds of food and drinks," Abby signed back.
"God, that's a good one," Becks sighed miserably. "I hate science. I was telling Ms. Brandt that everything in the world has already been discovered or are being studied right now by people much smarter than me. She didn't seem to like that very much."
As Becks kept going on and on about how science was clearly a torture device sent to earth from the Devil as they walked down the street, Abby could hear her best friend, but admittedly, she wasn't listening to her. Max Moraine had just asked her out on a date. She was only thirteen and she had already known that no boy would ever be interested in her – at least not a boy from this town. But that had been the problem because she was only thirteen, but she already knew that she never wanted to leave this town. She was a girl from the Georgia country. A girl of the woods. She couldn't imagine living anywhere else even if she knew that it would probably lead to a life alone.
There was a reason why she admired and loved Emily Dickinson as much as she did.
But now, Max Moraine had just asked her to get some pizza with him and she had agreed to go and Abby had no idea what to even think about that because she had never imagined that for herself. Girls in her class were already talking about their dream weddings and creating fantasy lives for themselves on Pinterest, but Abby had never even imagined that a boy would even look in her direction.
A part deep inside of her brain also wouldn't let go of the idea that maybe, just maybe, this was all some part of an elaborate joke and if she was to go out with Max, she would wind up being what she always was. The punch line to a joke she never found funny.
…
Daryl Dixon couldn't help it. He had woken up, really wanting to have sex. Unfortunately, when he woke up, his wife was already out of bed and he could hear her in the shower. They never had time for morning sex though and he knew he wouldn't be able to go into the shower and start something they wouldn't be able to finish. He wasn't looking for a quickie with her anyway. He wanted something they rarely seemed to have.
Time.
With a frown, this day already shitty despite having just opened his eyes, Daryl pulled himself out of bed and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. As he stood at the sink, he could see his wife, Beth Dixon, standing in their shower through the glass door.
She saw him and smiled. "Good morning!" She called out over the running water.
Daryl just grunted, his mouth full of toothpaste. He didn't think about how he just wanted to go into the shower and kiss her neck and breasts.
Downstairs, Hunter and Abby were already awake and dressed, getting themselves bowls of cereal and juice for breakfast and the Dixons were all early risers, but that didn't mean they were morning people. Beth was the only one who was. The kids were just like their dad and didn't really talk in full sentences until they had been awake for an hour.
Daryl started brewing a pot of coffee and popped a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster. He then turned around and leaned back against the counter behind him and with his arms crossed over his chest, he looked to the kids sitting at the kitchen table. Not so much kids anymore – Hunter was seventeen and Abby was thirteen – but Daryl didn't care. They would always be kids to him. Hunter was reading a magazine as he chewed on his spoons of cereal and Abby was reading a book as she usually always was doing, sipping on her glass of apple juice. Hunter was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt – as he usually did in the fall – and Abby was wearing a dress – as she usually did.
"You gonna be warm enough?" Daryl asked her, his voice a bit rough from not having used it for so many hours. Abby knew he was talking to her and she didn't lift her eyes from her book as she nodded. "At least take one of your sweaters or somethin'," he said. He didn't care how old she was. She was thirteen and was obviously more than capable of dressing herself, but Abby was his baby girl and he wasn't going to let her freeze – whether she actually would or not.
A little bit later, the kids left for school and Beth entered the kitchen in a whirl, a bit frantic because she was running late for work. Daryl had already filled her travel mug with coffee and she smiled, standing on her toes and giving him a quick kiss. Daryl refused to think about how the feel of her lips shot right down to his crotch.
"Pull some deer from the freezer for dinner tonight," Beth called over her shoulder as she hurried away. "Love you!"
And then she was gone and it was just Daryl and the family black cat, Kyle.
He had worked at Dale's Auto Garage in town for years and had just thought he would be there forever. But then Dale retired – as the man deserved to do – and had put his nephew in charge after that. Daryl and the nephew, almost immediately, hadn't agreed how things should be done and it hadn't mattered that Daryl had been Dale's best mechanic for years. Dale's nephew hadn't cared for Daryl and hadn't hid it from him. He had been miserable for months and Beth had been the one to suggest that he quit.
So he did – even though Daryl's biggest worry in life had always been money.
But his reputation as a first-class carpenter was now known throughout the entire Southeast and plenty of people hired him for plenty of projects and he made plenty of money in the process. For the first time in their married life, Daryl and Beth Dixon found themselves to be pretty financially comfortable and Daryl supposed they were still getting used to it because they still worked as hard as they always had.
Daryl spent his day in the garage, which he had expanded into his woodshop, working on a dining room hutch for some well-to-do couple in Atlanta. They were paying him big bucks for it and Daryl was spending as much as he could, making sure it was perfect.
He remembered to pull deer meat from the deep freeze and leave it defrosting in the sink and around lunchtime, he tossed it into the crock pot with some carrots and onions and he figured it wouldn't be a good idea to call Beth at the daycare center where she worked and ask her if she could come home on her lunch break just so he could get some sex. He didn't know what the hell was wrong with him. He was never like this. Nine times out of ten, Beth was the one to reach for him.
Deep down, he knew it was because when they first started seeing one another, he had tried so hard to show her that he just wasn't some horn dog, just wanting the young, pretty woman to come around so he could have sex with her.
When the kids came home from school, he noticed immediately that Abby seemed distracted. She was quiet – which was nothing new – but she seemed like she had something weighing heavily on her mind.
"You alrigh'?" He asked her.
And Abby nodded as he expected her to do. Beth came home then and she noticed it immediately with Abby as well.
"Is everything okay, Abby?" Beth asked their daughter.
Again, Abby nodded and both Beth and Daryl decided not to press on the matter at the moment. They both knew that things had gotten so much better for their daughter since Becks Conway had moved to town and the two girls had seemed to immediately become friends. They weren't getting phone calls from her teacher anymore, talking about the other kids and their bullying. She seemed lighter, happier, and both Daryl and Beth, of course, noticed and were both so happy and relieved with the change.
Hopefully, whatever was on her mind, she would eventually talk with them about it.
Daryl stood at the stove, stirring a pot of egg noodles to have with the deer and vegetables, and Beth came up behind him, her arms slipping around his waist, and standing on her toes, she kissed the back of his neck.
"Mmmm. How was your day?" She asked, her breath warm against his skin.
Daryl smirked a little. "'m gonna need you to not do that right now."
"Why?" Beth asked and he wasn't looking at her, but he could hear the frown on her face. She lowered herself back down on her feet and her arms fell away from his waist.
He didn't turn around to face her and instead, kept stirring the pot of noodles. "Cause I don't need either of our kids seein' what I wanna do to you."
It took Beth half a second to realize what he meant and now, he didn't turn around to see the happy smile on her face or the faint blush across her cheeks.
"Oh," she then said, almost giggling, and she then went to the cabinet to get plates.
They heard heavy steps on the back porch and a moment later, the back door was pushed open and Merle Dixon was standing there.
"Hey there," he greeted them as if it hadn't been nearly a month since he had last been by. "Mind if I come in for dinner?" He asked.
"Of course!" Beth exclaimed happily and went to throw her arms around him in a hug.
Merle was always doing this. He would disappear for weeks or even months and call Daryl occasionally just to let his little brother know that he was still alive, but he never said where he was or what he was doing. Daryl honestly knew that he probably didn't want to really know what his brother was up to.
And then, randomly, he would pop back into their lives as if he had never been away.
Merle smiled and patted her on the back.
"Kids!" Beth called out as she stepped away from Merle. "Your Uncle Merle's here!"
A moment later, Hunter and Abby had both run into the kitchen and had thrown themselves at him, excited and overjoyed to see him, and Merle laughed as he hugged them. He rubbed a hand over Hunter's head as he always did and he hugged Abby as if she was made of glass, just as he always did.
"Alright, alright, let an ol' man breathe," Merle grumbled though he was grinning and loving all of the attention he was getting.
Daryl stepped forward then and the brothers exchanged a hug with fists pounding on the back. When they broke apart, Merle grinned, able to see Daryl's relief on his face.
"Alright, kids," Beth said. "Help me come set the table in the dining room."
"If you wanna beer, they're in the fridge in the basement," Daryl told Merle as he drained the pot of noodles into the strainer in the sink. "And get me one, too."
Minutes later, the family was sitting at the dining room table with the bowl of noodles and another bowl of steaming deer meat and vegetables and Beth said the prayer of thanks as she did every other evening, everyone's heads bowed.
"Here, sweetie," Beth said, passing the bowl of egg noodles to Abby.
Abby took the bowl and as she spooned some noodles onto her plate, rather casually, she then said, "Max Moraine asked me out on a date and I told him okay. Is that okay?"
Everyone was absolutely silent, staring at her as she passed the bowl of noodles towards Uncle Merle, who sat across from her. Hunter had just been able to shove some deer in his mouth, but the fork was paused, hanging in mid-air in front of his mouth as he looked at his sister. Beth turned in her chair towards Abby and it looked almost as if she was wanting to smile. The bottle of beer had frozen on Daryl's lips just as he was about to take a sip as he stared at Abby.
Merle recovered first, heaping a huge pile of noodles onto his plate. He looked over to Daryl, who was still looking at Abby, unmoving. "Seemed like I picked a good time to show up again, baby brother."
…
Thank you very much for reading and please take a moment to review! I hope everyone has an amazing holiday!