Many have been asking for a story about the Dixon kids when they're a little older and I was inspired to write something for it. This is just going to be a few parts long. Maybe five and it will switch POVs around. I hope you enjoy this first chapter!
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It all started with, oddly enough, jellyfish.
It was a simple question in Abby's biology class. What is your favorite animal and whatever it is, write a two page – single-spaced – report on that animal over the weekend, due that next Monday. And the teacher went around the room and had each student tell the rest of the class what their favorite animal was in case there was more than one writing about the same one.
Abby Dixon never talked in class – even if she knew the answer to whatever question the teacher asked – and all of her teachers knew that. Some had still called on her, wanting to encourage her, but others respected her desire to be silent. Abby wore her hearing aids during school hours but she hated the way she sounded when she talked. Her words were slow and slightly loud so she'd be able to hear herself and she had heard more than one of her classmates snicker behind their hands when she spoke.
She watched as the question slowly made its way up each row of desks, each student answering, laughing when Toby Grist answered with "Blue-Footed Booby" but the teacher, Ms. Brandt, shushed them, and they all knew Toby had said that just so he'd be able to say boob while in class. Abby sat in the last row, closest to the wall of windows in the room, and she listened as everyone gave their answer, none giving the answer that Abby was going to.
And when it came to be her turn, Ms. Brandt smiled at her and they all waited. "And what's your favorite animal, Abby? What will you be writing about?" She asked.
Abby licked her lips, feeling how suddenly dry they were, and she tried to swallow the matching dryness that itched the back of her throat.
"Jellyfish," she answered, staring down at her desk as she did so.
"What an interesting choice, Abby," Ms. Brandt said and Abby lifted her eyes to see that the teacher was smiling – warm and genuine. "Do you know-" Ms. Brandt looked to the rest of the class. "-that the jellyfish doesn't have a heart, bones or even a brain?"
"Sounds like Abby," Max Moraine spoke up and the rest of the class began laughing.
Abby stared down at her desk and swallowed again, the itching in her throat growing worse, and her stomach tightened into such a painful knot, she wanted to cross her arms over it and hug it in an attempt to make it better.
Ms. Brandt frowned and without a word, she pointed towards the door, and with a heavy sigh, Max stood up from his desk and left the room. "Alright, everyone. Turn to chapter three and begin reading quietly to yourselves. I'll be right back."
And after making sure that everyone was turning open their textbooks, she turned and followed Max out of the room, closing the door behind them. Abby immediately reached up and turned her hearing aids off so she wouldn't have to hear any of them.
She stared down at the words in front of her though she really wasn't reading any of them. She was used to the kids in her classroom laughing at her. And it wasn't just because she was almost completely deaf though that certainly had to do with it. They just thought she was weird. She wore dresses every day, and her blonde hair was always down and wild and it looked as if she never brushed it – though she did. In the warm months, she ran through the woods and fields without shoes – and if it was warm enough, she usually walked home from school without shoes on, too – and though it was a small town and everyone knew where the Dixon family lived, they all liked to say that she was just some feral girl who lived in the woods.
She was weird. Different. Slightly flawed. And they all didn't like her because of it.
Their town was small and there was one school that housed all of the grades – kindergarten through twelfth – in a two-story old brick building. Each grade was like in a one-room schoolhouse all on their own. They were always together and had one teacher to teach them all of the subjects. Abby had been with these classmates since they all started school years earlier and she knew they didn't like her. She didn't have any friends – not that she was looking to have any. She had always liked being on her own and she was envious of her oldest brother, Luke. He was twenty now and had gone off to Atlanta to go to art school and didn't have to go to this school every day.
She was only thirteen and had a few more years of having to endure before she could go off, too – even though, deep down, she knew that she really didn't want to leave at all.
The bell couldn't ring soon enough, ending school for the day, and her aids were off so she didn't hear it but she saw everyone else standing up, gathering their things, and looking to the clock, she was that it was three o'clock. Time to go.
She was the last to leave, hugging her books to her chest, and Ms. Brandt was sitting behind her desk, going through a stack of papers.
"Have a wonderful weekend, Abby," Ms. Brandt smiled at her and even though her hair was hanging in her face and her aids were off, Abby could see Ms. Brandt's lips and she could read them. She gave the pretty, kind teacher a small smile before leaving the classroom, stepping in the hallway crowded with other students, all running and shouting, eager to be out of school for the next two days.
She was glad she had her aids turned off.
As she walked towards the stairs, Abby caught sight of Ray Dixon, her dad's cousin and the janitor for the school, mopping at the floor, near Ms. Brandt's open door. Ray saw her and grinned and Abby smiled in return. She was quiet and her dad had taught her how to be observant at a young age when her lessons on tracking in the woods began. She saw things she knew that most other people didn't and she knew that Ray and Ms. Brandt liked each other and after school each day, he usually went to talk with her.
Stopping at her locker to drop off a few of her books, she kept her science book to take home with her and a book of Emily Dickenson poems that she always had with her. Sometimes, she felt no one in this world understood her except Emily Dickenson. And maybe her mom and dad.
As she stepped onto the front steps leading up into the school, she turned her aids back on. Her parents always wanted her to put them back on whenever she was walking somewhere. Safer that way, her dad said. Both for traffic and if someone was coming. Where they lived was relatively safe. Small and somewhat isolated and sometimes, it felt like the little town was alone in the whole world but anything could happen anywhere and Abby was usually off on her own and her parents couldn't be too safe.
It was September, summer still clinging in the air, and Abby slipped off her shoes before walking down the steps and cutting across the school's front lawn, feeling the warm grass beneath her as she walked.
She heard a few shouts and she saw kids running off to the side of the building and she couldn't help but look curiously towards the circle growing with kids of all ages, looking at whatever was in the center of the circle, some shouting, others cheering or laughing.
Abby couldn't care less and she continued walking. But then she heard someone shout "Hunter!" and she stopped, heading right for the circle. And when she saw what was going on, she wasn't entirely surprised, she realized. Hunter Dixon might have been sixteen-years-old but he had no problem approaching a thirteen-year-old and scaring the living daylights out of them, which was what it appeared he was doing.
Abby stood on her toes, trying to look over the shoulders of those in front of her.
And she wasn't surprised to see that Hunter was talking with Max Moraine, the boy's bottom lip already bloody and bruised. She had no idea how he had heard of what Max had said about her in class today but Hunter always had ways, Abby knew. It was a little surprising to her that any of her classmates ever said anything about her with Hunter as her older brother. He had always been her protector – ever since they were little kids – and if someone even looked at Abby the wrong way, they had to answer to Hunter.
Abby wished that Hunter would stop caring what people said about her. For the most part, Abby had stopped caring a long time ago.
Using her elbows, she pushed her way through the crowd of kids and strode right to Hunter. Without a word, she grabbed his arm and began tugging him away. Hunter got in trouble enough – both in school and with mom and dad – and as Hunter protected her, Abby did her best to look out for him and keep out of as much trouble as she could.
"Should have let me finish it, Abs," Hunter said as they began walking home.
Abby shook her head. "Mom and dad will kill you. And he's thirteen," she signed to him.
Hunter shrugged, his turn to not care less, and Abby knew that he didn't.
…
Daryl Dixon used to work at Dale's Auto Garage in town but he quit a few years ago after Dale retired and had his nephew took over. Daryl and the nephew didn't see eye-to-eye on certain things and Daryl wound up quitting after years of working there.
People in town thought he should open up his garage but the loans and getting the right equipment were too expensive so Daryl put most of his focus on his wood-working business, which seemed to grow each year. He still did random oil changes and engine work in the garage for family friends who wanted no one but Daryl Dixon working on their car, but for the most part, he was a full-time hunter and carpenter now.
When Abby and Hunter walked up the long dirt drive that led to the Dixon farmhouse, they saw the garage door open, a car's hood open and Daryl leaning into it on one side and Sheriff Rick Grimes, one of Daryl's closest friends, leaning in from the other side.
While Abby looked just like their mom, a mini-Beth, with her small, almost fragile frame, big blue eyes, blonde hair and pale skin, Hunter looked like a straight Dixon. His personality was a mixture of their mom and dad but looks-wise, Hunter looked as if he could have been the little brother to Daryl and Uncle Merle. He had their nose and dark hair color and the same sharp cheeks and scowl on his lips.
Daryl lifted his head when he saw the two of them coming. "Hey. How was school?" He asked as they neared the garage.
Hunter shrugged. "Fine," he answered as he always did.
And Abby just nodded her head as she always did because nearly every day, one of her classmates said something to her and she didn't tell her parents every time it happened. Her mom would get upset and her dad would get angry and Abby just didn't want that.
Hunter went into the garage to join dad and Sheriff Grimes and Abby went into the house. The Dixons had a computer but none of them really used it except to type up school reports. There was an internet connection but being out in the middle of nowhere, the connection was slow – if it worked at all. So instead of going to the computer as she knew most kids her age would have done, Abby set her shoes and books down and then went to the row of red encyclopedias on the shelf in the living room, taking down the "J" volume and going to go sit on the window seat, turning her aids off once more.
She had loved jellyfish ever since she was a little girl and her parents took her and her brothers to Atlanta to visit Uncle Shawn for the weekend and they went to the aquarium. Abby had stood in front of the glass for almost ten minutes, just watching the jellyfish and the way they had seamlessly moved through the water. It was as graceful as a dance and each time she looked up at her dad – who had stood with her the entire time – she had given him a big smile and he had smiled back.
It was one of her earliest memories and she had loved jellyfish ever since.
She saw movement from the corner of her eye and saw that it was mom, standing there, not wanting to reach out and touch her and startle her, knowing that her aids were off because she always turned her aids off when she read.
Beth smiled and Abby smiled in return. She pulled her legs up closer to her chest and Beth took the silent invitation, joining her on the window seat.
"How was school?" Beth asked, keeping herself facing her so she could always see her lips as she talked. Abby gave a small smile and nodded her head but just as she did that, she saw a faint sadness creep into her mother's eyes and Abby knew that somehow, her mom already knew how school really had been that day. "Ms. Brandt called," she then explained the answer to the question that Abby hadn't asked.
And Abby lowered her eyes to the book, lodged between her chest and thighs; almost as if she was ashamed that her mom knew that the other kids picked on her.
She felt fingers in her hair and she lifted her head again to see Beth looking at her, smiling faintly but sadness still in her eyes as she brushed some of Abby's hair back from her face. "You can always talk to me, Abby. About anything," she told her.
And Abby's head nod was almost automatic but then she let out a slight sigh. She wished she could tell her mom so many things. She told her some things but not nearly as much as she knew she should. How the kids here could be so cruel and yet, she sometimes so desperately wanted them to like her and accept her. How she felt a tightening in her chest whenever she looked over to Max Moraine and she didn't understand why because he wasn't nice and he made her want to cry. But then sometimes, he would do something that could be interpreted as nice. walking past her in the cafeteria and dropping his unopened chocolate pudding on her tray without a word or once, helping her pick her books up when she had dropped them in the hall.
Beth leaned in then and her fingers went behind her ear and she turned on one of the aids before pressing her lips to Abby's forehead. "I love you more than anything in this world, Ms. Abby. And this world is so lucky to have you."
They heard the front door open then and both turned their heads to see that Daryl and Hunter were coming in.
"Invited Rick for dinner but he's on duty tonight and wanted to go home first," Daryl said as Beth stood up, her smile a little less saddened now.
"Alright. Well, our dinner's almost done. Let me go check on it and Hunter, I need to talk with you. Come set the table," Beth said, heading towards the kitchen and Hunter let out a heavy sigh before he followed obediently after her.
Daryl walked over and kissed Abby on the head before he turned and left the living room once again, heading upstairs to wash himself up before they sat down to eat.
Abby stretched her legs out in front of her again and flattened the "J" book down across her thighs, reading the familiar facts over that she already knew concerning the jellyfish. She smiled a little as the Dixon black cat, Kyle, jumped onto the seat with her and began rubbing himself against her bare feet.
When her eyes scanned over the paragraph of how jellyfish did not have brains, she quickly closed her eyes, feeling them beginning to sting and she didn't want them to. It was no big deal. Just a comment said about her. Comments were made about her every day from her classmates. This was no different.
Maybe she was just caught off guard because Max had never been that cruel to her.
She wish she could just disappear but she knew she never wanted to leave home. She could be like her dad or Uncle Merle. They went into the woods and didn't come out for a couple of days, sometimes just needing to get away from everything. Maybe she could start doing that, too. Daryl Dixon had raised his kids in those woods and they knew how to handle themselves. Spending a few days within them wouldn't be a hard task to do.
"Dinner!" Beth called out then from the kitchen and Abby closed the book, setting it aside and standing up, Kyle looking less than pleased about that.
They ate at the kitchen table – a family of four though no one ever sat in Luke's chair, always ready for him whenever he came home for a weekend – and Beth served spoonfuls of chicken and rice casserole.
And then after saying a prayer of thanks, Beth began talking about work that day at the daycare center and Daryl mentioned some new job he had been hired for – doing some woodwork for Tyreese and Karen for a house they had bought and were working on flipping. Hunter talked about his teacher, Mrs. Reid, and how he wasn't being paranoid. She honestly and truly hated him and he was pretty convinced that she was into voodoo practices because sometimes, he would feel a sharp pain on the back of his neck during class as if she was stabbing a doll she had made of him with a pin.
Abby was quiet as she ate as she always was, not having anything to say. She went to school and came home and read in all the times in between. Nothing new to report.
After dinner, she and Hunter helped clean off the table and then Beth and Daryl washed up and loaded the dishwasher. Hunter went outside to the garage where he was working on restoring a car he and Daryl had found in a junkyard over the summer and Abby returned to the living room, turning on a light and taking her "J" encyclopedia, she sat down on the window seat once again, stretching her legs out in front of her.
It was still bright out, the sun only now beginning to sink lower towards the west, and as she did every other night, Abby would stay up, reading, until her mom came to tell her that it was late enough and she had to go to sleep now to get up for school in the morning. But on Friday nights, Abby could stay up as late as she wanted to until she fell asleep with a book on her chest and the lamp on the nightstand table next to her bed still turned on.
Friday nights were her favorite time of the week. It was the longest possible time she had until she had to go back to school Monday morning.
She heard the other girls in her class talk about Friday night plans. Going to the mall in the next town over and going to the movies in their town's small single-screen theater or having a sleepover at someone's house. Abby had never been to a sleepover before. She wondered what they were like.
She wondered what it was like to have a friend she wasn't related to.
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Thank you very much for reading and please review!