Beth

I mentally chastised myself for even thinking about confronting the guy who pushed me to the floor. Guys like that don't help girls like me. Guys like that take advantage of girls like me, then grow up and live life without ever having any repercussions for their actions.

Why were my thoughts currently so negative? That put me in a worse mentality. So, trying to wrap my head around something that could make me feel better about myself, I pulled all of my belongings together in a huge jumbled mess, somehow balancing everything just right so that my stuff wouldn't take yet another dive to the floor. My hands slowly began to numb with each step I took. When I walked through the threshold, the nerves were so screwed that I managed to drop my notebook without the slightest realization.

"Hey, you dropped this."

"Huh?" My head spun around so fast that my foot forgot it was supposed to be stepping down onto a stair. I watched in slow motion as papers flew passed my head. My hands flung out in front of me, catching my fall, but not enough to keep my knees from scraping against the concrete.

I knew there would be blood, but I didn't want to see it. I stared down at my hand, the blood starting to come to the surface of the new wound. I felt my stomach began to shrink, pushing my food up my throat. My eyes focused further, and my sight caught my torn up knees. It looked like some digital effect in a movie where the blood spot gradually gets larger until it's basically all you can see on the pants leg.

"Do you do this often?" I looked up at the girl before me. She must have seen the green in my face because she stepped forward to get a better look. "Holy shit, are you okay?"

I decided to focus on the first question, instead. It was the million-dollar question. Why was I dropping everything? Had I suddenly become some clumsy mess of a girl that couldn't even hold her own books? Did I somehow know what was going to come that very night and it affected me hours prior? That was something I would ponder for many years to come.

"To answer your question, no." I responded with a smile, hiding that I was snatching up a rather worn out book of mine before she could. "I'm just a little out of it today."

She had hair the color of tree-bark and skin that was tanned. Olive. My eyes adjusted a bit more, and I noticed her smiling, making her eyes crinkle up at the corners. Her eyeliner was on a bit thick, but she didn't seem to mind it, so neither did I. "I'm Tara." Bell's rang in my head. I had heard of her before. She was the "raging Lesbian" that had made a recent appearance in the school, sending everyone into a frenzy. By raging, they simply meant that she was the only out-lesbian that actually treated her relationships like other people did. Meaning open displays of affection and what not. Basically, she didn't let stereotypical tropes keep her from feeling normal. As the world should be.

The rest of the details that followed behind her were lost to me. I didn't actually know her, therefor none of the details that spread from other mouths stuck with me, and sadly, there had been many.

"Good citizen" and "Makes fun of people who fall" had been added onto my mental resume for her more recently.

It clicked that her hand was sort of just limply dangling in front of my face, seeing as how she had stuck it out for me to shake, and I very disrespectfully ignored it.

"Beth." I said in a forced bravado that sounded like a superhero trying to be modest. Tara raised an eyebrow at me, but let the mishap slide nonetheless as I laughed it off.

She reached down and grabbed the last text book that appeared even more beat up, then handed it back to me. "Where do you live? Do you need a ride"

"Oh no, it's fine. I mean, I-I'm fine. I live a few miles away and I usually just ride my bike." Well, that sounded stupid. "I just bike home." God, Beth. "On my bike." By the time I was done butchering my sentence, I was running my hand through my hair and leaning slightly to the right.

Why am I so bad at walking and talking today?

"You're really strange."

I sat there for a moment trying to find something to explain why I was really awkward. Like, a way to blame it on the off-ness of my day, but I soon realized that only my body was being effected by the day, not my words. That part was all me. "I know." I finally relinquished, exhaling a bunch of air.

She nodded, her eyes squinting a little as she let her shoulders fall. The gesture was almost hidden beneath her large brown leather jacket. "Right. Well, I'll let you get to your bike." She handed me the book, then she spun around as her hair fanned out behind her. I watched as she headed to the student parking lot. "Maybe I'll see you around some time," she called back.

"You too!" I responded almost instantly, then literally shoved my face into my hands. Why. Why must I make everything so ungainly. "That didn't make any sense, Beth." I told myself, reaching the handle bars of my bike. I shoved my books into the basket on the front, which makes me look like an eight year old. At least it didn't have the tassels (my mom let me remove those last year when I told her it was either the tassels or a new car).

The bike ride home was perilous, filled with dicey pot holes, chilling red lights, and strange elderly men yelling at me to speed up. Ironic and sad. Not to mention I was already late as it was. I was so incredibly late.

My bike slid along the driveway as I came to a stop, Red Wine blaring through my headphones. My body vibrates with each verse and I can feel my heart warming as the song continues.

My senses perk up at a disturbance in the noises I'm hearing through the headphones. Honestly, I'm pretty interested in whatever noise could break through my sound barrier. My eyes seek out the perpetrator, and soon fall upon a familiar face. Daryl, my neighbor who's in his mid thirties, was outside seemingly just finishing up mowing his lawn. I look at him for a moment before I realize he's talking to me.

"Hmm?" I ask, and when I see him flinch, I assume my voice must not have come out as quietly as I had first intended. I hurry to rip out the ear buds.

"-train?" His deep voice called out.

"Can you repeat, possibly, everything you've said since I got here?" I question, an embarrassed grin on my face.

Daryl lifts his hand, chuckling a bit as he brushes through his short facial hair. "I'll skip the mean parts, then." He tells me with a grin. "I was just wondering if you knew you were singin' louder than a passing train."

As if my face couldn't get any redder. Had I known that? No. Was I going to say that? Of course not. "That'll be ten dollars." I respond with my hand held out.

His eyebrow lifts, and his eyes stray over me with suspicion. "What for?"

"I don't do free shows." I reply, moving the kick stand out.

And then he laughed. It wasn't the kind of laugh you could listen to all day. It was a deep, hard laugh. One that would take time getting used to, and even then, you might not want to listen to it daily. But, it was his natural laugh, and I had hardly heard it before, so I just smiled back at him.

I almost walk away when he calls me back. "What happened to your leg?"

Casting my eyes back to him, I kind of shrug. "I fell down some stairs." I reply, and I see the gears in his head turning as he ponders on something. I watch him stare down at the ever so present blood stain on my leg, completely unaware of whether he's going to call a doctor or amputate it himself.

Daryl was a fairly unreadable man, and it was infuriating. Especially when my mother sent me to his home to ask if he wanted to come over, because I'd show up at his door and knock, then he'd open it and peer out at me, and I'd ask simply, "Would you like to come over?" and even though he has yet to come in our home once, his eyes still show such... Dubiousness of the situation and what he is going to say. So I still walk to his bulking front door and slam my small hands down on the wood, that simple question still at the tip of my tongue, when internally I know his answer.

There's even some gossip about a time Daryl was in a poker game with the Mayor and a few officers of his old town, and he won the game with flying colors because of his incredible poker face. I don't quite believe it, but if he told me any different, I'd have to believe him because I'd have no clue he was lying.

Finally, I saw some sort of decision being made in his stoic facial expressions, and as soon as they appeared he turned away from me and took off like a deer. "Where are you going?" I asked him with great distress. Was I supposed to wait here? His only response was to hold up his finger in a 'hold on a second' sort of way, then he rushed back inside of his house.

I stood beside his fence, leaning heavily towards the right. The wind was blowing, whipping my hair around like a maniac in a weird shampoo commercial. My fingers were gripping onto the cold metal as I looked at his house, waiting for the man to emerge.

The same deafening sound went above my head, then. I caught the plane slicing through the sky before it was gone. It gave an intimidating impression, something military style. But, I had never seen one before, so why now?

I heard his footsteps then, I comical contrast to what I had heard not ten seconds before hand. "Now will you tell me what you're thinking?" When my eyes found his, he was already closer than he had been before he left. I opened my mouth, trying my hardest to breathe in a usual manner, but he knelt before me and touched the knee of my pants.

"I'm gonna have to cut these." He told me in a abrasive voice, pulling a switchblade out from his back pocket. I yelped, seeing as how he gave me no time to oppose before he tore the jeans just above my cut.

"I liked these pants." I mumbled, stumbling a bit until I leaned my back on the fence and held on for dear life as he began to tear the bloody jeans from my tender flesh. I knew before it happened that it was going to hurt, but I had no idea how much. In fact, when he started, I had to stop him to make sure he wasn't ripping off my skin instead of just the cloth.

I'm on the verge of crying when I feel something icy being pushed into my stomach. My hands grab at it before I can get my eyes on it, but when I do, I almost throw it at his head. In my hand was a bottle of Four Roses Bourbon.

Instead of clonking him on the head with it, I just stare down at him with what was more than likely the stupidest expression I had ever plastered on my face. "It'll help with the pain." He told me, not even looking up. I wince as he gets the final piece off, the bottle still in my hand. When my eyes open, they're a bit blurry from the tears. Although that soon clears and Daryl's still knelt before me, but this time he is looking at me. "You're actin' like you ain't never drank before." He informs me, not making my mood any better.

"That's because I haven't." I whimper back at him, hoping I won't scream out. He has a rag to clean up the blood, and the flesh is horribly sore.

Daryl stops what he's doing, then. "Don't bullshit me. You're eighteen."

Once again, I had the urge to hit him over the head. Instead, I opted for looking at the intricate design on the glass bottle. "Don't get me wrong," I reply, unscrewing the cap. "I would have. The opportunity just never presented itself." The tip of the bottle is almost to my lips when he yanks it back. "Hey!" I yell.

He stands up, pulling the bottle just out of my reach. I grab for it, but the bastard is about a foot taller than me and at least sixty pounds heavier. "I ain't gonna be the one to give you your first drink." He says, somehow being okay with tearing my leg open, but not giving me a swig of alcohol.

"Why does it matter? One way or another, the alcohol was still going down the hatch. Why does it matter if this is the first or the thirtieth time?" I pretty much yell, slapping him hard on the chest. He steps away, though, making me go farther than I anticipated and bend my knee. I cried out and fell forward. Glass shattered, blood dripped, and Daryl switched from a hard biker type to a big softy sputtering apologies as he held me up.

My hands were on his shoulders, his right arm slung around my waste, his left hooked under my legs to keep them straight, and my entire body was sat over his lap. It was... Awkward. My face was burning beneath the surface, and he was just looking at me. It was then that I noticed that he had blue eyes. I always thought they were green.

"Let me... Uh-Let me go ahead and finish patchin' you up so you can go on home to your mom." He said, looking away and brushing off some of the broken glass before sitting me down. He took my right leg and looked at it for a minute before putting the gauze over it. "Shouldn't need stitches, but it's going to scar."

"What about you?" I asked, and he looked at me like I had just shoved a burning log in his face. "You cut yourself on some of that glass." I remind him.

He looks down at his calf where, sure enough, some blood is starting to seep through his own jeans.

"Aren't we a pair?" I ask, laughing as I think about are similar situations.

He shrugs, picking up some of the rags he used earlier. "I'll clean it up real quick."

I nodded, no words leaving my mouth. He stood up, then held his hand out for me. I immediately caught it.

"Thank you. For... This." I told him, gesturing down towards my leg. He nodded, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. I saw the hint of a tattoo on his wrist. Something legible. Numbers perhaps?

"S'no problem." He said with a hint of a smile. "Go on inside." He gripped the bottom of his shirt, walking towards his garage as he pulled it off. "I got some business to tend to."

"You're a tease, Daryl Dixon!" I told him after I got over the hypnosis. I heard his deep chuckle echoing from his garage, and turned to walk inside my home.

The living room was a mess, which was a bad sign. My mom tended to tear things apart when she was nervous. I distinctly remembered the time that my dad's parents were supposed to come over for Christmas. They had never approved of my mom as a wife for him, so in my mother's anxiety of what was to come, she tore apart our presents in the night. I didn't know then what I know now. How even the slightest bit of criticism from one of her children would send my mother into weeks of depression.

She never really had an explanation for it, but ever since my dad died six years ago, it had gotten worse. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, and she'd be sitting in the middle of the hallway, legs tucked beneath her and her hair in a rats nest, ripping up pieces of paper.

I found her in the next room. She was sitting in front of the window in the kitchen, gazing out of it like a school girl in love. "What are you doing?" I asked.

She jumped back, placing her hand over her heart. "Jesus, Beth! Give me some warning next time." I ignored her, brushing passed to see what she was staring at. There, I saw Daryl raking his back yard. The man clearly had no earthly idea that my mom was looking at him like a rib-eye steak. If he did, he would no doubt put a shirt on.

I turned to look at her with disdain. "Are you kidding? He's not a piece of eye candy, momma."

She sighed. "He knows what he's doing."

Well, that pissed me off. "That's the worst excuse I've ever heard of. Even if he's aware of himself and chooses to not cover it up, it doesn't mean you should be making googly eyes and cat calls at him through the window. He's a human, not a circus animal."

"My little daughter, the ever so moral Bethany Anne Greene." Her hands went up in the universal 'giving up' way, and she spun around so that she could prove she was done looking through the window.

"Besides, shouldn't you be getting ready for Shawn to get home?" I reached behind me, lowering the blinds.

She rolled her eyes, sitting down in a chair beside the equally messy table. "His name is Connor. That's the name I gave him when I gave birth to him." She took a tip of tea that she had left there. "Your daddy is the one who decided to give him that middle name. And he called an hour ago. Said his flight is being held up and that he will be home tomorrow." My heart had begun chugging in my chest as a painful knot started to twist. I hadn't seen my brother in nearly four years. "He also asked me to tell you that he's sorry, and that he can't wait to see how your hair has grown out." She said with a chuckle.

I groaned loudly, absentmindedly fingering my hair. The night when Shawn cut it hit me full force, and soon, I was laughing too. It had looked like I had handed a child the scissors instead of a nineteen year old man. "That asshole." I said under my breath.

A hand slapped me on the arm, and my mother was looking at me with disapproval. "Don't call your brother that." She chastised, and I leaned in real quick to give her a kiss.

"Sorry, momma." My feet turned and aimed back towards the living room when my mom questioned my destination. "Why don't I go and clean up the living room, and you get started on dinner?" She agreed, and I continued my path.

I was about half way through cleaning up her big pile of ripped paper when she called me in for dinner. Mac and cheese and stuffed mushrooms. I recollected then that I usually over-see her cooking so that things wouldn't get burnt or over seasoned. As they clearly were now. Crap.

We sat down opposite of each other, each painfully mindful of the empty seats on either side, one of which should be filled now, and the other would never be filled again.

"How was school?" She asked, stuffing a bite of mushroom into her mouth. I actually stared her down for a moment in an attempt to gauge the level of horror I was about to receive from taking a bite, but she didn't crack in the slightest. She's getting better at this.

I scraped my fork around on the old, blue, glass plate. "Clarence Thomas blew up my chem. Class." I supplied, pushing aside a hard macaroni.

"Oh? Well, we know what career he's aiming for." She said, reaching for her glass of wine.

I nodded. "Suicide bomber." I finally took a bite, instantly wishing I hadn't. There was quite the generous amount of salt, but despite the contiguous extinction of any wetness in my mouth, I swallowed it. "His parents must be so proud."

She lifted her fork, pointing it towards me as her blonde hair slung over her right shoulder. Me and my brother also had blonde hair, but her's had always seemed so much brighter than ours. Shawn's was practically brown now that I think about it. "You know, his father used to be a waiter down at Buddy's."

I did know, but I didn't want my mom to have any reason to get angry with me. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, really. And his mother was a shop girl in the eighties." She added like a gossiping housewife.

I sighed, looking passed her and out of the window that I remember closing, but was once again open. "I guess it runs in the family." I said distractedly, wondering if Daryl knows she was panting like a dog in heat while watching him.

"What?" She asked.

"Short lived careers."

My mother stopped chewing for a moment, than it hit her. She began laughing, then she laughed so much that she had to grab a napkin to wipe her eyes. "You're awful!" She cried out, taking another big swig of wine.

I smiled back at her, chewing on my too salty food with pride. It was a good joke, wasn't it.

A knock came to the front door setting a much less entertaining mood, and both of us stood and began to walk towards it. My mother turned the knob, pulling the wooden door in towards us, and we looked out to see Officer Parker on the other side.

"Can I help you, officer?" My mother questioned. I saw her chest began to heave, and I didn't have to guess why. The last time an officer showed up on our door step, my father was dead.

Thank you for reading! Please leave a review, and if you would like to get into contact with me, message me or go to my tumblr at sacrificiallame . tumblr . com