"So?" Carol asked when Daryl had walked back. "What are your two truths and a lie?"
"Cain't think of anythin'."
"It's not that hard, Daryl. Anything you've done. Anything you haven't done. Anything you like. Anything you dislike. Anything about you. When you lost your virginity. Whatever."
Damn. She was obsessed with his virginity. This was the second time she'd mentioned it. He better come up with something quick. "A'right...I's the only kid in my neighborhood who ain't never had a stepdaddy. Had my first mason jar of moonshine when I's eleven. And when I's twelve, me and my cousin Kash set fire to the dumpster outside our school day before school started so maybe we wouldn't have to go."
"Well, I've never heard you mention a stepdaddy, so I'm going to assume that's true," Carol said.
"Yer right. One of my neighbors had four different ones before he's twelve. But I ain't never had one. Same dumb ass dad my whole damn life."
"My parents were married for twenty-four years before my mama died," Carol said, "And he never remarried. Did you ever have a stepmother?"
"My pa got clean once, for a little while. And this woman came and lived with us. She stayed six months. But then he fell of the wagon and she left."
"Did you like her?"
"She was a'right." Daryl had been eleven, and he'd had a bit of a schoolboy crush on her. Patty was kind. She made him hot meals for dinner. She taught him to play Gin Rummy. She promised him that whatever happened between her and his father, she was always going to be a part of his life. But that was a damn lie. Because on the night Will Dixon came home drunk off his ass, called Patty a bitch for trying to calm him down, and threw a bottle against the wall, she walked out, and she never looked back. Not once.
Carol's voice interrupted his moody thoughts. "The dumpster. That's the lie."
"Nah. The moonshine. I's only ten when we drank that."
"That's not fair. You can't just change a year," she insisted.
"Well you ain't told me that. Cain't just make up the rules as you go along."
Carol shook her head. "Moonshine, huh? A whole jar?"
"Half. My cousin drank the other half." He thought about how horrified Lori would have been if Carl had drunk half a bottle of wine at the CDC, and how no one had cared when he and Kash had done the equivalent. This walker-infested world was brutal, but it wasn't really anymore brutal than the world Daryl had grown up in. He'd never known for sure where his next meal was coming from, or when someone might just disappear from his life. In some ways, this world was better. He had a meaningful role to play, as hunter and supply runner and fighter. People asked his opinion sometimes, and they even listened when he gave it, like it might be worth something. And then there was Carol. Carol, who had just listened to a very short list of his youthful indiscretions. "Sound like white trash, don't I?"
"You sound like someone who had a rough life and rose above it because, deep inside, you're a man of honor."
Daryl looked down at his boots. He didn't know what to say to that. Maybe her words should have made him feel proud, but instead they made him feel ashamed, because he didn't believe he was the man that she believed him to be. But he was trying to be that man. He wanted, so desperately, for her to keep believing in him.
"My turn," she said, and her voice drew his eyes back up. "My favorite movie is Roman Holiday."
"Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck?" he asked.
"Yes." She sounded surprised that he should know, as surprised as Dale had looked when Daryl had told him he should go back to On Golden Pond. "You've seen it?"
"Seen a lot of old movies when I's growin' up." After his mother died, on those nights when his father disappeared, the TV was Daryl's only company. With the extended antenna Kash's father, Daryl's Uncle Joey, had rigged up on the roof of the cabin for them, they had seven channels, and one of the ones on the outer UHF band - PBS, maybe - used to show classic movies at night. Daryl loved those movies, because in them, everything was always so black and white - not just the color, but the message. There were good guys and bad guys, right and wrong, and you always knew who to root for - not like in real life, when it was never quite clear to him, from one moment to the next, whom he should love and whom he should hate. Those movies were like an anchor of clarity in a sea of instability. He felt like he was escaping when he watched them, like he was being transported to some other place and time, where he became the hero, where he became something better than the piece of shit his father kept telling him he was. "What's yer other two?"
"My favorite book as a girl was Charlotte's Web," Carol replied, "and you're the first man who ever brought me a flower." She looked away from him when she said the last one. Maybe the memory of it pained her. Of course it did. He'd failed her. Failed to find Sophia alive.
Daryl swallowed and paced the tower. He made his way back. That last one couldn't possibly be true, could it? Surely Ed, even Ed, in all those years of marriage, had brought her a flower at least once. But why would she say such a thing if it wasn't true? "I cain't be the only one who ever brought you a flower," he said, fearing it might not be a lie after all. "That's got to be the lie."
"No," she said. "That's true."
"Shit! Even my pa brought my mama flowers at least a couple times a year! Ain't that hard. They's always growin' wild somewheres."
Carol shrugged.
"No one? Not even that first boyfriend of yers? The one ya said was nice?"
She shook her head. "He brought me chocolates, though."
"Well, hell."
Carol looked out over the rail. "I never said thank you, you know. For that flower."
"Didn't need to."
She glanced back at him, her eyes not quite meeting his. "But I appreciated it. I did. Even if I couldn't say it at the time."
"Glad..." He cleared his throat. "I's glad..." He couldn't make his thoughts move in a straight line. "Charlotte's Web," he said suddenly. "That's the lie."
She smiled. "Right. That book's too sad. My favorite was The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. For days after I read it, I kept walking into the closet, pushing the wall, hoping I'd be able to escape into some magical world."
"Shit," Daryl told her. "Saw the movie. The one they made in the 70s? And I did the same damn thing after I saw it!" He laughed at himself. "Didn't work though."
"No," she agreed with a chuckle. "Unfortunately, it didn't."
A sound caught Daryl's ear and he readied his rifle. He scanned the fence through his scope, and then scoured the tree line. It had been peaceful for awhile now, except for the occasional walker incident, but they had all been on edge ever since the Governor had attacked the prison. The crazy creep might still be alive out there somewhere. You never knew when he might come back and try to finish the job.
The rustling and gnashing was just a deer that had broken through the foilage and been set upon by walkers. "Shit," he muttered. He wished he'd found that deer when he was hunting yesterday. He lowered his rifle.
Carol, who had also been looking through her scope, lowered her gun as well. "Your turn," she said.
"Hmmmm..." He thought for awhile and then decided to follow the same pattern she'd used. "My favorite movie is Seven Samurai."
"I can believe that," Carol said.
"Hold yer horses. Yer s'posed to wait 'til I've said 'em all."
Carol made a pouting face.
"My favorite book as a boy was Robin Hood. And yer the first woman who ever brought me breakfast in bed."
"When did I do that?" she asked.
"Hershel's farm."
"That was dinner, actually."
"Whatever."
"You just copied me!" she complained. "And you even chose to lie about the same one. The book."
"Nah-ah!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Wrong! Seventh Samurai is only my second favorite movie."
"So what's your favorite?" she asked.
"Roman Holiday."
By the dumfounded way she was looking at him, it seemed she had actually taken him seriously. He laughed. Her face broke into one of his favorite kind of smiles - her smile of happy surprise. She smacked him playfully on the shoulder. Then she said, "Sorry."
"For what?"
"Didn't mean to..." She pointed to his shoulder. Then she appeared pleasantly surprised. "Hey, you didn't flinch."
"What do ya mean?"
"When I smacked you just now. You didn't flinch. You used to flinch every time I touched you."
"I did?" he asked, even though he knew damn well he did. He didn't mean to, it was just...he wasn't used to people touching him, unless it was to hit him. "Weren't personal."
"I know," she said softly. "You were abused. By your father."
"What? I ain't never told you that."
"You didn't have to tell me. Takes one to know one. Also...when I was bringing you that dinner in bed? I saw the cuts on your back. You tried to pull up the sheet to hide them, but I saw them."
"Oh."
"So what's really your favorite movie?" she asked.
He was glad for the change in subject. Carol always seemed to know when to do that. "Promise ya won't laugh?"
Her eyes were already laughing in anticipation when she said, "I promise I'll try."
"Shane."
"Shane!" she cried in imitation of the final scene from the movie. "Come back!"
He was embarrassed by her teasing, but her good humor was also infections. He chuckled.
"Shaaaane!" she cried again. "Come baaaack!"
"Shhh!" He put a hand over her mouth, just for a moment, just for as long as it took for him to realize he was touching her lips. He let it drop. "Ya'll wake up baby Shane."
She laughed. "You don't really think..."
Daryl shrugged. "Who knows. Don't matter. Rick's got his head on straight again, I think...and, far as he's concerned, she's his. And that's the way it oughta be. I shouldn't joke 'bout it."
"Your jokes are safe with me, you know," Carol assured him. "In fact, anything you say to me..." She made a zipping gesture against her lips.
Daryl knew that was true. He wouldn't have said half the things to her he had said tonight if it wasn't true. But he had said them, and he was surprised to find himself looking forward to continuing the game. He nodded to her. "Yer turn now."