Being reckless and impulsive was sort of my thing. I let my anger lead my feet rather than my head. Probably why I ended up whisking myself through the woods with a fever. I was shoving branches out of my way only to have them crinkle under my feet. The woods were eerily calm, despite my heavy breathing after a while. It felt like hours, racking the woods with my eyes. Desperate for the flash of a small little girl to dance on the edges of my eyesight. Nothing though. Nothing at all. Just me, as always.
I head back, disappointed I didn't run into anything. That had to be a good sign though, it had to say that Sophia would be fine. If I couldn't find anything, maybe she couldn't either. I find the group huddled around the map, eyeing the circled red area. They all look up as I approach, a different mix of emotions on each of their faces.
"Where the hell were you?" Crystal asks, walking over to me, holding up the map, "Just some shady red circle and you're gone? You can't do that."
I fumble for an excuse, as I've found myself doing more of lately. "Needed to clear my head." I manage to say, though the hurt doesn't manage to leave her eyes.
She nods, as if she's trying to understand - roll the idea over in her head. Though it's obvious it's not clicking, nothing is clicking.
"I'm going to bed." I finally say, breaking the silence, "I'm tired." I'm not sure if they understand the plethora of meanings I have behind that simple statement. I was tired of being harassed, being confused, being pulled in one direction then dragged into the other. This apocalypse was taking a toll on my sanity, and I couldn't let it. I had to stay strong, for the people that were staring at me with worried eyes. The ones who rolled over on the ground in the middle of the night wondering when they would have another meal. I needed to be strong for them. I cared too much, Crystal was right all along. I got attached.
"Okay." Crystal manages to say, looking up at the darkening sky, "Me too."
I don't have nightmares, I have memories, which is honestly just as bad. They come in waves, small little tidbits of my childhood, easy happy tidbits. When everyone was alive and the screams of my life didn't haunt me.
Note: Italicized are memories. ~ is the break between the memories, the shift.
"You're pretty amazing, you know that right?" I look up to see Damon looking intensely at me. His eyes are glassy and I've just saved him from another night of ridicule from our parents. I tuck him into his bed.
"I better be if I have to keep saving your ass." I mumble, taking his hat off his head. "If you puke, don't do it on the floor." I add, making a point to kick the bucket by his bed.
"I don't know what I'd do without you." Damon manages to slur through his drunken haze. "Thanks."
I nod, though I'm getting tired of it all. Having to constantly baby him doesn't really fit into being the younger sibling. It should have been the other way around, but no, it wasn't like that at all. I was always caring for my older siblings with a fever. Steering them in every direction that I thought was the right one. I was wrong sometimes, but it helped put me to sleep if I thought they were okay.
"Crystal!" I shout over the ruckus of the music to find her in a booth. She's sitting there, her legs swung over the lap of her boyfriend Logan. She's grinning maniacally and he looks like he's struck gold.
"Awh, why do you have to ruin my fun?" She says, a pout to her pouty pink lips. She tightens her arms around Logan's neck, "I was just starting to have fun."
"Come on, we should go." I say quickly, obviously out of my element. I was more for curling up in bed and abandoning the world inside of a book. Having to come chase my sister through the night scene wasn't something I should have to do.
Crystal still has her lips formed into a pout, "I don't feel like it."
"Do you want me to leave?"
"Fine!" She snaps, "Go ahead, Logan will give me a ride home!"
Instead of arguing, I left her there. She came into my room at 4 AM in tears, screaming that Logan broke up with her for not wanting to sleep with him. She curled up into my bed and cried into my pillows until she passed out from being so drunk.
I wake up, gasping for air. I run a hand through my knotted wavy blonde hair, biting my lip and looking at the door. I hated the memories more than I hated the nightmares. I've had nightmares about being eaten by walkers, and that didn't measure up to what had just happened.
I throw the covers off of me, unable to cope with the strangling feel of them around my legs. I walk over to the window, throwing them open to feel the cold October air against my skin. I breathe it in, trying to close my eyes - flood the memories out with sheer will.
I thought it was a good idea to go over to Logan's, try to coax him into taking my sobbing sister back. Though things went wrong too quickly and I was being hauled out in hand cuffs and him in an ambulance. I felt achieved, like I'd done something. Though when I called my sister for bail, she turned me away so fast it was as if we were strangers.
"I need you." I beg into the phone, "I did it for you."
"It was stupid and reckless." That's all she says. Then she hangs up the phone and acts like I'd never called in the first place.
"Stop stop stop." I'm chanting, I hate the memories, I hate them all. I hate the happiness, the smiling, the laughing, everything about it made me want to vomit. I go downstairs and break into Hershel's liquor cabinet. I was never a drinker, though the apocalypse was a first for everything. I grabbed a bottle of brandy and worked my way up the stairs. I popped the cork and drank until the sun came up.
Hershel found me on the floor, sitting there, smoking a cigarette and transitioning between the brandy and the cigarette. I was a sad case indeed.
"You've crashed, huh?" Hershel asked me, standing in the door way. "Wondered how long it'd take you."
I raise a bottle of brandy at him, "Crashed right now, recovery is pending." I say with a dry drunken laugh. "What have I turned into Hershel? Some walker killing badass? Is that what I want to be remembered as?"
Hershel walks over to my position on the floor, sitting next to me. "You've turned into what you needed to be in order to survive."
The laughter gets laughter and I hiccup, "I'm pretty sucky. I'm pretty shitty, actually." I revise, tipping my head back to let the brandy drizzle down my throat. "I'm still reckless and impulsive."
"No you're not." He says, putting a hand on my knee, "You do what needs to get done."
I set the brandy down beside me, "Nah, I do what I think is right. Rick didn't come to you about me running off into the woods? Little Red Riding Hood in training, eh?" I laugh again, drier, stinging my throat. "I can't even track, I don't know if I was even in that area."
"You weren't. You worried everyone."
The laughter is obnoxious and not heart felt, "Yeah, worried a bunch of people that barely know me. I saved a punch of people I barely know. Would I have done that before the apocalypse? Hell no. I hated people before all this shit went down. Now they're my only means of survival." I pick the brandy up again, turning it over in my hands, "I'm using them, Hershel."
Hershel looks at me, curiously, taking the brandy from me, he sits it on his side away from me. "You care about them."
"I wish I didn't sometimes."
He's still looking at me, curiosity unwavering in his blue eyes, "And why is that?"
"Because if I didn't, I wouldn't be crashing right now. Everything has been leading to this, right? Crystal running out of that car, almost dying at the CDC, Sophia... Otis." I gulp the last part, feeling the raw pain crash through my chest. The wounds were still fresh, I just had yet to touch them or acknowledge them.
"I was doomed from the start." I say, making a play for the brandy, but Hershel just slaps my hand away.
"No, you are not. You are strong, Brie. You were strong before the apocalypse and you're strong now. You're just.. more scared than you'd ever let on." Hershel says, smiling at me sadly, "It's okay to be scared sometimes."
I close my eyes and a tear slides down my cheek, "I just don't want anyone to die."
"Sophia and Otis weren't your fault, Brie."
"I just keep thinking of all the ways I could have stopped it-"
"It would have been you then."
"No-"
"Yes."
I look over at him, sighing and running a hand through my hair. "I'm pathetic, aren't I?"
Hershel stands up then, making a very old-man like sound, "No, you're just crashing." He says, mussing my hair, "Get to sleep and we'll talk when you're sober." He makes a point to grab the brandy and say, "I'm locking this up."
I roll my eyes, picking myself up only to drop in bed.
I was crashing fast.
Waking up with a hangover was not something I thought I'd have to do again. I woke up thinking about Sophia, then I thought about Otis and I had to turn my face into my pillow.
Hershel was right, there was absolutely nothing I could do now. All I could do was hope that a little girl was still running through the woods.
"Hungover?" Rick asks, standing in my doorway.
I pick myself up, rubbing my forehead, "Yeah, just a tad bit."
"What you did was reckless."
I sigh, dropping myself back onto the bed, "If you're going to bitch at me I'd prefer you did it when I wasn't hungover."
"You worried everyone." Rick walks over to the foot of my bed, "You can't do that ever again."
"Yep, got it. No more running into the woods." I give him a thumbs up and a wink, "Got it, sheriff."
"Do you think I'm kidding?"
"Course' not."
"Good, because I'm not. We don't have time to worry about you."
"Well that's dandy because I wasn't asking you to worry about me!" I snap, pulling myself up angrily. "All of you people need to stop.. caring about me!" I snarl, "I'm just.. trouble."
Rick eyes me sadly, "Is that really what you think?"
"Yes! That's really what I think!"
"You saved our lives."
"I've already given my you're welcome speech a dozen times. You don't have to give a shit about me anymore." I say.
"Brie, we're family now."
He says it so slyly, so easily the words came out of his lips, I just stare at him in amazement. Unsure whether to curse him out or hug him. Rick was confusing like that, he was a raging narcissist one second and the next, he was this. Rick and I had history, we couldn't debate that. My criminal record would have thrown every debate out the window.
"Troublesome Brie Evans is family now?" I give him a small teasing smile, "You're probably going to get fired for that officer."
Just sort of a filler chapter! Someone mentioned in a review that we didn't know Brie that well, so I wanted to give you guys a little overview of what she was really like. So here's my 'Brie breaks down and flashes some humanity' chapter for you all to really get to know her. What she's all about.
Reviews would be awesome, but favorites still make me happy inside! Haha, thanks for reading!
xoxox
