Hi. So, I've felt like this story has been focused a lot on Daryl. I've decided to write a Paige POV chapter. I've never done one before so, tell me what ya' think!
I walked home in silence. The meeting with Daryl had upset me.
It was beginning to drizzle as I walked but used to traditional Irish weather, I ignored it.
It was just starting to get dark as I pushed open the back door. Stepping into the kitchen, I pushed my hood down.
I was surprised to see my mum there. She was usually at the office and used to having the house to myself I hesitated in the doorway.
"Hello. How are you?" Her voice was bright and cheerful, something I was unused to and though she wasn't facing me I could almost hear the smile in her voice. It was suddenly like she was everyone else's mother. Growing up, it had been my dad to pack my lunches, pick me up from school, ask me about my day and do the other things most of my friends had associated with a mother.
"It was good" I answered, coming into the kitchen.
"Really? What did you do?"
"Um… I hung out in the woods, practiced my archery. It was fun."
"Right, well I'll do that right away" mum said.
"Uh… what?" I asked, confused now.
"Okay, thanks a lot. Bye."
She turned around and my heart sank. My mum pushed a button on her headset. She seemed surprised to see me.
"Oh, hello dear. I didn't see you there. You okay?" she asked and I guessed I must have looked pretty bad for her to have noticed.
I nodded. Picking up an apple from a bowl on the table, I went to leave, wanting nothing more than to go to my room.
"Paige?"
I turned back reluctantly and saw my mum staring at me suspiciously.
"You weren't with that boy, were you?"
I sighed. I knew she still blamed Daryl for my disappearance that night. She still insisted I could have got pneumonia even though I barely got a cold.
"No" I lied. I felt bad for a second but I mean it wasn't like I'd meant to meet up with him. It had just sort of… happened.
She nodded and let me go. I sloped to my room.
Closing the door I looked around. I'd tried to make everything in it original and me but in the past weeks it had all started to look flat and dull. It was as though my room had begun to mirror my own emotions.
I walked to the corner where my notice board hung. I smiled as I looked at it, the little pieces of my life. There were pictures of my old friends, my old house, my old life. Pictures of my only remaining grandmother and the dreamcatcher she'd given me for my fifth birthday. I'd hung it over my bed for years before realizing that though the beautiful circle, with tiny threads spiraling through it and strung with beads and feathers was nice to look at, it couldn't stop bad dreams.
When she'd given it to me wrapped in purple paper (she knew it was my favorite color) she'd smiled knowingly. I'd never said anything but she seemed to know how I was feeling. How I looked at other girls parents and wished I could have that.
They tried, I knew and they were good at going through the motions but it was always slightly vague. When I woke up at night and called out they would come in and hold me but for reasons I couldn't understand it didn't really help and eventually I stopped bothering.
Staring at the picture, I wiped away tears. I wrote, she wrote but… somehow it wasn't the same. I had lost her and now…now I had lost Daryl too.
I sighed and walked to my bed. Reaching underneath, I took out another box. Pictures again. But these were different.
The camera, one of my favorite things, was full of snaps of some of the happiest moments I'd had. One of Merle in the trailer, drinking a beer. One of the stream by my house. And of Daryl. Most of them had been taken without his consent when he wasn't looking. Otherwise he'd never have let me take them.
I missed him. I hated it but it was true.
But.., he had lied to me. I had grown up with lies, simple ones like "I'll be there" when I knew they wouldn't and bigger ones like "It'll be ok" when I knew that wasn't true.
There were pictures of me too. Ones I'd known were coming, where I'd smiled or pulled a face. And ones I hadn't known about until the day Daryl and I had stumbled into the chemists to have them developed.
One of me laughing, pushing my hair out of my face, playing the guitar, reading a book. They were all different but the same, somehow. The same because they were all slightly blurred around the edges. The same because I wasn't looking at the camera in any of them. And the same because I was smiling in every picture.
The last picture was the only one Daryl had willingly agreed to having taken. He had his face close to mine. Her hand was stretched forward, holding the camera and they were both smiling.
I stared hard at the girl in the picture. She looked care-free and happy and it hurt that I didn't recognize her.
I sighed. Being mad at Daryl was the single hardest thing I had ever done but I couldn't deal with more people pretending they cared. I'd thought he was different. I'd confided in him things I'd never said to anyone else. I'd trusted him. And all the time he'd been hiding everything from me.
I was suddenly exhausted. Laying back on the bed I closed my eyes, letting the memories consume me and the tears fall.
Bee'sGirl813, your comment made me laugh. "Night Night…But it's 9 o' clock at my house. I know about time differences and stuff (especially since most of my viewers seem to be from America) but it was still weird in that context. So…. Depending on where you are, Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening, Good Night! But it's 10 here and I'm grumpy without sleep so… buh-bye!
JAGWALFF