Dad meets the run group and gets the medicine to A block while Oliver and I go back to our office in silence. He's rubbing his shoulder and wheezing. I reach into his jacket pocket and hand him his inhaler from it. He shakes his head. I take the cap off and insist. He takes it. I watch. A coyote yips in the distance. Trees swoosh in the breeze. Water rushes along the stream outside the fence, an owl hoots, and crickets sing. But what I can't hear? I can't hear any walkers.

Oliver's face looks dim-blue under the moonlight. He takes another puff. I breathe in deep when he does, then stop because he rolls his eyes.

"This is why I don't like taking it in front of you."

We stand there for a second, and then that second rolls into the next, and then Oliver hooks my wrist with his fingers and pulls me into the office blocks. He lets go when people start emerging from their offices, asking us what happened, if everyone is safe. I tell them everything is going to be okay.

I'm exhausted when I get back to the office. I curl up in my sleeping bag and listen while Oliver closes the door behind him. I hear his machete clatter against the floor across from us, and then I feel him lie down along the back of my knees.

"You're a good shot," he says into my hip. I smile about it for a second until I start to think about all the bad things inside of me, and then I start to realise that being proud about them is just another product of it all. Sometimes I think there's so much bad in me that I'll burst with it. I'll turn into something worse than a walker. I'll turn into a monster.

I shuffle away and sit up.

"Oliver... I gotta tell you something."

Oliver doesn't say anything, but he's listening. I think he's listening so hard I could think something and he'd hear it. I hope not.

"My dad took my gun," I say first, saying what Oliver knows because that's a good place to begin. "He did that... because I did something bad."

Oliver doesn't look as confused as I expect him to. He just waits while I struggle to collect the right words in the right order.

"I killed someone," I say, watching my knees so I don't have to watch his face. "It was, uh, in the attack. He was part of the Governor's military. Just a kid." I take a breath. "The fight was over and he was running away — ran right to us. Hershel, Beth, Judith. They saw it."

I should say it. The last detail. The last detail that Oliver will finally understand and see me the same way I see myself.

"He was handing over his gun, and I just..." Just, I think. There's no 'just' about it. "I shot him."

A long time passes after that. I don't look at him. If I do that big, black cloud, all my bad, will eat me up in one bite.

"I look at you," I say, tears already rolling — I swat them away. "I look at you and I see him, sometimes. I think... how can I be the kind of boy who either kills boys or... or..."

And then, like crazy, I hear the words, "It doesn't matter."

I look up. There's no big, black, bad cloud. There's just him, Oliver, sitting on the floor looking at me.

"What?" I ask. And he repeats, "It doesn't matter. You did what you had to do." And I hate him for it. And he looks like somehow he might hate me to so I tell him, "He wasn't the first." I tell him, "I killed my mom..."

Again, he says nothing, and it makes me furious.

"It was only a few days after we got here. One of the prisoners let the walkers out of D block and we had to run. It was just Mom, Maggie and me. When we got into the tombs, Mom went into labour. We hid in the boiler room. Something went wrong. Mom started... bleeding. Maggie had to cut her open. I couldn't save her."

Don't let the world spoil you, she told me, but it's hard to live in a spoiled world without turning a little spoiled yourself.

"I shot my mom," I say. "I ended it."

I think I'm crying, only it's hard to tell because Oliver is holding me. And it feels good. I feel good. Good like doodling on a piece of scrap paper. Good like dew on fence posts and the vegetable garden early in the morning. Good like sponging Flame down after a hard run. Good like what it feels like to be held, and to hold on back, because that does feel good. Crazy good. Crazy terrifying. Crazy amazing. Crazy Oliver.

I pull away. I feel sad and teenage boyish, and the confessions keep on coming. "I killed Dale, too. A walker got him."

Oliver frowns. "Dale Horvarth?"

I nod.

"That's his toolbox, outside," he says. "That name's painted on it."

I wipe my face as I nod.

"But, if a walker got him, how was it your fault?"

"I snuck out," I answer. "Found a walker stuck in the mud. I was messin' with it, but when it got out, I got scared and ran away. It must've followed me, found Dale first."

I scowl at my hands. Oliver just watches.

"Why don't you hate me?" I ask him.

He smiles at that, like he thinks I'm funny.

"I'm not afraid of you, Grimes," he says.

I look at him like he's crazy because he really really is.

"I'm not gonna think you're some nut-job for protecting your family," he says, "or putting them down when they need it, or, tickling walkers when you were a kid. I get it. I mean, killing dogs and peeing out of windows isn't much, but I get it. I do. I've done bad stuff, too."

"What stuff?"

Oliver's face goes a little soft.

"I let someone die," he says. "I was alone, and I heard men yelling and laughing, lots of them, so I hid. I heard a girl, screaming. They... They were..." He shakes his head and winces. "I heard it happening. At first it was just the screaming, and, begging, and grunting, but then it all went quiet and it was just skin on skin... a bad kind. And I didn't help her. I ran away."

We don't say anything else for a minute. I have to wipe my face a lot. Oliver seems to want to talk about something else because he reaches for my duffel and takes out my family portrait. It's Dad, me and Mom, about five years ago.

"Your dad's shaved," Oliver comments, "and your mom. Man, she's totally beautiful. You look like her. You have her hair, and her freckles." I like that thought, that Oliver thinks I'm as beautiful as she was—a weird kind of thought, but still a thought. "Your eyes are all your dad, though."

"Put it back," I say, ready to go nuts.

He does. He lies on his back and I lie down, too. We have to top and tail so that he's never too close to my feather pillow. I look at his shoes, thinking about how he doesn't sleep without socks on.

"Carl?"

"Hm."

"Can I come up there?" He sits up. I pull my pillow out from under my head and toss it by Oliver's feet. He shuffles up and lies next to me. "Thanks, man."

I'm thinking about my mom again. I decide to tell him, "Jus' before she died, she… she told me: 'I don't want you to be scared. You take care of your dad for me, alright? And your little brother or sister.' She said, 'You're gonna be fine. You are gonna beat this world, I know you will. You are smart, and you are strong, and you are so brave. And I love you.'."

It's hard to not cry, so I shut my eyes. "'You gotta do what's right, baby. You promise me you'll always do what's right. It's so easy to do the wrong thing in this world. So, if it feels wrong, don't do it. If it feels easy, don't do it. Don't let the world spoil you. You're so... good.'."

I stop. That part's always been the hardest to believe.

"'My sweet boy. Best..." I hold my breath, then try again. "Best thing I ever did. And I love you. I love you. My sweet, sweet boy, I love you.'"

When I open my eyes Oliver is staring at me.

"You're crying," I tell him.

"I am."

I watch him, not sure what to do.

Oliver sniffs out a small, "Sorry," but the tears don't stop. "I just… God, I didn't think I could cry like this anymore, since Pat. I thought I was all cried out." He starts laughing then. I don't know why. "Amazing," he says. "You're totally amazing. Like, really, really."

I shake his head. "I think about what she told me all the time. I just wanted you to hear her, too – I mean, what she said – hear what she said."

"Yeah."

"Yeah..."

He folds his knees up to his chest and hugs them. I get this scared feeling like he's decided he's had enough, that he doesn't want to be my friend anymore.

"It was rocks," I say.

Oliver looks at me, confused.

"I was throwing rocks," I elaborate, "at the walker. I wasn't tickling it."

Oliver looks at me and he laughs. I try not to, but I laugh too, and for a few moments, we're just laughing, and then Oliver is frowning—not in an annoyed way, I don't think. I try to tell him in my head that I want him to kiss me again, to really kiss me, like it didn't even matter, like reading a comic or picking a weed or crushing on a girl rather than a boy. But Oliver doesn't notice. He just gets up, pulls off his jacket and shoes, and asks me to hand him some pants to sleep in.

Notes

As always,
Happy reading.