A/N:
Hush.
The wait is over.
To answer The Guest's question, that's actually something I was thinking of. We'll see how it'll all pan out. (And thanks for complimenting Leon, you're a quirky little anonymous reviewer!)
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Chapter Twenty-six: Confrontation
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JUNE
-ELLIE-
10:17 AM
I was pretending to sleep.
My position was this: lying down sideways, facing the window, a pillow on my head.
Maybe if Joel would have walked in, he'd see that I was sleeping. Then he'd have figured that it'd be a good idea to leave me alone, which meant that I didn't have to deal with the insane amount of embarrassment that I'd been feeling ever since he decided to talk to me about my goddamned teenage love life.
The whole thing was pretty hilarious.
It's not because I was a fifteen-year-old survivor who, quite literally, would dig switchblades into the unsuspecting necks of bandits and infected without even flinching. It's not because I was young and able to use both rifle and bow with ease. It's not even because I had the balls to screw humanity over.
It's because I was capable of doing all those things, but I still wasn't brave enough to get out of bed.
So that was my dilemma. And it didn't help that summer arrived today. I mean, yeah, okay — Mother Nature doesn't just march in with her banners and birds while humming "Morgenstimmung" as a way of announcement. No, instead, this is what Mother Nature did.
She'd decided to give me a fucking heatstroke.
The air was molten, and it crawled through the window and suffocated me while I had my face covered by the pillow. Since I wasn't stupid enough to make myself suffer from the heat, I threw the pillow to the side, observing it. The shape of my face was imprinted on the center of the pillow via sweat. Fucking sweat. I was slightly amused and disgusted. My pillow was a discount version of the Veil of Veronica. My body was suffering. My hair was scattered all across like the bushy end of a paintbrush's. My back was inconveniently covered in sweat, my toes were covered in sweat, and my forehead was plastered with sweat.
I was sweat.
Sweatier than you could ever imagine, because summer was a bitch to me and the room I was in had apparently converted its temperature to a hundred degrees.
It was the day after last night's dinner.
Yeah, we all know how that wonderfully panned out, don't we?
We'd been living in Jackson for roughly a month now, and I still wasn't used to it. How could I? They had things I didn't see before. Farms, cafeterias, rec rooms, and a gym. A fucking gym. Trust me, I went there. It was legit. Sure, the treadmill was as good as shit, but we still had the dumbbells and barbels sticking around. It was jarring to see people work out. I didn't even know that was a thing until Joel told me. Lifting heavy, metallic objects so that you could get jacked? Big muscles would slow you down, to be honest. Not exactly ideal. It was silly.
This whole thing was silly, really.
Including my inability to get up.
Because what was I doing?
I was caked in bodily fluids, and getting out of bed seemed too much of a chore. I looked up and out of the window and allowed my vision to explore the surroundings outside. All I could see was the hot sun, hot skies, hot clouds, and hot. Everything was hot. What a fucking misery.
Yet I refused to go out of bed. I figured it was better to keep what was left of my dignity within me than having to hear Joel talk about the goddamned birds and bees.
Last night, I had practically crawled—or to say it better, slithered like liquid—back up to this room. It felt like a millennium reaching here, and then I had to double-check if everything that was happening recently was real. I had to make sure. And mostly because all the events during spring seemed pretty fucking unbelievable. I mean, the lie? Our new home in Jackson? Seeing Riley? Killing bears? This whole 'I know you kissed her' ordeal?
I covered my face with my sinful, sinful hands. I could only take so much.
After debating against myself, it was voted that I had confront him. I had to. I couldn't stand being like this.
So I went out of bed.
I could hear the faint sounds of clinking and clattering of what sounded like plates from the bottom floor, that could be Joel cleaning the dishes.
Fucking Joel. I sighed.
This had to be done.
I opened the door, and lo and behold the corridor of our second floor greeted me in its simplicity. Saying that took some getting used to, now that I mention it — our second floor. Not the wilderness, not a broken-down room, but an intact, well-furnished second floor with three doors that led to two bedrooms and a bathroom. A linked staircase could be seen in the middle, heading back downstairs to the first floor.
The descent down the flight of stairs took me twenty years.
I stood before the staircase, my eyes swerving to the right, which was where the dining room was at. Peculiarly, it was dark despite the morning sun. I noticed that the window blinds were unfastened. My brow quirked in confusion. Joel usually fastened them at this hour. I did not like this.
"Joel?"
...
Nothing. I groaned.
Walking over to the windows, I separated the blinds and fastened them to the clips on the side. Light zoomed in and showered the whole place, making me squint my eyes. I groaned again.
Wait.
No I didn't.
...
That wasn't my groaning voice. No, definitely not.
Baffled, I turned away from the window and looked around the newly-lit room. There were empty alcohol bottles strewn across on the table and floor.
What, was there a fucking frat party?
The groaning continued, and it made my neck prickle. Was it even a groan? It sounded more like a wail. A faint, sad, and deep wail. My eyes instinctively sought for the sound, and quite conveniently, the pantry closet—right beside our kitchen sink—was shaking.
I froze.
I think I saw that right.
Yep, it was definitely shaking.
I needed to calm down. It was probably some raccoon scavenging inside. After unfreezing myself, I felt for the switchblade in my pocket. Until I realized that I was wearing pocket-less cyclings.
Way to go, Ellie. You've outdone yourself.
The pantry closet continued to shake, and another gargled groan emitted itself from the inside. I didn't know what to feel, really. The whole thing felt very R.L. Stine-esque. Either the closet was demented, or someone—hopefully Joel—was trapped in there. For safety measures, I ran back upstairs to get my pistol. You could never be so sure.
So now that my ghostbusting gear was all set, all I had to do was face the closet, which was a very hard thing for me to do. Paranoia can get the best of people. Because what if there was a person inside? What if said person had a gun? What would he shoot first? That's right. My face.
But I had a gun too, and I was aiming at the middle of the closet. It shook and groaned every now and then, like those jack-in-the-box toys—only bigger and creepier. I knew I was going to regret it, but I outstretched my other hand toward the knob, and attempted to open it.
Right now, I'm beginning to think that opening a shaking closet without shooting the inside of it first was a terribly stupid idea.
Too late, though, because it opened.
And boy, was it a fucking surprise.
It all happened fast. Too fast. As soon as the closet doors had swung open, an insurmountable amount of weight followed along with it. A huge blob—I guessed it was a human figure—fell out and landed on the floor with a low moan.
It was large. Jesus Christ, how could it even fit in the closet?
Before I could examine it any further, the blob moved.
And I screamed very inappropriately.
I wasn't proud of the scream, I'll give you that. Once recomposed, I aimed the gun at the fallen creature, swearing immeasurably at it like the calm soul I was. The thing rolled to the side, and this blob apparently had a face, a man face. His taupe eyes were beady and sagged, and his skin was layered with facial hair. A rounded stomach was protruding out of him. Not Joel, I thought. Not infected.
But I yelled anyway.
He yelled too.
We were a sensational yelling duo for approximately five seconds, until I stopped and aimed the gun at him more fiercely. Two hands this time. My teeth were acting as grinders.
Our voices overlapped.
"—tell me who the fuck you are—"
"—waitwaitwait, don't goddamn shoot—"
I scrunched my brows and lowered my shaking hands. Wait. That voice was familiar.
"Who—?" I paused, viewing the lying blob monster-man-figure up and down. It confused me, so I shook my head and examined him another time. His features, they were familiar. Too familiar. I had to remember him from somewhere...
...
And then it hit me. Hearing his voice, seeing that beard, those eyes, that defined stomach...
My eyes diluted.
Oh, no.
"Bill?"
Much to my surprise, the man had gotten himself on his feet. He slightly wobbled to the left, like the whole world just tilted. His groans were intoxicated. His garb hadn't changed, which left me pretty concerned. His looks changed though, because his greasy hair was now tied to a high ponytail. I was left to stand, to just gawk at him. He exhaled fumes of drunken air, traveling to my nose as I scrunched it in disgust. Christ, did he go through dumpster dives to get here, or was showering just a myth to him?
Actually, even from a distance, he smelled like burnt rubber.
Showering was probably just a myth to him.
"Well, I'll be... I'll be damned," he said, laughing dishearteningly. "Ain't it the biggest motherfucking joke seeing you again? Because it's fucking hilarious."
He was right. This was the biggest fucking joke that I have ever not laughed at. It was unbelievable. This was Bill right in front of me. In Jackson. In Wyoming.
And I thought finding Riley was bad enough.
"What the hell were you doing in the pantry?" I paused for a moment. Not really the question I was looking for. "No. Actually, how are you even here—"
"Look, I ran out of beer, and"—he pointed to the pantry—"went to get more. Got a bit clumsy, so the closet locked me in. Ended up drunk and trapped for thirty minutes." He wobbled again. The world beneath him was teetering. "Still drunk."
It took me a while to realize that I was laughing. Well, half-laughing, half-exasperatedly-sighing. He was laughing along with me, which made zero sense, but considering he drank about eighty million alcohol bottles that he probably stole from the town's brewery storage, I couldn't blame him.
"This... this is fucking unbelievable. You— you're here." My mouth was dropping again. I wanted to tell him that now wasn't the time, I wanted to tell him to head back to the closet and stay there until Joel and I were done with our business.
Speaking of which. "And Joel," I said, "have you..?"
I trailed off, because Bill apparently wasn't listening. He thought it was better to retreat to our dining table, with his boots clomping loudly on the floor. Now that I thought about it, I was beginning to theorize that in Bill's previous life, he was Shrek. But pushing his enormous size aside, he was completely ignoring my question. And my existence. He was picking a bottle up from the floor now which he attempted to drink from, but received air.
"God-fucking-dammit," he muttered, slumping onto the chair and rolling the bottle away.
I looked at him in disgust.
I did not like drunken Bill.
Frankly, I did not like Bill at all.
He was back to roaming the dining room, and I was still processing the fact that he was actually here. It was kind of a hard time ruminating with this. A hard time in-fucking-deed. The gun eventually fell weightless in my palm, and I was left wondering. How the hell did he come from Lincoln and all the way to Jackson?
I was too busy in thought to notice that our front door opened. It was only when the sound of shuffling footsteps came forth that I knew.
"Oh," said a voice. Deep and calm with a healthy dash of Texan cadence. A Joel-ish figure had emerged from the doorway, his yellow-checkered plaid shimmering as the sun collided with it. He was standing in all his six-foot glory, a hand finding itself at the back of his neck.
"I ah... I see you've already met."
I looked back at Bill, whose head was parallel to the table. He was asleep. A disturbing amount of saliva was pouring out of his half-open mouth and onto the mahogany wood. Stay classy, Bill.
"Yeah, we have," I turned back to Joel and retorted. "Like, a year ago."
He strode into the room, knowing that my face was practically begging for him to explain what was happening. He gave back a look of unpreparedness, scratching his neck yet again. When he started to approach me, I spoke up.
"So," Clapping my hands together, I shot him a cordial glare. "If you would be so kind to explain why we have him"—I pointed accusingly at the sleeping convict—"in our house, that'd be great."
I didn't even bother to think about last night. About the dinner talk. About him knowing that Riley and I were these two catastrophic teenagers woven together and inseparable. About my whole world falling apart and going immensely wrong the moment he had told me about his lie. All those memories and thoughts and uncertainty were put aside.
Thanks to wonderful, drunken Bill.
"Look, he's had a bad day—"
"Yeah?" I snapped. "Well, I woke up thinking that there was a fucking ghost in the pantry closet."
"The pantry closet?" Joel's eyebrows were fuzzed and knitted closely together, his voice confused.
"He got himself locked in there, I didn't even know that was possible. I had to get him out." I said, folding my arms. "Joel, fill me out here."
He sighed, the kind of sigh that he would always give when he was stuck in a rut. Joel scratched his graying hair, then his beard, until inevitably, his bulky arms had folded across his plaid-printed chest. "We'll talk it over breakfast." he announced, before brushing past me softly and eyeing passed-out Bill with his halo of saliva. He scowled lightly. "Well... if we can move him, anyway. It'll take a damn day try'na lift him up and onto the couch."
"You kidding?" I scoffed, glancing at Bill then back up to Joel. "With his size, it'll take a fucking week."
Joel shook his head and chuckled. Bill interjected with an adamant snore.
o-O-o
Boston's military boarding school.
The sky was dark as it swam in a grim flurry of clouds. The moon overlooked from a distance, watching over the Earth from afar.
The same way Ellie was watching Riley.
From the window, in the main building, she had gone ahead and played Stalker on the older girl. Riley was out on the military grounds where they had first escaped out of school, three days ago. Ellie realized how small Riley was when watched from inside. It was like every move she made was well-thought and meticulous. Like every part of her knew what she was doing. It was strange, how different she was from the others. Ellie's breathing was silent, she wasn't noticing this, too busy noticing Riley, who was nearing the fence. She's going to the mall, Ellie thought. Now she was watching her go further and further. Somehow, the redhead couldn't follow her.
She would like to, she really did, but she couldn't. It'd be weird. The first day they met, Ellie had stalked her anyway, how was this any different? She tried to move but found cement wrapped around her feet. It wouldn't budge. Her grip on the windowsill was weak and forlorn, as if in defeat. Riley's figure was decreasing to a speck. Ellie kept watching, helpless, cement still on her ankles. Riley became a glowing figure against the dark background surrounding her, she was glowing, glowing and disappearing at the same time.
Fuck it, Ellie thought. She had to follow her.
The cement broke off the second Ellie moved her right foot, and she set off to join her, soon to become another glowing speck against the dark, cold sky. Their movement was silent. Quiet silhouettes running and jumping from one rooftop to another. They made sure no soldiers were nearby as they went. It wasn't like they weren't used to this. These were the things dystopian teenage girls would do during the late nights of September.
Riley had reached the open roof of Liberty Gardens, with Ellie just yards behind. The redhead was planning to unveil her presence to her during their rooftop jumping. She thought calling her attention would have to be mandatory by then, but she didn't. She was Riley's shadow, always behind her, always watching. Not in that creepy way, no. Similar to the moon's.
Riley jumped down the hole in the rooftop.
Ellie waited before tailing her, peeking over to find that she was descending the escalator. The redhead gulped and climbed down quietly, but shuffled broken glass in the process. Shit, she looked down and glanced back up warily, adjusting her hearing. She prayed that Riley didn't notice, she prayed that the annoying lurch in her stomach would disappear, and prayed that she could have just stopped when she could have. She waited for Riley to notice.
...
Nothing.
Giving out a mute exhale of relief, she continued the stalk.
Instead of heading to the direction of Winston's tent, Riley swerved to the right, which baffled the young, tiptoeing Ellie. Still, she followed suit, stopping when Riley climbed the stairs up to an open hole that led to another building's rooftop. Ellie was flummoxed, where exactly was she heading off to?
She still followed, silently and hesitantly. By the time Ellie joined Riley on the rooftop, she looked up.
And the whole sky fell down on her.
"Oh," she whispered, just underneath her breath for only her to hear. She couldn't believe her own eyes.
Just above their heads was the whole galaxy. Twinkling, glistening streaks of light that looked like purple, blue, and green all mixed together. There were speckles of red and blue, soft flurries of white, and a pearly, silky moon that glimmered its light back down on Earth. Ellie found a rock in her throat, and she swallowed it down, too busy being covered by the blanket of outer space. There was less smog here, less light pollution. It was a wonder at how much things there were in the sky.
When she finished goggling at quite literally everything, she looked back down at Riley, who was just meters away. Her back was facing the redhead, Riley's dark green sweatshirt rippled against the evening wind. Ellie suddenly felt the need to flatten the creases on her clothing, but pushed the urge away. Quit being such a creep.
Maybe this is a bad idea, Ellie thought. Maybe I—
Riley's back turned. "Hey, new kid," she said, and then a smile was plastered on her face. All at Ellie's direction. She froze once more, and was unsure of whether to run or to stay. It was the smile that threw her off. Who the hell smiles at a stalker?
"Missed me too much?"
Fuck.
"I..." and the redhead's tongue was tied. What the hell do you say to that? Without the younger girl's preparedness, Riley spread her arms wide, her head dipped upwards. "What a view, huh?" she breathed out an air of awe. Her eyes went back to Ellie's, like she was waiting for her agreement. It shocked her. Riley was asking as if it was the most casual thing on Earth, as if they had been watching the sky a thousand times. It was enough to make the redhead's blood stop circulating, enough to make her breathing dwindle by the second.
Riley was grinning, and she spread her arms again and twirled around in wonder. "When you do this," she laughed, still gazing up, "it's like the galaxy is falling on you!"
She was right. Ellie saw it. The stars, sun, and planets had all tumbled down and rolled into Riley's widespread arms. Ellie couldn't have been more mesmerized, the girl had caught the galaxy in her arms. And it took Ellie a while before she noticed that cement had found its way back to her feet. She was too busy with the fact that Riley Abel was looking at her. It was as if the stars were looking at her, that everyone in Boston, the Earth, and the universe was looking at her.
"Okay, yeah. You're probably wondering, 'How'd she know I was here?'" Riley said, with her nutty, illegal grin, as she placed her arms back on her sides. "But I knew. Threw you off, didn't I? You were better surprising me the first time, though. Really gotta work on that consistency." She winked.
She fucking winked.
"Sorry, I—" Ellie was sputtering, her hands were sweaty and shaking and rattling. She was grateful for the invention of pockets and jammed her fingers into the fabric pouches. Her speech processes were malfunctioning, they had never done that before. "I didn't mean to stalk y—... I mean, you know, follow you, I... I thought that—, I figured that, that it wouldn't hurt to—... I should go."
Riley remained standing, shooting her a quirked brow and a smug smirk. Ellie was unsure on whether or not she was telepathically telling her to leave. She wished that Riley could just stop looking at her with those eyes of hers. Her freaking eyes. Light brown and shimmering even at night, and those eyes were splintered with even darker shades of brown. Like a spoke. A spectrum of magnificent coffee-related colors. Ellie imagined Riley up in the sky, as if she belonged there, her eyes glowing more profoundly than the stars...
Okay, she needed to stop this. It was getting too much. Stop thinking about her eyes. She tried. Didn't work. Riley's eyes were squinting now, and narrowed; Ellie realized that this was all still happening. Her mind was so crowded with thoughts. So many, many thoughts. Riley probably perceived her as a freak by now, as if she wasn't always.
Ellie cleared her throat. Right. The "I should go" thing. Before she could turn on her heel, Riley stopped her.
"No, Ellie," she said, casually, but that was the only thing she heard. The rest of the words that had driven themselves out of Riley's mouth became muted. Ellie felt something jab her in the stomach. Why the hell did her stomach churn whenever Riley would say her name? Oh, great, she was staring at her mouth now. They were moving. The redhead tried to lip read, couldn't. Too focused on the mouth, the lips. Her pocketed hands were shaking. Riley was talking again, but she couldn't hear her. Stop it, she thought to herself. Stop thinking about her lips. Stop it, stop it, stop—
"Ellie," said the voice, sounding clearer, and Ellie knew that it wasn't the first time Riley was calling for her attention. The redhead's trance was cut off, her head shook and her cheeks were flushed.
"Yeah?" she breathed out, not meaning to sound exhausted.
"I said, it's cool," and Riley smirked again with a raised brow. That hypnotic smirk.
"What is?"
"I mean, you don't have to go."
"Right," Ellie scoffed, gaining a bit of her composure. "So I don't have to feel bad."
"Nah, don't think like that. I mean it. Gets kinda tiring when you stargaze alone."
Holy shit, I'm actually having a decent conversation with her. Ellie was so caught up in this thought that she didn't notice that she was beginning to sit next to Riley at the precipice of the roof they were on. She panicked and backed out, making Riley—who was already getting comfortable sitting down—look up at her in puzzlement.
"You okay?" she asked.
Ellie thought of an excuse. "Yeah. It's just that... I hate heights."
So Riley, with her ever-wondrous confidence, patted the space beside her."Don't worry," and then she smiled. That kooky, son of a gun smile. "If you fall, I'll catch you."
"Why don't you just catch me now?" Ellie swooned, only it came out as, "So, what, you're Superman or something?"
"I'd go for Wonder Woman," Riley said lightly, she patted the space again. "C'mon, Williams. What're you waiting for?"
I'm waiting for you to quit being so damn eccentric, Ellie wanted to say. But again, she was a sucker for stargazing, having no other choice but to join Riley and sit down.
The both of them were plopped down, legs dangling in the air as they watched the universe above them unfold. It felt like it was engulfing them. Ellie wasn't feeling it though. She was too busy engulfing Riley. Or maybe she was too busy getting engulfed by Riley. Even thirteen-year-old delinquents who use compasses to stab children's knees for fun get nervous around people like Riley. And Ellie was extremely nervous. And fidgety. She couldn't figure out why. She couldn't understand why it seemed almost impossible to act normal around her. This... this Abel girl. Riley was always changing her routes, her ways. She was always so secretive, so mysterious that Ellie wanted nothing more but to peer inside of her, to find what had been hidden behind those walls of hers.
Elie thought of herself as crazy, but she could hear Riley's words from before. "You seem crazy enough to be interesting."
Am I really?
And then Ellie would notice how Riley's pant-clad legs would occasionally bump into hers before retracting it back. The redhead was convinced she was doing this on purpose. Yes, definitely, she even had her leg linger a second longer before pulling it back—
Okay, stop this, for Christ's sake, Ellie thought. She needed to stop overanalyzing.
When Riley wasn't looking, Ellie would steal a glance at her direction.
She would see Riley's galaxy-like eyes looking back up at the stars, and her eyes were glistening, gleaming, and begging to return back up to the sky where they truly belonged. She watched her point at a cluster of the heavenly bodies, uttering some sort of constellation that Ellie didn't seem to register, but nodded anyway. She also watched Riley breathe. She watched as Riley breathed in oxygen and exhaled stardust. Every time she talked it felt otherworldly. Only she could be able to do that. Only Riley. Ellie watched as she simply existed and existed, and the younger girl was debating on whether or not Riley was this alien sent from outer space to observe human life.
No, maybe Ellie was the alien. Because she was certain that no human being other than herself could ever be this observing.
I guess I really am crazy, she thought.
She decided to look at the stars instead. They were a million times better than fifteen-year-old girls with brown-hued universes for eyes.
"You said you were fifteen, right?" Ellie questioned the stars, oblivious that she hadn't talked in a while.
"Yep. What about you?"
"I, uh, I'm the same."
She lied.
You do not lie to newly-founded friends.
You should not look at the stars in lieu of their face when talking to them.
No. Fuck, fuck. Why did I just say that? She was mentally clawing her eyes. Why the hell did I just say that?
"Oh," was the only registered reply. Ellie was cringing horribly at herself. Idiot. she berated herself internally. Liar. You self-conscious, knee-stabbing, condescending liar. Great, now she couldn't even bare to look at Riley, afraid of seeing the distrust in her universal eyes. Riley looked at her records, for crying out loud, it had to be certain that she knew her age. This wasn't supposed to happen.
She felt trapped, and wished so bad to return back home and never make eye contact with her ever again. She was overreacting, she knew it, but couldn't help it. She was humiliating herself and it was worse than doing it publicly. Way worse. She should have never interacted with Riley, to never have followed her. But she did, and now everything had gotten complicated.
"...I'm actually thirteen," she blurted out, not withstanding the guilt any longer. Riley's only explicit expression was a half-smirk, implying that she knew. "Yeah, kind of figured."
Fuck. "You knew? But you still asked?"
"Yeah. I don't know, I'm weird like that." Riley shrugged and looked up at the sky. "Pretty weird of you too to spin your age around, though."
"Okay, yeah. You know what? You're right. It was stupid." Ellie was spilling out her mind now. No. Berating herself again. Stop, Ellie. Stop. "I've been acting weird and... yeah. I'm just, I don't know. I really don't know. Ever since the mall"—Ellie's green eyes started glinting and she could've sworn Riley was looking at her—"I just wanted to uh, hang out again. And then when... when I saw you sneaking out of school I thought I could... hang again. Thought it'd be nice but... Okay. I'm talking too much. I should go. It's no big deal, really, I totally understand if you don't want me to come along anymore."
Riley didn't speak, and it made the redhead's bashfulness increase. Holy fuck, that was embarrassing. Trying to reason herself out. God. Ellie, what were you saying? She remembered one of the comic books she had read some time ago. Triple Phoenix. It was her favorite. The fascinating story of three, mutated pigeon brothers who fought the injustice that was occurring regularly in their city. It all seemed so fantastically magical, heavily contrasted compared to the world she was living in. It made young Ellie think.
It would have been better to be a mutated pigeon like them. Those birds would not have a care in the world, only eating toasted baguettes and fighting crime whenever there was a need to. Yeah, life would have been so, so much more easier if she had been—
Her animal transformation dreams were cut short when Riley had started laughing. "You kidding? Of course you can come along." Her grin blinded Ellie with the colors of redorangeyellowgreenblue. "I mean, yeah, you can get weird, we've been on each other's nerves and all that, but you lighten the mood around here, Ellie. I'm being honest."
Oh!
What a relief!
For the second time, the younger girl turned to face the galaxies present in both of Riley Abel's eyes, succumbing to her. In her terms, it was totally better to not be a pigeon if it meant missing the astonishing view present in Riley's eyes.
"Thank God I'm not a fucking pigeon!" Ellie sighed happily to herself, only it actually came out of her mouth.
Her mouth.
Which words have, devastatingly, entered Riley's ears.
Oh.
She tried to take it back, but it was unfortunately too late, because Riley was gawking at her, almost as if everything she had said prior was non-existential.
Maybe if Ellie ignored the persistent stare, it might just go away. Like an itch.
Riley kept looking at her. "What?"
Ellie tried to act natural, but of course, it had rendered useless. "What what?" she replied back. It was impossible to look at her now, so her green eyes went back up to the stars.
But Riley was laughing again. Only harder.
"You thank God you're not a pigeon?"
It occurred to the both of them how ridiculous it sounded when said verbally. And now, they were both laughing. The air was abundant with teenage joy.
"Yes. Wait, no. I mean—" Ellie garbled out between the chuckles, and now they were really laughing. They had been giggling so hard and wild and happily that Ellie had never felt so comfortable despite the awkwardness that seeped into her from time to time. It was a respite that they both desperately needed: a good laugh. When it had had stopped, both of the girls' abdomens felt hardened.
"Oh, man," Riley covered her stomach and lurched forth, completely oblivious to the fact that she was leaning forward. On the edge of a building. "Ellie, you really are fucking crazy."
"Yeah, I guess I am." she said, smiling back at her and not even nervous or fidgety or hands-in-her-pockets-awkward anymore. Because all at once, she realized that this wasn't some typical, staring, judgmental, narcissistic asshat. This was someone she could be herself with.
This was Riley.
So when the minutes had ticked away and when they both looked up at the sky, they spotted a meteor that had burned up and zoomed right past the stars, clouds, and galaxies. Both of their eyes twinkled. The two of them had turned into universes, with Riley's gleaming brown ones and Ellie's twinkling green's.
"Shooting star," Riley said, her voice hushed but excited. "Make a wish."
On her third day in the Boston quarantine zone, where she sat together with her out-of-this-world friend on the edge of a building, Ellie made her wish. Even if she knew that wishes were for children and that the chances of it coming true were highly unlikely, she had done it anyway.
"Well?" perked the older girl. "You done?"
"Yup."
"What was it?"
"What was what?"
"Your wish, pigeon-brain." Riley's lips curved slightly upward, and her hypnotic smirk was there again.
Ellie paused, hesitant, before saying, "If I say it, it won't come true."
Riley frowned, and playfully punched her shoulder. "Spoilsport."
In fairness, Ellie had a point. She wasn't going to risk the chance. Not ever. Not even if wishes were a children's myth. She constantly suffered from an ominous past, and it was due to the fact that everyone in her life—everyone she knew that mattered—had left her. Her mother, her friends from previous schools, even chummy military officers who once vowed to protect her had abandoned the girl for their own excuses. Maybe that was why Ellie had been so closed-in, so unapproachable, so angry, so confused...
So alone.
And then she met Riley. And then everything became a blur, and she found herself befriending again, laughing along with newly-made friend, goofing off, helping the Fireflies, and doing everything she thought couldn't have been done before. No one ever pushed her to that point.
Except Riley.
And that was what scared her the most. She found herself caring for Riley. She was starting to open up to her, and as far as she remembered, if she cared for someone, abandonment was something that was bound to happen.
Before the two of them stood up and returned to the school together, Ellie's lips were stubbornly shut, sealing the wish inside her no matter how many times Riley tried to persuade her into revealing what it was. (Riley even went ahead and told hers: She wanted to ride her own bike). Ellie refused and refused, she couldn't risk it.
The wish was, of course, obvious.
But it took no trouble in being so heartfelt.
Because she wished that maybe Riley would never leave.
o-O-o
-ELLIE-
10:40 AM
Over breakfast, Joel had managed to explain to me the origins of drunken Bill and his infamous adventures to Wyoming.
Apparently, a couple of months after leaving Lincoln, Bill's town was overrun by bandits, which forced him to leave unpreparedly. For several months, he'd been roaming the rest of the United States, stopping at various towns in hopes of settling there and reinforcing his old barracks. Each effort failed. And his prior attempt was infiltrating Jackson, where both Tommy and Joel had found him throwing liquor bottles at the eastern wall last night, yelling drunk gibberish. Still stunned, Joel'd apparently offered that he'd let him in the house for the night, where Bill had surprisingly nabbed some alcohol from a nearby brewery before trapping himself inside of the pantry closet this morning. They still didn't know what to do with him.
It was kind of shitty.
"And he's gonna stay here? In Jackson?" I asked, sounding affronted by the possibility. I turned to Bill's direction. The light was knocked out of him. He was on the settee with his mouth agape.
Ah, right. Backstory. Joel and I had attempted to haul him over to the couch, but we woke him up accidentally. He was hazed by the liquor and looked absolutely livid. "The hell were you trying to do?"
"We needed to get you to the couch," Joel reasoned out.
"You fuckin' kidding me? I can... I can do it myself. I'm a big boy."
And so he did. Like the true gentleman he was.
So here we were now, discussing our plans about Bill and his sticky predicament. Joel shrugged, stabbing a piece of dried meat with his fork nonchalantly.
"Well, you 'n I both know how he is." His eyes looked sunken, hazel and deep. "He uh, he ain't particularly a people person."
He passed the plate of dried beef to me, I dropped two of it on my dish.
"Or a person in general, really."
"Ellie."
Ignoring his soft scold, I shrugged, continuing to eat. "Have you talked to Tommy and Maria?"
He nodded. "S'why I went out this mornin'. Depends on what Bill wants. If he's smart, he'd choose to stay."
"But that's the problem with him," I muttered. Previously facing his plate, Joel's head had turned to me.
"Hm?"
"He thinks it's better to throw up these walls, you know? That it's better to shut off everything around him. But it's not." I was surprising myself. "You know... he, um, he reminded me of you, Joel. Back then? If you dropped me off to Tommy... you could've been like him."
There was something in his face that made me think that he wanted to object. His mouth opened slightly, but closed midway. His eyes looked at mine. They weren't cold, nor unfeeling, but warm. Unambiguously warm. His gaze dropped back to the meal, lips pursed and tight.
He wasn't objecting because it was true.
And the thought of him even becoming like Bill scared the hell out of me. That Joel could have been as detached, apathetic, and as lonely as him. A sick, ghastly feeling was starting to rumble in the pit of my stomach. And then, together, we both knew.
Even without talking or giving sidelong glances, we both knew that if the infected or bandits weren't going to kill him first, loneliness would have ended Joel's life had he left me with Tommy and returned back to Boston alone.
"Yeah," he said, nodding softly. "I know."
A dimension opened, a side of Joel. One that I had never seen before until this very moment. Suddenly, the walls that were separating us fell down some inches, the same walls that had been erected right before we entered Jackson.
When he lied to me.
...
"So..." Joel hung on the last note, twirling his spoon as it laid prostrate on the plate. "Ellie. 'Bout last night,"
Oh.
I tore my gaze from the plate and glanced back up to find Joel, whose expression which constantly showed steadiness now seemed faltering. He didn't stop fiddling with the spoon, while I, on the other hand, couldn't stop fiddling with my goddamned feet under the table.
Fuck, he was going to talk about Riley.
And then, as if on cue, all those overreacting thoughts, silly nightmares, and assumptions were hurdling back towards me. A gust of wind slammed onto my chest, hurling me out of my chair. The impact sent my back to the wall behind me, slamming against it with a neck-prickling crack. Due to the immeasurable force, the house's frame started to collapse, and the roof had suffocated both I, Joel, and drunken Bill.
That didn't happen though. Obviously. Although, it would've been a million times better if it did. Because there was no way to escape this confrontation, no way.
Joel and I remained on the chairs. Sitting. Anticipating for either to speak. It was a horrifying waiting game, with my eyes glued to the mildly interesting pieces of beef lying modestly on the plate before me. I figured Joel's hawk eyes weren't planning on leaving me anytime soon.
The silence was deafening, not even Bill was capable of making a sound. And centuries later, when I turned roughly 315-years-old, the long thread of quietness had been cut.
"Ellie." His three-hundred-and-fifty-something voice was stern.
Oh, boy.
I could see it now. Early death. Death by the disapproval of an overpowering guardian. If it would come to that, I would very much like Riley and I's tombstones built together solemnly on the top of a plateau, overlooking Jackson. Yes, I could definitely imagine that. Then, these apple trees would be hanging over our graves. Beautiful, serene apple trees. God, that was like my favorite fucking fruit back then. It would be good for the afterlife, I suppose—
"Ellie," said Joel, a second time. "It's okay."
What?
I looked up from my plate, the word flying out of my mouth. "What?"
His hazel eyes folded back down to his cutlery, attempting to tear the beef with more sophistication. Once he popped the meat in with a fork, he looked at me, half-smiling, half-chewing.
"It don't matter."
I felt all the nervousness acting as an aura around me drop down like flies, confusion replacing it.
It didn't matter?
You mean, he didn't mind it at all? The thing with Riley and I?
Him? Joel?
Overprotective, strict, and terrifying Joel?
...
I was speechless. And thoughtless.
"Wha—" I sputtered, after rebooting my brain. "But... you..."
His face turned stoic, his pupils glancing back up from the plate to gaze into my eyes. It'd been a while since they had terrified me. This time, it was in a different kind of way. The Medusa kind of way.
"Ellie," he spoke, "listen to me when I say this."
And so I did.
"Though I'd be uh, lyin' if I ain't surprised 'bout it, but the truth is, it don't matter," he said. I couldn't even believe what I was hearing. "I know it ain't one o'my brightest decisions tellin' you what I saw, and I understand how uncomfortable it was for you t'deal with it the whole night, so I'm sorry for that. You know I ain't the best at these, er, talks... so I figured it'd be better if I tried to tell it to you as casually as possible."
"It didn't feel casual," I told him.
He nodded, smirking. "Yeah, your face from last night admitted that."
"God," I said, hands covering my face. "Thanks for reminding me."
"Hey," and his voice grew warmer. "Don't beat yourself up, kiddo. Look at me."
I did, unwillingly.
"Ellie, I mean it when I said that it don't matter."
"It feels like the end of the world."
"Oh, trust me, kiddo, it ain't. But I'm sorry to've made you feel like it was. It ain't any of my intentions, honest. And to be really honest with you, it ain't a problem with me. If it was, then trust me, I woulda been too damn busy try'na solve other whatnots like puttin' my head together and keepin' sane anyhow. I know how you feel. Been in your shoes many times, back when I was a boy and a teenage idiot. It's all 'bout findin' who you really are. I don't care if she's your best friend, or partner, or both, or complicated. What I do care, though, is that y'tell me these kinds of things before I even get the chance to discover 'em." He paused. A good, long, considerable pause that made him look a thousand years wiser than he originally was. "I'm guessin' y'all know about the whole 'being safe' ordeal, so I trust that y'know what you're doing. And knowin' that that girl probably means a thousand suns to ya, then I shouldn't be worrying."
End of Joel Miller's monologue.
The room fell silent, with the table of mahogany and Bill's distant snoring and my feet tapping the not-mahogany floor. My overprotective but not-so-overprotective guardian moved his eyes from me to everywhere, making sure that I had registered every single word that fell out of his mouth just moments ago.
"Okay?" he asked, smiling and then cutting beef and then smiling again.
I couldn't even keep up with it. With all of of it. Joel actually lectured me. This ruthless, infected-killing, bandit-hunting man just told me that kissing girls didn't matter. Who was this guy? I was too busy replaying his speech in my head over and over and over again like a scientist trying to make sense of words that had already made sense but was somehow unsure of why it was so.
And that was when I stopped the immense train of thoughts and the overthinking and the wooden floor tapping and everything and everyone on earth. The next second, I was looking at Joel, and he was looking at me, and then the walls separating us that were starting to collapse not too long ago began to sink some more inches lower. I realized how utterly absurd everything was, and how I'd been melodramatically dealing with all these problems regarding Rileys and lies and overprotective guardians and collapsing houses and drunken Bills that I'd been making what seemed like issues a thousand times bigger than they were.
I needed to stop worrying so much.
And thinking. Really had to work on the thinking. I think I coughed up, like, an essay's worth of words up there. Sorry about that.
"Okay." I replied, and we finished breakfast in comfy silence.
I couldn't stop myself from smiling. And it wasn't just because of the Never-ending List of Reasons that I brought with to everywhere, but because who I was with didn't matter to him.
The thought went through again.
It didn't even matter.
-RILEY-
3:02 PM
The sky was alive with a dissonance of vulgarities.
Oh, and arrows.
Lots and lots of arrows.
Scouting had been replaced by bow practice. Yes, ever-wonderful and beautiful bow practice. Out of all the things I was good at, wielding a piece of curved wood and drawing it was my worst nightmare. Robin Hood would be disappointed.
We were a dozen yards outside of Jackson, in a clear forested place that sported trees that were aligned neatly. Each person was stationed to a certain tree, Yusuf had already placed targets and everything on them using scavenged red face paint. Or, you know, other reddish alternatives that I didn't really feel like diving in to.
He thought that it would be good to practice.
All I had wanted was to sleep in for the day.
But no, Leon and his douchebaggery from yesterday had forced me out of my bed this morning by using his Let's-Pull-Riley-Out-Of-The-Bed-Like-A-Maniac method. We arrived to training some time later, with Leon's left cheek slightly swollen, courtesy from yours truly.
After minutes and minutes of yells and guides, Yusuf threw his hands in the air, muttering in a strange language I could not understand.
"Practice! All of you, practice. How will you shoot Clicker with aim like that?" He shook his head. "Again, again! Ah, nyet. Your mothers should disown you. Horrible. Infected by tomorrow."
Naturally, the frustration of not hitting the targets and his continuous bashing had gotten to some of us.
After some time, he clapped his hands together. "Alright. Everyone, all at once, draw!"
Yusuf was pacing left to right, like a predator, examining his students like prey. His hands were folded across his red-flanneled chest, the black vest he had donned on was glinting like shiny coals. I kept the bow aloft, pulled to a drawn position, though not releasing.
By my left side, two persons away from me, was Leon, narrowing his eyes as best as he could. I steadied the bow in my hands, pulling the drawstring taut. The arrow's end feathers had tickled the tips of my fingers. My eyes bore onto the pretty okay circle implanted onto the tree's bark five yards ahead of me. Totally got this.
"Release!"
There was a cacophony of wind-cracking and arrow-thunking.
...
Then, silence.
The awaiting for intense moderation kind of silence.
When we were all brave enough to observe the results of our lower than mediocrity aiming, the outcome affronted us.
All the arrows had failed to hit the center base.
Yusuf had his eyebrows knitted together fiercely, he shook his head again, uttering something under his foreign language that sounded like German but wasn't.
"Get your arrows back. Repeat. Practice until your arms hurt." The crowd responded with a violent groan, some of them even dropping their makeshift bows to the ground in frustration. Even Ivanik couldn't help but curse in his native tongue. Yusuf didn't waver. "Stop only when you hit center. No weaklings in our crew, nyet. Not one. Understand? Now, go."
"Who the hell is this guy?" muttered a boy to my right, aiming for the red target and missing and then swearing again.
"Quit it, he'll hear you." another one whispered, shooting an arrow and having it land just some centimeters away from the center. The first boy had short, dark blond hair, a strange-shaped nose similar to a shovel, and a deep voice that didn't fit his size. Something about how he looked reeked miscreant in all directions. Hey, just assuming here.
"Yeah? Well, let 'em hear me." And just as expected, his voice was raised. Curtness and asshattery present. "Foreign bitch who calls us weaklings oughta be more polite to people with bows!"
Yusuf, who had his back turned to us, swiveled around. His beard similar to Joel's was looking a hundred times more intimidating than before.
Everyone had paused their arrow shooting and collecting.
You do not insult experienced tutors.
You should not be calling them female dogs.
"Foreign bitch, you say?" he queried, accent thicker. The boy continued to stand, sporting almost the same height as his proctor.
"Yeah," he swiped a finger across his nose. "I signed up for Infected killing and bandit hunting. Not how to set up fucking campfires and listening to the complaints of alienated sons of bitches."
Ooh, that hit him.
Yusuf eyed him up and down, shaking his head bitterly once finished.
"A shame you must be to your parents."
The boy's eyebrows were furiously knitted together. "My parents are fucking dead."
"Ah," said he, eyes still glaring. "On the bright side, they do not need to see their child grow up to become such a disappointment."
The boy was thoroughly incensed.
And being an infuriated, angry, raging bull, he threw a punch at Yusuf's direction, only to have the target duck effortlessly.
"Shit—"
Carried on with the force, the boy almost doubled over. He would have, if it hadn't been for Yusuf countering him from behind with a punch and sending him to the ground like a mere rag doll.
Three sounds collided all at once: A crash, a curse, and stumbling rocks.
Yusuf planted his sturdy boot onto the boy's back, as if claiming the land that belonged to him.
"You ought to be more polite to people with bows." he snarled, slowly, word by word. "But unlike me, silly boy, you cannot aim for shit."
The boy below him grunted. Everyone'd remained in the line, not daring to move or disrupt anything.
"Think you can handle yourself better?" He removed his foot off the boy's back. "Go. One day in woods. And I swear on mamochka's grave that you'll be torn by Clickers the next morning."
x
The walk back home to Jackson was eerily quiet, the only common sounds were the rustling and sweeping of soft grass. The boy who had attempted to punch Yusuf was the last person in the crew, lagging behind tiresomely and mumbling every now and then.
It was kind of sad.
"You think it was a little bit too harsh?" asked Leon, hands in his pockets. "With the parents thing?"
Piper shrugged, kicking a smooth stone into a small puddle. "Chadwin's an idiot for even trying to step up to the guy, kind of deserved it, if you ask me."
Benton nodded, stringing the straps of his backpack. "Yep. Ol' Petrov can be scary as fuck." His orange hair was practically glittering against the sun. "Which reminds me, Riley, your quietness is almost frightening."
I raised my eyebrows.
"Do I really look like a murderer?"
"I don't think he means it like that." said Leon. And then we were entering back inside Jackson, the screeching and metallic clawing of the gates echoing into the forest. Guards stationed on the top of the towers held their guns and aimed, anticipating any Infected who had been lured by the sound, it was something that happened on a day-to-day basis.
"Because I care, and I'm a good person." Self-aggrandizing Bent at his finest. "You matter to me, okay, Riley?"
"I'm beginning to think that you like me more than you're supposed to." I said monotonously. Although internally, I was freaking out. Oh, God, what if he was?
It was obvious too. For the past few days of knowing each other, he had been trying to get on my good side. Landing off jokes and witty responses and often trying too hard to impress 17-year-old girls like me for a living. Don't get me wrong, he was great to have around. But I think giving him signs that I definitely wasn't interested seemed almost impossible for him to decipher. How the hell did he even manage to like me, anyway?
Benton faked refusal. "Don't be silly. We barely know each other for, like, a week."
"She has a girlfriend, anyway." Leon smirked.
We all stopped walking.
...
Oh, you little bitch.
...
I glared at him, pulled out my knife, and stabbed him straight in the gut. He continued to smirk, oblivious.
Piper seemed more fascinated than surprised. "What, who?"
Poor Benton's bravado and confident face had started to dampen.
"I, uh, it's kind of perso—"
"You know Ellie?" interrupted my beloved friend, the knife still in his abdomen. I mentally screamed NO! in front of his face. Even went in and pushed the knife in some more. And yet, he was still fucking oblivious. Everyone was.
"You mean the redhead with green eyes, and the scar on her brow?" Piper folded her arms. "Yeah, sort of."
"That's her."
"Oh. Cool."
There was a pause, and Benton turned his forlorn head to me. "How long?"
Wow.
I couldn't even believe that we were having this fucking conversation.
All I felt like doing at the moment, was to acquire mole claws and burrow into the ground and live there forever. I would then spend the rest of my days plotting for vengeance on Leon, eventually crafting up a brilliant plan to kill him as accordingly and elaborate as possible. Yeah. . . that would totally work. I could see it now. Mole-Riley exacting revenge on an unsuspecting Leon Hutt.
Fortunately, when the years of walking was put to a stop, we arrived at the front of our house, quickly bidding farewell to both the cousins before they would leave. Benton and Piper were unusually acting normal, despite the former being upset, but hey, that wasn't any of my fucking business.
"See you tomorrow," Leon yelled out, waving. I pushed him to the door, causing him to tumble inside of the house.
See you tomorrow?
I scoffed, most probably going about 300% schizo at the time.
That is, if you'll make it by then.
-ELLIE-
TWO DAYS LATER
7:21 PM
"Well, that's news." she said, leaning at the side of the windowsill, her gun and a rag on both hands.
Riley's frame was growing taller by the day, her scout training had served her well, giving her leaner muscles and a more healthy look. She brushed off the dust that'd collected on her gun that she had barely used in weeks. The magazine clip was empty, making it impossible to accidentally fire and kill someone. Unless, you know, the bullets were invisible. That would be cool.
Moving that aside, I had finally told Riley about basically everything two days ago. I told her about Bill, his drunken adventures, and the wise, proverbial confrontation of Joel's.
Overall, it was a good storytelling session.
"So . . . he's okay with it?"
I nodded, "Pretty sure."
Riley scoffed, exiting out of the leaning position and walking over to the side of her bed, where I was. She set the cleaned gun on the bedside table, our shoulders colliding as she sat down along with me. "Well. Guy's not as bad as I thought he is."
"You really need to bond with him more."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
...
"But uh, I've got some news, too." She gulped something down. Something big and large and not wanting to get swallowed.
...
"Leon knows."
I turned to her. "I thought he knew since the beginning?"
"No, it's just that, he's"—she leaned in closer, like a young child whispering her first swearword—"he's told some people that . . . that you're my girlfriend."
For a millisecond, something stopped. And I wasn't sure whether it was my heart, brain, or both. Whether it was my toes just curling up or my hand just gripping onto her arm for a brief moment. It wasn't just because of people finding out about us, but because of the term she used. That term.
"Girlfriend?" I said, and it felt like trying on some sets of clothes that hadn't been worn before. It was peculiar. Strange.
It was . . . funny.
Riley nodded, "Yeah."
And then I laughed.
Why?
Because she just called me her fucking girlfriend.
"Why're you laughing?"
"Girlfriend." I repeated. More laughing. All coming from me, and not my girlfrien—
Sorry, sorry, I don't think I could take that word seriously.
She didn't look amused. "You're laughing."
"Yes, Riley," I grinned, "that's right. Who's laughing?"
"What?"
"Your girlfriend. Your girlfriend is laughing."
"I don't get you."
"You don't?" More laughing.
"No."
And then after multiple failures, I finally restrained myself from giggling so damn much. "Do you have any idea how silly that sounds?"
"The G-word?" Riley queried.
"Wow, listen to you. The G-word? You sound like a child trying to say fuck without swearing."
She ignored me. "What's so funny about it?"
I grabbed her arms. "Think about it, Riley." I told her. "After all this time, we've never addressed each other as girlfriends. Why'd you think so?"
"Well. . ." A pause. "I didn't think it mattered what we called each other, really."
Aha! She just hit the epiphany, "There you have it!"
"There you have what?"
...
"Oh." She said again. "Oh, I see."
"You get it now?" I smiled, releasing the grip. "So what if he told some people that I was your girlfriend? Right? Big-fucking-whoop. Have a cookie, congratulations to him for finding that out."
"So you don't care at all?"
I paused, and shrugged all the garbage off my shoulders. "Nope."
"So, perhaps you wouldn't mind if . . ." She placed a hand on her chin, thinking position, ". . . if I told you, that Leon saw us that night?"
"Which night?" I raised a brow. "There're many nights."
"That night."
"Uh."
"The night?"
Shook my head. "Nope."
"You know," she said. "It was the night."
"Emphasizing the Thes and Thats won't change my answer, Riley."
She groaned. "The night where we saw each other again."
Then, the memories all came flooding in.
"Oh."
I remembered her universal eyes and her intergalactic everything, with heavenly bodies and galaxies swirling around us in our own little universe. I remembered the kiss. With our bodies colliding against each other like sun-less, wandering planets and our arms covering every inch of ourselves as we grunted out for each other's names. I could feel our breaths on each other, haggard and lackadaisical and strong and good and bad and rebellious and wrong and right.
"Oh," I said again. "He saw that. . ?"
Riley nodded.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
...
She looked at me with that 'I told you so' kind of expression. "Still don't care if he knew?"
"I slightly do, now."
"I figured."
And then we ended up talking, laughing whenever one of us would say girlfriend and then we wouldn't stop and even if we did, one of us would say girlfriend again and the cycle would continue on and on and on and I wouldn't be tired of it at all. We would later crave for each other, and I remembered our bodies on each other, starved for like that day when we reunited again. I clawed at her skin, and she pulled my hair and released the ponytail, we didn't even care because we were so caught up in it all.
We didn't even care if our birthdays had gone by or if there were still Infected roaming around or hunters or bandits or cannibals or anything. We didn't even care about lies or if it was getting late and that I had to get to Bill who had now moved to a shackle out east of Jackson where he was left in solitude like he always wanted.
Before I left, we had kissed. And we had kissed and we'd paused and we had kissed again for one last time and another time, and another, until I really, absolutely, positively had to go.
And again, we didn't care.
Why?
Because it didn't even goddamn matter.
AN HOUR LATER
Bill was sober.
I think the non-drunk version of Bill emphasized my hatred for him more.
But fuck it, Joel'd assigned me to check daily if he was doing alright in his new home because he couldn't do it himself and that it didn't even matter.
But it did matter. I couldn't understand why I had to be the one doing this, couldn't understand why every time I would try and be friendly to this bear of a man, he'd reject and curse me away like a bad omen. Couldn't understand that the moment I stepped foot into his quaint cabin, he groaned from his small kitchen where he was assembling some weapons and told me that I had no place in his territory.
When I ultimately asked him what his favors were, like Joel'd told me to tell him, he replied in the most courteous way possible.
"Yeah, kid?" He didn't budge from his position. His weapons were spread like a fucking football team. "Go do me a favor and fuck off."
A fiery of flames had erupted from the pits of my insides.
I had enough.
I was absolutely, positively, indubitably, sick of his shit.
"You know what, Bill?" I glared at him. "Fuck you. You and your shitty attitude. Fuck. You."
His stoic expression changed, the beady taupe eyes had returned to face my green ones. I could feel the ground below me shaking, trembling, teetering. The decorations of the cottage had all shook and tumbled to the ground, but neither of us noticed.
"I've been trying to help you. For two fucking days I've been trying to be nice to you for once. But you know what? You're fucking impossible." I spat. "What the hell is your goddamn problem? I get that you don't like me, I really do. Honestly, I couldn't give two shits, Bill. You don't have to like me. All I'm asking is that you treat me and—if you'd like—everyone else in this town with some fucking decency."
The ground continued to shake, hitting a terrific 9.5 on the Richter scale. The cottage's walls had begun to crumble, we remained inside.
"But that's the problem with you, isn't it? You can't act decent around anyone. At all. You think it's smart trying to be this narcissistic asshat and relying only on yourself? Wake the hell up, Bill. 'Cause you're fucking mistaken."
"You think you're brave and strong when you try and hide your feelings from everyone else," I remembered Frank's note. Remembered how spiteful the letter was targeted at him, and how Bill used that hatred as his own armor. And then, as if untimely, I remembered Riley's words during our fight, before she abandoned me for more than a month.
Before she broke my wish.
I remembered how venomous her words had stabbed me, and recalled how I used her toxicity and turned it into my own bitterness. How I shrugged away anyone and everyone who tried to talk, how I put up those walls, how I acted so unfeeling, and how I became so spiteful at Riley when she returned.
Then, the impossible happened.
I empathized with Bill.
I looked at him, straight into his taupe eyes that seemed to be on the verge of breaking.
"But you're wrong." I said, fists shaking.
"It makes you weak, Bill. It makes you a fucking coward. And that's what you are."
...
When the seconds had gone by, I was sure that Bill would have went straight up to me by now and slapped my face. But it never happened. He wasn't even glaring at me. Bill remained in his spot, he hadn't moved, hadn't even blinked. This was strange. Highly unfamiliar and weird. Did it work? Had he gotten to his senses? Did my words really knock some brain back into that head of—
"My town wasn't raided." Bill said, casually, as if whatever I'd just told him came out of his other ear. He ambled over to the counter where his machete laid horizontally. Paranoid thoughts had spurred my mind, thoughts regarding his machete protruding out of my abdomen. Okay, totally not the time, Ellie. I pushed away the morbid assumptions and quirked a brow.
"Yeah?" I replied back, unwavering despite the fact that Bill was wielding his machete now. "So why'd you leave?"
He was using this sort of sharpening stone, grinding against the blade with a sickly metallic screech.
K-shink, k-shink.
"Twenty-one years ago, Ellie, once upon a time, in a magical fucktastic suburban home located in Port Clinton, I had a little niece. Daughter of my younger brother. She was this—this annoying, six-year-old piece of shit that tops you off the charts of people that get on my nerves."
K-shink, k-shink.
". . . but she'd have the bluest fucking pair of eyes I'd ever seen. And I'd always count all her twenty fucking freckles and her brown hair would always get in my face and it'd be the most irritating shit." He was chuckling lightly to himself, with his eyes still glued on sharpening the machete.
"So," he spoke up, "when the outbreak came on once upon a time and she and my brother were too fucking stubborn to leave Ohio, I headed to Kentucky alone. On the second year, I moved to Virginia, then Maryland. . ."
"Three years after the initial outbreak, in the Baltimore QZ, where I was holed up in, I met a guy who knew my brother. We talked, then the inevitable came and I asked him how my damn brother was doing. Fucker told me that he was gone. Gone! Killed by some damn bandits who raided their shitting settlement."
Bill, with his free arm, grabbed a bottle of scotch from the counter juxtaposed to his machete. He took a single swig, long and hard, before setting it back down again with a refreshing sound.
"Was enough to stir me, and I couldn't stand staying around anyone. So when the opportunity came in, I left Baltimore, right before the riots would've caused shit too, fortunately for me." He laughed and took another swig, clearly trying to down his brother-less feelings with alcohol. "Eventually I found this abandoned land in Lincoln, once upon a time, and the rest is fuckin' history."
K-shink.
I was about to question the purpose of his mildly interesting origin story when he raised his head at me. "Oh, ah, still ain't done."
So he continued.
"Some months after you and Joel left to God-knows-where, I'd been having a hard time setting up a more stable perimeter around the damn town. Every night, these fucking Clickers get stuck in the barbs of the barracks that it drives me crazy trying to get them off each morning—"
"Just give me the gist already, Bill."
"Well . . ." he said, raising his machete to eye-level and rotating it by the handle, "Brought my rifle out one night, went on the top of a truck's roof with four bottles of beer, and waited for those fuckers to pop out. Took two hours to find just one."
He returned to the sharpening. K-shink, k-shink.
"I finished the whole pack of 'em, apparently, and while I had my head off I started to hear this little rustling"—he was whispering to sound more immersed—"by the bushes next to the damn barracks."
K-shink, k-shink, k-shink.
...
"So, what happened?"
He drank a quarter before continuing.
"I shot 'em."
...
"And?"
The sharpening stopped.
Everything stopped.
...
"And it wasn't a Clicker."
...
Oh.
My irate expression started to release tension, revealing an anxious, concerned one.
"Turns out, when I, ah, went in to examine . . . it was, it was a"—he swallowed something hard—"a woman. No fungi sproutin', no bloodshot eyes, no nothing. She was a brunette in her twenty-somethings . . . And—and you wouldn't believe how fucking blue her eyes were. Made me think how she resembled a fucking lot like . . . "
My eyes grew bulbous. Bill started to sharpen the machete again.
This time it was harder. Much, much harder.
The sound scratched our ears mercilessly.
"I counted her freckles . . . twenty . . . all fucking twenty of them. She even had the same blue eyes, same brown goddamned hair. I—I was just seeing things, right? Right? Just drunk?" He swiped the machete off the counter and into the ground, it clattered and echoed into eternity. "But no. It was her. I know it. I hadn't seen her in twenty-one years, and I killed her. I fucking killed my niece. My last goddamned family connection. I killed her."
The room started to fall apart.
Not even the clock dared to tick.
"Does . . ." I murmured, voice squeaking. "Does Joel . . ?"
He shook his head.
"You're the only one."
...
Suddenly, I couldn't breathe.
I'm the only one.
The air was too damp, too sunken, too poisoned that it became physically impossible for my lungs to inhale the oxygen in. My palms had collected sweat, and my knees started to falter. My green eyes were racing, from Bill to the surroundings and then to everywhere all at once. Overwhelming. This was too overwhelming. From his constant drunkenness and apathetic, presumptuous demeanor, it came to me why he acted as such.
Lincoln wasn't overrun.
He abandoned it.
He fucking abandoned his own safe haven. Him. Bill. The only person I knew in my life so far that would be perfectly content living in solitude and muttering mental notes to himself every ten minutes. He left his own comfort-zone, most probably unable to deal with the fact that he'd unknowingly murdered his niece in cold blood. Probably unable to move her corpse. Unable to wake up every morning with the thought in mind.
Unable to forgive himself.
I started to regret how directed my hatred was at him. How I thought that no other human being other than Bill could be such an asshole for the fun of it.
Had he forgiven himself?
The desire to keep drinking liquor, smoking and not taking care of himself for months, had determined a devastating no.
How could he, anyway?
And how could I have been such an asshole to him?
...
I needed to breathe.
I needed to get out of here.
"I have to go." I said, rushed, anxious, and cold. I left the house without hearing his say, without him reacting appropriately to my abrupt leaving.
I was the biggest asshole on Earth.
I dashed out of the shackle, with metallic balls chained to my ankles and slowing my every movement. Didn't look back, didn't even bother to see his face moments before my flee. For obvious reasons, I wanted to cry. For him, for his niece. The desire to shed tears had never been this intense for months; but I couldn't do it. I couldn't even tell him how I understood and related to his grieving, his pain.
I was the biggest asshole on Earth.
As I ran away from it, from him, I hated myself even more. I knew I'd been overreacting, but the metal balls had grown to the height of the trees, and now I couldn't move. Trapped. Trapped in my own guilt.
I was the biggest asshole on Earth.
And as I wallowed around, unable to cry, unable to do anything at all, the thought had kept repeating itself in my mind, the fact that I couldn't say those words to him. Those words. Those two, gigantic, rudimentary yet profoundly important words that I couldn't even have the heart to say to him.
...
I'm sorry.
Poor Bill :-(
This is like, my longest chapter. Holy smokes.
Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to share these to any other of your TLoU fanatic friends so you can all cry and have feels together. Friendly criticism is welcome, and thanks so much for more than 300 reviews! Wow!
Next Chapter should be published by Christmas. OR BY 2015
I love you guys x
-Taco