I'd like to tell everyone that after Negan gave my my engagement ring our lives continued on the normal, sex-crazed, love fueled route we'd been on since the first time we touched. I can't do that and stay honest though.

We had a good six months after he slipped my second ring on. Six months of my mom's ideas for our wedding. Six months of making it difficult for our neighbors to make eye contact after a LONG weekend at home. Six months of Eric and Steven (both had transferred to the college I was finishing at) hanging out, but not wearing out their welcome. Six months of LONG phone conversations with Mary about her life on the west coast and how she couldn't wait to celebrate our graduations over the coming summer. We had six months, and I guess, looking back I should feel pretty fucking lucky that we had that.

I'd always thought we were absurdly lucky. Hadn't I wondered a thousand times when it would wear off, this magical pull we had for one another. The way our eyes could meet during dinner with anyone, and both of us would find an excuse to leave the room together, or the meal entirely and then be naked and pounding together in no time flat, wasn't sustainable. Was it?

The first blow to our reality came right before Christmas. Having a pair of police officers show up at your front door never signifies good news. Having it happen with twinkle lights glowing behind them doesn't make it easier to take the grim news they were delivering.

Mom had mentioned, offhandedly, that there had been a few break ins in the neighborhood during one of our phone calls. She'd made it seem a nuisance rather than a fear. She should have been afraid. Her and Dad had been killed when they walked in on a burglar. It had been quick, the policemen assured me, as though that made it better somehow.

Negan wasn't home when I found out. He'd insisted, once we were officially engaged, that he work his second job during the school year as well as during summer. Mom had told me he was too proud to live off of my trust fund, and with our future coming on fast he wanted to prove that we didn't need to use it. So he was working at the car lot, as the two uniformed officers stood on my front porch and told me that my parents were dead. Gone forever.

The officers asked if there was someone they could call, I must have looked like I was going into shock, because I no doubt was. I handed them my cell phone, told them to call Negan AND Eric. Mary was coming home in a few days, but telling her now would just rush her home and I had no fucking clue what would come next.

What came next was Eric and Steven rushing to me from their apartment nearby. Negan screeching into our driveway moments later. And then they all tried to keep me from falling into a million pieces.

The funeral overshadowed the holidays. While I was tempted to completely ignore Christmas and New Years' I knew that I couldn't. Mom, and Dad too, wouldn't have wanted us to stop moving forward. That was the point of life, the living get to live it.

It was a somber couple of months, and later, after everything went to shit fast and furious, I had to wonder if that was the catalyst or if I'd lost him long before then.

Since Negan was working a second job, I took the offer to be a TA when it was given. I won't lie and say the sexual pull wasn't there between us any more, it was still there. We could still make the neighbors blush, but we weren't as available to one another. He had school, the teams he helped coach, and then his sales position at the dealership. I had school, my TA position, and Eric to keep me company. I should have seen it. Hindsight, I suppose.

For the next few months, working my ass off to keep up my grades and earn my degree, my focus shifted from being upset that Negan and I didn't have the time to rip one another's clothes off as often as we once had. I had taken my last final the night before my world truly started spinning out of control. I felt Negan rolling out of bed, the sun shining through our curtains, and then the water turned on in our shower.

Once upon a time, I would have joined him. And I was actually thinking about it, but then his phone dinged on the nightstand. I thought it might be work, they'd texted him before from the dealership when one of his customers needed to contact him, so I rolled over and smiled as the warmth of his side and the scent of him invaded my senses. It was short lived. And my plan to join him in the shower left with that contentment.

Opening up his messenger, I saw a photo that turned my stomach and made me want to scream, cry, hit something, and then die, in that order. It was Negan, MY Negan, lying on a bed with a naked redhead cuddled against him. He was naked too, or I assumed he was since his chest was bare and his hands were curled around her waist, pressing their faces together. Her lipstick, a vivid shade of red, was smeared and his mouth was stained with it. There was only one word that accompanied it. "SOON".

I don't know how I managed to not do any of the things my body longed to. I don't know how I fucking held back when he kissed me goodbye. I don't know why I didn't confront him. Why I didn't fucking scream, and hold him accountable is still a mystery to me.

Maybe it was because of the whispers. Hadn't I wondered if I'd been his first student lover? Hadn't I heard the age old adage that "once a cheat, always a cheat"? And hadn't I constantly wondered just how long we had before our bubble burst?

Five years, give or take. That's how long. Five years of Negan and Amara in that wonderful love and lust filled bubble. And now our time has run out.

Negan called me from work later that day. He said he'd been called by Lucille's doctor. She was dying, he told me, and she had asked for him. I can admit I doubted him. Wouldn't any sane woman who saw the picture I'd seen have doubts?

He asked me to pack him a bag that he'd run by to grab. I hadn't called anyone to tell them what I'd seen. I was all alone in our house, a house we'd refurnished and redecorated together. A house I thought we'd made a home. I had a flash of vengefulness that made me want to cut holes into anything I packed for him, but I fought it. If Negan was leaving, be it for a trip or forever, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing that he'd torn out my fucking heart and stomped on it. I packed carefully for him. T-shirts, jeans, underwear like I would have packed for any other trip he could have asked me to do.

He seemed to know that there was something off with me. Negan hugged me to him, pressing my face into his chest and telling me that he'd be back before I could miss him. He kissed me in the same hungry and breathless way that seemed to be OUR way, but I had to wonder if he kissed HER like that too. If he made her sound like Marilyn, or if she called him "sir" or "daddy"?

I felt the hysteria creeping in again, and felt almost relieved when he finally let me go and left.

Watching him pull away from our house, to head back to where we'd met, I finally let go. I screamed so loud I was surprised the neighbors didn't call the police. They did, however, call Eric.

"That dumb, rancid asshole-" Eric was whispering into my hair as he held me and I sobbed. "How fucking dare he-"

Steven was behind me patting my back and whispering comfort while Eric was raging harder than me. You'd almost think Negan cheated on him. "Not helping," his boyfriend snapped at my best friend. "Mara, honey, maybe it's not what you think-"

I snorted, and pulled back from Eric to shoot Steven a look of pure indignation. "They were naked, Steven. Naked and wrapped around one another, and FUCK I'm gonna be-"

I jumped up and rushed to the closest bathroom. I made it, but only just, and then I emptied my stomach of everything I'd ever considered eating. Retching and gagging, even empty I still felt like I had more to give. Eric was waiting for me, once I'd flushed and then brushed my teeth and gargled.

"Better?" His concern was palpable, but it didn't help. Nothing would help.

What's worse than finding out the love of your life is a cheating dickhead? The dead reanimating. Trust me, seeing a corpse walking down the street and then biting people, that shit can out weigh even the worse fucking heartbreak.

Luckily Mary had made it to our side just in time for us all to evacuate together. Mary, Steven, Eric, and me off on a grand adventure. I almost didn't have a spare moment to think about Negan's infidelity. Almost. And I'd like to say that when I packed for our mad dash to safety that I left all reminders of him behind. I didn't. Eric's framed gift along with a photo album that held pictures of my entire family came with me. My rings, my jewelry (yes, even the spring formal set that he'd surprised me with), and while I didn't pack the feminine dresses that everyone knew me for, I did pack the knee high boots.

My phone never rang, not before the towers became inoperable. No texts came. Nothing to make me think that I was wrong about Negan having left me. And I had to believe that he left me and was with HER safe and sound, because even with him destroying me, I couldn't survive in a world where he was dead. That would be a cruelty too far.

"I think I see something up ahead," Steven said, he was driving the SUV that we'd chosen to take, having seen the horrible traffic we assumed having four wheel drive might be handy if we needed to go off road.

I looked up from where I'd been daydreaming out the window and I knew immediately that he was right. "Alexandria?"