I ground my teeth, trying not to get up and throw this pot on the coffee table at Carol and Lori in the kitchen.
They're not doing anything wrong — I know that, it's just — uggggggh. I have been cooped up in this house with for way too long.
'I'm gonna kill something. And it's gonna be Hershel if he reads one more bible verse out loud.'
I can only stand to be around people for so long. We're all up in each other's space, right on top of each other all day every day — there's no privacy, I can hear what everyone's doing at all times of the day. And I swear to god, if I hear Maggie & Glenn going at it one more time, I'm gonna soak their condoms in hot sauce and listen to them scream.
If I'm lucky, they'll get scared enough to ask Hershel if something's wrong with their baby-makers.
More likely but also equally as acceptable, Glenn will ask someone if condoms can expire and if it burns when they do.
Either way, I win.
I scrubbed my hands over my tired face.
It feels like a lazy day. A day to take a nap and just curl up under this fuzzy blanket that I've claimed and read.
I wanna listen to music but there's no way to. There's not even an instrument to play. I could whistle I suppose.
I groaned, stretching my back over the couch while I laid down.
If I start whistling someone else is gonna get annoyed. Most of us are 1 incident away from being at each other's throats.
This house is not big enough for the whole dozen of us. I feel like a carton of eggs. A wild animal trapped in a cage, pacing the edges.
"Hey." Daryl greeted and I hummed in response.
He came over and lifted my feet up to sit down, setting them on his lap.
"How's yer hand?" Daryl picked my hand up off my stomach, looking at my purple and blue fingers.
I shrugged, letting him look.
That's what I get for searching that car without paying enough attention and getting the door slammed shut on my fingers. I think I've gotten too used to the alerting sound of snow crunching. Thankfully they didn't break but it was painful. Still is.
It still kind of amazes me that we actually managed to survive the winter.
I watched Daryl set my hand back down, holding the side, his thumb brushing over the back of my hand in gentle motions. Something he seems to enjoy doing. Just drawing little patterns on my wrists, hands, tracing my veins or following the lines on my palms. Connecting all the tiny little scars like constellations.
He used to only do it after I had a panic attack. In the winter, when all the snow made me feel closed in 24/7 and much more stressed than I should have been. Lately though, it's just become habit. A calming habit that usually puts me to sleep.
Daryl touched my forehead, brushing my hair off of it.
"Fever's gone."
I smiled. What did I tell ya? Just a cold. No need to worry. Now will you please get me out of here? I'm gonna lose my goddamn mind if I have to stay on this couch for another day. Kicking the butts of anyone who sits down to play cards with me for awhile has been fun, but there comes a point when 38 wins in a row is just too many.
I sighed, turning onto my side. Watching out the living room room window as the others are mostly on the front lawn, packing things into the cars. Again.
We've gotten so good at this now that it just… we almost don't bother unpacking anymore. We bring in the bare essentials to a house, stay for maybe 3 nights 4 if it's a really safe spot with lots of resources, and then we move on again.
It was only meant to be for the winter, but we haven't gone out of this general area. It feels like we're playing that game 'snake'. Just moving in patterns from place to place, scrubbing them dry of resources and then going again.
A few weeks ago, we didn't even realize that we were actually working our way back to the farm, until Maggie was brought onto map duty.
She got us turned back around and working our way back through the miles and miles of houses we flew past during that long drive to get away from the farm the night after it fell.
We've made it all the way back to the place we stayed that first night. Nostalgic. It was so long ago. Like no time at all has passed and at the same time it feels like it's been an eternity.
I understand why we're still floating like this, Rick wants to find a place to build a proper base but… honestly, it feels like Georgia is the wrong place to do that.
I don't understand why we haven't even talked about better places to make our way to. Places that would be more ideal than here. We could grow and find naturally occuring food in a place that's more crop-friendly like Florida. We could go where the weather conditions are more mild, like further south but in land enough that hurricanes and stuff shouldn't be a problem. Hell, we could even head north and find a military bunker to clear out and set up camp in. That'd be a Hell of a lot safer and more stable than random houses. And with Hershel's green thumb, we could actually set in for the long-long haul.
One where we won't have to worry about everything all at once. We can handle problems as they come at us, one at a time. Our biggest issues will come from heading outside to scavenge and canvas the landscape. A military bunker will have a lot of self-sustainability, resource stock piles, and Hell. There might even be ones that are still occupied by the military. Places that never fell.
I don't much like the idea of essentially joining the military, but a place like that would be nice.
Just something to decrease our constant worries and daily concerns.
I don't know if I'm stressed, or just done with this, but I don't like looking ahead the last few weeks. All I can see in the future anymore is just more of this.
Static.
If it's just gonna be this forever, what's the point?
We should be trying to improve our lives and our situation every day. We've certainly got nothing better to do. And if we can stop scrambling for half a second and get our shit straight, we won't ever have to scramble again (hopefully).
That sounds like a pipe-dream.
I groaned, smothering myself in a couch pillow. I'm exhausted, I want a vacation. Where I don't have to worry about anything.
Preferably somewhere with a beach, warm sand, and a giant comfy bed surrounded by pillows.
T-Dog popped back into the house. "Ey, it's time to hit the road."
I groaned but nodded. As soon as Daryl started to stand, I pulled my legs off his lap and forced myself to get up.
Daryl's hand slipped into mine as we headed out to the truck.
Carl opened the driver side door for me, climbing into the backseat which he's pretty much claimed as his since about… ohhhh, 3 weeks ago?
I don't really know why. He just started clinging to me a lot, and I suspect it has something to do with the fact Rick & Lori's marriage has all but dissolved. They haven't been speaking to each other for quite awhile and Carl seems to be caught in the middle.
He's had both of them in contempt for quite awhile now. His dad less so but still. Rick's been distant with him, probably because he reminds him of Lori, and Lori's been desperately trying to dig her claws into both of them to keep them from drifting. Yeah, guess how that's going for her.
I don't mind Carl sticking with me really, but I wish they wouldn't drag the entire group into their domestic. That's a lot of added stress that we really don't need.
I sighed, climbing into the cabin with a little bit of help from Daryl before he went around to the passengers side.
Whatever, there's no use anyone else dealing with it. It's their problem that they refuse to solve. The rest of us have enough on our plates as is.
Besides, it's not like there's anything we can do about it. As long as people exist, there will be interpersonal problems. And I've got more important things to deal with, like finding that giant comfy bed and trying not to think about all the aquariums out there full of dead fish or how there was probably masses of fish eating each other after getting hungry enough. Only to also die in the end when there was finally nothing left.
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