another half chapter, i love Glenn man
oOo
After dinner, Diana decided to do something special for Glenn; he'd come to her with his insecurities regarding his first supply run the following day. So she'd told him to wait a minute and gathered some supplies she'd need herself.
"You wanna tell me where were going? 'Cause you haven't said a word and this is feeling kinda psycho-ish to me. You're not planning on killing me with that lantern and rolling me up in the sleeping bag? Right?" Glenn pointed to things in her hold.
Diana grabbed his hand and gave him her creepiest smile, wide maniac eyes included. "You'll see."
"I'm gonna meet my end today." Glenn crossed himself and let himself be dragged away.
The path was pretty straightforward, but the surrounding darkness made it a trap of rocks to trip on and smash your face against, so it took twice the time to get there, even with the light from the lantern.
"Diana," Glenn dragged out, pulling on his hand to make her turn to him. "Really, what are we doing? I gotta leave at dawn, I need as much sleep as I can." He sighed at her silence. "It probably won't be much, though. Looks like it's gonna be one of those nights."
Diana held the lantern between the two of them, the yellow light reflected on Glenn's dark eyes like twin fireflies and made his complexion look sickly; contrasting moods. "I want you to feel good," she said simply.
He gasped, his hand flying to cover his mouth in disconcertment, then he pointed to the sleeping bag and murmured, "Diana, no."
"What?" She put the puzzle pieces together and frantically waved her hand in negation, her sore arm protesting the brusque movement, almost dropping everything in the process. "What? No, of course not, Glenn! Jesus! That what you think of me?"
"Hey, I'm not here to slut-shame anyone, you do you. Just letting you know that I could never, not with my new best friend."
All that Diana caught from that was, "Aww, I'm your best friend?" Her heart melted.
Glenn blinked at her. "Why are you kidnapping me?"
"Oh, right. Let's go."
They resumed their precarious trek, which didn't last much longer, and Diana led him by the hand to the middle of the plain where she and the kids were learning self-defense. She gave him the lantern to hold and spread her zipped open sleeping bag on the grass, flattening down some taller weeds.
"Ta-da." She gestured towards it like it was the eighth wonder of the world.
"You want me to sleep out here on the night before the most important day of my survival? I'm starting to think you don't like me that much after all."
While he was talking, Diana plopped down onto the bag and tightened her hoodie around her.
"Glenn, shut up and sit down."
"You're so bossy," Glenn whined playfully, kneeling next to her and sitting back on his legs. "Should never have told you the best friend thing, it's going to your head."
He set the lantern at the head of the bag, the light creating a theatre of shadows on their faces, exaggerating every feature into a gaunt look. Diana reached and dialed it down a bit for a less dramatic appearance.
"You did very well telling me that. You're mine too." Diana smiled bashfully and hid her face by hitting her forehead to Glenn's shoulder.
"Ouch, your big fat head injured my wide, manly shoulder."
"If it was that wide and manly it wouldn't have gotten injured in the first place, so hah." Diana laughed while rubbing her forehead, remembering the head-butting she and Felix had engaged in not long ago.
Glenn chuckled alongside her until they both fell silent, each probably thinking about the inevitable farewell in the morning.
The crickets gave them a nice background sound; it was Glenn who interrupted their song first. "Why are we here, Diana? I mean, aside from the obvious."
Diana responded by lying down on her back and signaling at him to do the same. When they lied side by side, they looked at each other with a misery that could break hearts. Diana felt around for Glenn's hand, which he relented to her.
With their fingers intertwined, Diana motioned up to the inky skies, and Glenn followed her line of sight.
"I noticed we only have a small slice of moon, so the stars would be really bright. Especially now without all the light pollution. And I wanted to share my favorite thing with you." With her other hand, she reached up and switched the lantern off.
Her heart swelled at the sight of the millions and millions of little twinkling dots all across the great midnight-blue expanse. This had always been her favorite sight. She was used to different skies, but without knowing the constellations, they felt the same.
"Stargazing is very personal to me. It's… it's when all my deep as shit thoughts come to the surface and I'm at my most… vulnerable, I guess. I think that applies to everyone."
Glenn's voice was low, "Yeah, who doesn't look at this and ends up questioning their very being?"
She chuckled. "My favorite place to stargaze is in Portugal, at my grandparents' house. They live- well lived, I guess, on the mountainside. It was always so peaceful and the skies were so clear."
"I visited my maternal grandma one summer when I was little, back when she was still, you know, alive. She lived out in the countryside, tea plantations far as the eye can see. That night my sisters woke me up and took me up to the roof. I was so scared." His hand squeezed Diana's by instinct. "It was so worth it. I don't remember much about my grandma, but that's the one memory that I…" his voice cracked.
Diana turned her face to him and saw not much more than his hand on his face, wiping away tears. Despite her inaptitude, she knew what to do here. First, she started crying as well, unwanted and unplanned, but his tale combined with saudade over her grandpa were too much for her heart to handle.
She turned to her side and scooched close to her friend, their intertwined hands clasped against her chest as she shushed Glenn and wiped off her own tears.
"Hey, it's okay, it's okay." Her other hand caressed the side of his face and his hair, and she raised his hand to her lips, planting multiple pecks on its back. "Look at me," she said and sniffled, fighting back another sob.
She could barely see anything, but she felt Glenn turn to her. She felt his heavy breath on her face as he sniffled and tried to stop crying. She used the sleeve of her hoodie to gently wipe at his cheeks, and then his hand grabbed onto her forearm. He then proceeded to thoughtlessly wipe his eyes on it as well, which made Diana smile through her sadness.
"I miss my mom, Diana," he murmured, his voice wet and gravely. "I miss my dad and my sisters. God, my sis- my sisters! I haven't se- seen them since I moved out of mom's. I-"
Diana didn't know what to say. She didn't know the pain he was going through, there was nothing to equate. So she grabbed onto him, her hand on the back of his neck, caressing it tenderly in hopes of providing some comfort. His arm was around her, hand loosely grabbing hold of the back of her hoodie.
"I can't possibly know how bad it hurts, Glenn, but you gotta know that… alive or not, your parents will always be proud of you. Your family, they… they love you, because there's so much to love in you."
One of his sobs made her heart clench. Her voice cracked. "It hurts really fucking bad, but one day it will hurt… less. You probably won't notice it, you'll probably think it will be like this forever, but one day it'll just be… less. God, I suck at this," Diana huffed in frustration. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Glenn. You'll never be alone, you get me? I can be- we can be your family, if you want? Fuck, is that- is that insensitive of me to say?"
She touched her forehead to his and apologized again, warm tears gliding over her nose and down to her temple.
They lied like that until Glenn's breathing calmed down and he sniffled one final time.
"It's gonna hurt less one day," Glenn repeated out of the blue. "I love them, I'll always love them. It's gonna hurt less."
"And- and you can cry when you feel like crying. Let it all out," Diana added, advice she ought to take more often.
"Now you're getting all sappy on me, Diana."
Her hand glided down to Glenn's cheek and she could feel it tug slightly in a small smile, which she mimicked. "You deserve all my sappiness."
"Comes with the title, huh?"
"Guess you could say so."
"My reputation as a masculine, manly man could be ruined over this. Ever stop to think of the consequences?"
"Screw the consequences, never gave a shit about 'em anyway."
"That's the biggest lie I've ever caught you in."
"That's true."
A beat of silence.
"Think we can each return to our own personal spaces now?"
"Oh, sorry."
Diana's hand stilled its caressing and flew away from Glenn's cheek. She backed away from him, but before she could completely go back, Glenn stopped her by the shoulder.
"You know I was kidding, right? Okay, not completely kidding 'cause it was getting kinda stuffy, but I was joking, I didn't… I didn't mind," he sounded bashful, but honest, which relieved Diana of her insecurity that she had overstepped some sort of unspoken boundary.
This time she had no witty retort, so she simply said, "Thank you."
They lied back down side by side, cricket song as white noise as Diana playing with their joined fingers. "My palm's kinda sweating," she admitted freely.
"Mine too," Glenn breathed out in laughter. "Thinking about letting go?"
"Not really."
"Good. Me neither."
Diana completely ignored the starlit sky, focusing instead on her best friend's hand in hers. Scared that if she let go, he wouldn't return to her. "Glenn?"
"Hmm?"
"Promise you're gonna come back tomorrow."
"I promise," Glenn whispered, and Diana heard the shift of the sleeping bag as he looked at her.
She looked back. "Promise harder."
"I promise that I'll do everything in my power to return to my family."
Diana's breath hitched and she choked up.
"It's not insensitive, Diana, it's what I needed to hear."
"Then… good."
please leave a comment. tell me your thoughts, i'd really appreciate it
