After that, Daryl kept his word and stayed away from the farm. Amy snuck to meet him as often as she could, and they would lie in the treehouse and watch the clouds and he would eat whatever food she had been able to sneak to him. When the summer ended, Amy started kindergarten and her mother brought home a little sister for her. Daryl only saw her on the weekends, and she stayed most every weekend since the new baby took up a lot of her mother's time. Daryl went to school at the country school, when he bothered to go. If his father had been particularly drunk and violent at night, Daryl would go spend the night and the next day in the treehouse. He rigged a tarp that he could pull over as a makeshift roof in case it rained. He scavenged some blankets and pillows to keep up there as well for when the weather turned cooler. His brother Merle, four years older than Daryl, had taken to running around with some older boys and was frequently in trouble for fighting. Daryl felt the only good thing he had in his life was his time he spent with Amy. She was so sweet, never scolded him and was always so cheerful when she saw him. They never mentioned that day in the summer when her gramma had whipped her, and they never kissed again except for Amy once in a while kissed him on the cheek when she would leave after visiting him in the copse.
As time passed, Daryl's home situation grew worse. The next year, when he was eight, his mother fell asleep while drinking and smoking and burned the house up with her in it. Merle went to juvenile detention for the first time and he was left alone with his father in a shack they had moved into just down the road a bit further. He took to staying in the tree house as often as he could, but his father had caught him off guard more than once and had beaten him badly a few times. Bad enough to leave bloody welts that eventually turned into scars. He hadn't passed second grade because of all the days he had missed, and instead of facing the shame of being left behind he had just stopped going to school altogether. Amy had brought him some books and on the weekends she visited they played school and she showed him what she'd learned in math and spelling. She also found books for him in the library about hunting and fishing and anything else to do with the outdoors. She brought him a book about what plants were safe to eat and what plants to avoid. She also took to bringing him clothes –she told him they had clothes drives at church and she would sneak some of the jeans and shirts out for him. Shoes were harder to come by, and he often went barefoot even in winter. This led to his feet becoming so calloused he could walk around in the roughest areas of the woods without much discomfort. He gradually perfected walking as quietly as possible in the woods and elsewhere so as not to draw attention to himself.
His brother Merle was in and out of juvie-he had moved on from shoplifting to hotwiring cars and then on to dealing drugs. He traveled with a rough group of boys, but also spent a lot of time by himself. The rare times he was home from juvie, he was just as cruel to Daryl as their father was. He bullied and teased Daryl mercilessly until Daryl would run off to the treehouse, but because Merle knew where that was Daryl had no respite. Eventually Daryl took to staying in the woods more and more, sleeping up in trees and rigging makeshift shelters under the lower hanging trees. He had found an old bow and arrow in someone's garage and taught himself how to use it. He found he was a natural at it, and kept himself from going hungry by eating squirrel and rabbit and sometimes possum.
He and Amy didn't see each other as often, because he was staying more and more in the woods but on the rare occasions he would go to the treehouse he often found notes from Amy hidden where Merle wouldn't find them. She hid clothes and books for him in another hiding place and sometimes she left boots for him as well. If it hadn't been for Amy's help, Daryl knew he'd never have survived out there alone. She was the only good thing in his life. He liked thinking of her at school, her pretty curls bouncing as she walked along the halls, giggling with her friends. Sometimes if she caught him at the copse, she would tell him about sleepovers she'd gone to or movies she'd seen or skating parties she'd gone to. He listened carefully when she talked about boys in her class or at parties she'd gone to, jealous that they could be seen with Amy and that they shared a world with her that he never could. She never expressed any interest that he could detect when she spoke of those boys and sometimes she would still kiss him on the cheek when she left and tell him he was her very best friend and always would be. He knew that one day she would stop coming to the treehouse, she would start liking some boy and she would be busy with that boy and their friends and she would forget about him. It hurt to think about, but he knew that was how it worked in this world. His family was trash, he was trash, and a good girl like Amy shouldn't bother with a boy like him. He was grateful for the time he had spent with her, and knew he would always have these happy memories of Amy even after she'd long forgotten him.
The years passed by, until the summer Amy was fifteen. By now she had a brother as well as her sister. Her father had taken a different job, one where he traveled a lot and Amy told him her parents had talked about moving away to a bigger city closer to where his office would be. She had cried when she told him. She didn't want to leave her friends, it was all she had ever known. She would be too far away to visit very often and she cried harder as she thought about it. Daryl had his arm around her shoulders, as she leaned against him crying. He bit his lip to keep from crying his own self. He was seventeen, and had spent the majority of the last ten years living on his own in the woods. Amy was his only real contact with other people, other than the few times he saw his dad or his brother Merle. Merle was in prison right now doing a short stretch for drugs. No telling when or if he would be home. Daryl's father started having the DTs so bad he'd had to be hospitalized a few times this last year. Daryl knew it was only a matter of time until his father was as dead as his mother. He would be all alone then. He sighed.
Amy looked up at him, hiccupping. "Daryl, I want to ask you to do something for me," she hesitated. "With me," she said shyly.
"Amy I'd do anything you asked me to," Daryl replied quickly. She smiled shyly up at him.
"Well, I want you to be.." she hesitated and turned pink.
"What is it?" he coaxed. He brushed her curls from her face so he could see her more clearly. She had turned into a beautiful girl and every time he saw her his breath caught and he wondered at his luck that she had ever thought he was worth the time and trouble to be with.
"I want you to be my first," she whispered, ducking her face against his shirt. He frowned. What was she talking about?
"Amy," he said softly, "what do you mean?" She mumbled against his shirt, and he couldn't make anything out of it. He pulled her face away from his shirt gently. "I don't understand what you're saying. What are you asking me?" Amy bit her lip and turned even more pink if that was possible. She cleared her throat.
"I want you to be my first….." she ducked her head a bit but he put his hand under her chin and pulled her face back up. Amy cleared her throat again. "I want you to be the first guy I'm with…."here she waved her hand over her in embarrassment. Daryl frowned. She couldn't possibly mean what he thought she meant.
"Amy, tell me straight out what it is you're asking me," he said gruffly. He was embarrassed. He himself had no experience in what he thought she was asking of him. And why was she asking him? She was only fifteen. What had brought this on?
Amy sighed and clenched her hands in her lap and looked down at them in embarrassment. "I think you know what I mean. I want…I want you to be the first person I have sex with," she blurted out quickly. Daryl straightened up and frowned.
"Ummm, why are you asking me that? You're only fifteen Amy. You've got lots of time for that. Besides, you don't want someone like me to be your first. You're a good girl, from a nice family. You deserve to be with someone like you, not trash like me." His voice had turned sharp and bitter as he said this.
Amy shook her head and started to cry. "No," she said softly, "don't you say that. You're the nicest person I've ever known Daryl Dixon. I don't care what you say, I don't care about your family. I want you to be my first…..my family is going to move away, and my grandparents are talking about moving too. They want to go back to where they grew up, in Alabama." She sobbed harder. "So you see, I might not ever see you again. Not until I can come here by myself in a few years. I want you to be my first-you were my first friend, my first kiss, my first secret. I want you to be my first everything," she sniffed quietly and leaned her head against his chest again.
Daryl sighed. It would break his heart if he never saw her again. But he had always known this would happen one day. No matter what Amy said, he knew that he was trash and he didn't belong with her or in her world. She might not see it that way now, but in a few years when she went off to college and met other guys who had money and were smart she would forget about him-or be embarrassed that she'd ever thought in this way about him. But a part of him wanted to be her first, wanted her to be his first. If he couldn't have a life with her, he could at least have that. He thought quietly, rubbing her arm with his hand and with his other he smoothed her tangled curls.
"Okay," he said at last. "But we'll do this my way. Can't no one ever find out." She nodded against his chest. "How soon are you leaving your grandparents' farm?" She sighed.
"I'll be here all summer. It's just now mid June, I won't leave until mid August. School starts back then, and daddy said we wouldn't move until after school started. He has to find us a place to live, and momma has to arrange things with the movers and all that. Granddaddy and gramma won't be moving until after we do, if they agree on everything. Granddaddy doesn't want to leave the farm, but gramma says it's too much for them and she misses her sisters back home. So, we have two months."
Daryl nodded, still thinking. "Do you have an idea of when you want us to do this?" he whispered. His throat had gone dry just thinking about it. He would need a few days at least to make sure he could find a safe place for them to be alone, and to get some protection so he didn't get her pregnant.
"This weekend," she whispered back, "my grandparents have been falling asleep pretty early here lately. They know I stay up and read or watch tv and they trust me. I'll wait until they're good and asleep and slip out and meet you here." She cleared her throat. Now that she was actually planning this, she felt sick to her stomach with nervous anticipation. This had gone much easier than she had imagined. She was surprised he had agreed so quickly. She knew he thought she was pretty, but over the years he had grown very guarded about being touched or anyone being close to him. If she touched him unexpectedly he often flinched or threw his hands up as if he were going to strike her. She didn't dare ask why he acted this way, she had seen the scarring on his back once when she had come to the tree and he'd had his shirt off. He had turned away quickly, angry and embarrassed, and she had played along that she hadn't seen anything and after a while he had calmed down. She had heard his father had a bad temper but she couldn't imagine anyone mean enough to beat their children to the point they left scars. It hurt her to think Daryl had been treated this way. It hurt her every time she thought of Daryl and how he'd had to take care of himself all these years.
Daryl nodded. It was Wednesday now, that gave him a couple of days to get it set up. "Saturday then," he whispered. She nodded. "Meet me here Saturday night around ten. I think I know a place we can go that'll be safe and no one will bother us," he continued. She nodded again. "Ya best not visit here again until Saturday, don't want your grandparents to wonder what you're doing now." She nodded and he helped her to get down out of the tree. He stood at the base of the tree, holding her hips in his hands from having helped her down. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him softly on the lips. He felt himself stiffen, and stifled a moan. She turned and started back toward the farm and he leaned his arms against the trunk and put his forehead on his arms, kicking the trunk with his boot. What had he done? He needed to talk to someone, he needed some advice. He knew he was going to go through with this, but he needed to make sure he knew something of what to do so he didn't hurt her or embarrass himself.
Standing up he took a deep breath and started off toward his house. He had to find a way to talk to Merle.