Her mother died because of her. Zayla would always feel that way and forever would carry the burden of taking her father's treasured wife and her brothers' only Mom away from them.

Zaria was driving her home from ballet practice. It was a fun session, they were rehearsing for their upcoming Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy recital and Zayla had been chosen for the major part of being the Fairy. While they were rehearsing, Zaria even joined in with some of the other Moms and Zayla's instructor wanted the matching gingers to do a Mommy & Me dance on Mother's Day. It would've been perfect. They packed up and Zayla twirled out of the dance studio with her Mom to their car.

One minute, they were talking about the costume designs for the upcoming show and trying to decide if they wanted burgers from a drive-thru or lasagna at an Italian restaurant. Then, Zayla heard squealing tires, blaring horns and the crunching of metal or glass. She didn't know she was rendered unconscious until she woke up in a hospital and was covered in bandages with minor scrapes. Her father was at her bedside and as soon as she asked where her Mom was, he broke down into tears in a way she's never witnessed before. Andrew has always been a solid, unbreakable mountain of a man, but for him to be so devastated like this...she didn't want to believe the reason why.

Desmond and Daniel flew in from California upon hearing the melancholic news and they were staying in Georgia with their sister while their father traveled to Ireland. They had a service for their mother in the States, but Andrew told them that he was going to bury their mother in her homeland and he would mourn with Grams and Gramps for a few days before returning home.

Andrew's been gone about four days now and Zayla's rarely come out of her room since. Danny and Desmond cried with her the first two days, went on a silent spell for the third, but they seemed like they wanted to be productive today. They'd gotten up at around 10AM and tried to make breakfast, but all they succeeded in doing was making the smoke alarm go off and bickering about who's fault it was. After that disaster, Desmond volunteered to go out to get them all breakfast and Danny had come to check-in on his sister every few minutes, but she was always curled under the covers with ready-to-fall tears glossing her eyes and her cat curled under her chin.

Zayla couldn't believe her Mom was just gone. Her Mom was her most cherished friend; she could tell Zaria anything without being afraid of how she'd react. If she ever had a bad day at school, she would come home and vent to her Mom over bowls of ice cream as they figured out the best course of action to solve her problems. There were no more Girls Only sleepovers in her room or impulsive trips to the amusement park or Mother/Daughter ballet dances…there was no more anything.

One of Zayla's biggest regrets was that her mother never got the chance to meet Daryl. She'd have loved Daryl and treated him like he was her third son. Zaria accepted people from all walks of life without judging them and she would've seen Daryl as the kind boy that Zayla did. She suddenly realized that she's been mourning for almost two weeks and hasn't talked to Skylar or Daryl in all that time.

She grabbed her phone from her nightstand and took it off Silent mode. She had a lot of missed calls from Skylar and a few from an unsaved number that she figured was Daryl. She looked at the date.

It was July 6th. Today was Daryl's 17th birthday.

Daryl dropped out of school a few weeks before they went on Summer Vacation and she ripped him a new one for doing something as irresponsible as that, but he was always there to drive her home in his old pickup truck. She could never stay mad at him, so trying to was useless and he was forgiven after a few rides.

Usually, Zayla would've had something planned for them to do, but she didn't even get Daryl a gift this year. She's been too busy crying and falling into the strangling grips of depression. She managed to pull herself out of bed, freshen up and throw on some clothes before she shuffled out of her room for the first time in days. Danny was sitting at the kitchen table and there was a green bottle of Jameson in his grasp with his other hand rubbing his eyes. It was just going on 11:30AM and she knew Desmond had to be out having a drink somewhere too. That was how they coped with their pain.

Danny didn't notice his little sister leave the house and she walked to town with her hands in her pockets, her head down. She went to her favorite bakery and the store owner, Mr. Crowder of Crowder's Crunches, was putting the glass coverings on a few pies in their display stands. Zayla would usually stop by to get some of his deliciously infamous peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies or a cake when someone's birthday rolled around.

Mr. Crowder smiled, his false teeth unbelievably straight and pearly white, when he noticed his regular redhead waiting at the cash register. He had today circled on his calendar as someone's birthday and he expected Zayla to come in, so he went to the back of his store to retrieve the small cake he made earlier that morning. It was a chocolate cake with blue buttermilk icing, confetti sprinkles and 'Happy Birthday!' written in chocolate frosting. He wrapped it in a white box, tied it with a blue ribbon and came to the front of the store to greet one of his favorite customers. She had exact change sitting on the counter and he set the box down to retrieve the cash from the nice girl. When he looked up to ask how her day was going, he was surprised to find that the little redhead was gone.

Zayla was carefully holding the boxed cake in both hands as she made her way to Daryl and Merle's secluded house near the outskirts of the city. They weren't living with their deadbeat father anymore and Zayla found herself spending much of her free time residing in the new Dixon house. The brothers seemed much happier now that it was just the two of them and Merle was well adjusted to the ginger Daryl adopted from school. It was an interesting process to watch the interactions between the two and that girl could hold her own against the entire town if it came down to it; she proved it to hard-ass bikers when he took them to the Savage Sons clubhouse a few times. He never thought he'd be able to admit it, but she was a nice addition and she was a positive influence on Daryl. He saw Daryl's final report card before he dropped out and was actually a tad confused as to why he decided to, but didn't openly question it; Daryl was set in his decision and wouldn't have budged even if his big brother told him to.

She silently walked the dirt path to the Dixon's new shotgun house and spotted Merle's motorcycle on its kickstand next to the cobalt-blue pickup truck. She wondered what Merle had planned for his little brother. She climbed the stairs to the creaking, wooden porch and as foreign as it was, knocked on the screen door. Merle gave her a key to their house after he caught her and Daryl climbing out of the younger Dixon's bedroom window out of habit, but she remembered that she left it at home. She had a black coil keychain bracelet strictly reserved for the Dixons' house key and when it wasn't around her wrist, it was safely tucked under her pillow.

The sound of locks unlatching filled her ears before Merle Dixon, in all his sinful glory, was smiling at her through the window of the screen door. He had a ridiculous green party hat cocked on his head and when he opened the door, there was a purple one hanging on his wrist.

"Told you she'd come!" Merle called over his shoulder.

"Zayla's out there?" Daryl yelled back and Merle shouted an affirmative.

Daryl was sitting at the kitchen table with his yellow party hat on, per Merle's request, and he was waiting for whatever presents his brother had gotten him, but he got up to rush to the door. He's been calling Zayla for what seemed like months, but she didn't answer or return any of his calls. He'd been worried that she decided that she didn't want to be friends with him anymore or that he did something to offend her and he was ready to go knocking on her door today, not giving a damn if her Dad wouldn't allow any boys near his only daughter. He had to know what the hell happened to the girl that became a regular occurrence in his life and Merle sure as shit wasn't going to allow her absence to go unanswered.

Daryl actually smiled when he saw her on the front porch and he scoffed at the suggestive smirk stationed on his brother's face. Zayla tried to smile when she saw Daryl because she could see how happy he was, likely due to him enjoying his birthday and seeing her, but the look on her face only portrayed barely concealable pain. Both brothers could see something was wrong, but it seemed like she didn't or she was trying to act like it.

"Happy birthday, Daryl." She said quietly, extending the box to him.

Daryl took the box, knowing it was a cake, and immediately handed it over to Merle. He stepped closer to Zayla, frowning when her eyes dropped to her favorite pair of faded Converses. "S'matter, Z?"

"…I went to Mr. Crowder's shop." She ignored his question, sniffling. "I know you like his stuff."

"Girlie, what's goin' on?" Merle spoke this time, unsure of what was troubling the young girl.
"Somebody botherin' ya'?"

Zayla didn't answer, simply hung her head to prevent the Dixon brothers from seeing her tears. She knew how Merle was with women and Daryl, even after all the years they've known each other, still had his moments when he seemed to forget that she was a girl. She felt the dam breaking inside her and when she heard Daryl call her name again, heard the concern and tenderness in his tone, the last of her walls came crumbling down.

"My Mom...died." She blurted out, tears streaming down her face. She wrapped her arms around her torso to keep her shoulders from shaking with her sobs, but picked her head up to look at a stunned Daryl. "I-I know I haven't been answering your calls. I didn't want you to think I forgot about your birthday."

Sighing a curse, Merle herded the younger pair into the house and Daryl had taken the lead by taking Zayla to their back porch for a moment alone. Now that he and Merle were living on their own, the back porch had become his and Zayla's new habitat. They'd sometimes just sit out there on a balmy Georgia night and watch the fireflies glide through the grass. More than a few times, Merle came to join them and started a bonfire, provoking the younger pair to want to make S'mores. They'd run to the store for the needed ingredients and when they got back, they'd try to make the tallest stacks they could. Merle would usually settle for just eating the roasted marshmallows because he hated graham crackers, ate too much of them as a kid, but he'd entertain the two with stories from his or Daryl's childhoods and a few tales from his stints in lockup.

Being in the more rural part of Georgia, there were trees almost overpopulating their backyard, but there was a single Live Oak tree that they favored. No matter how hot the day was, it always seemed to be relievingly cool underneath that tree and they even had a hammock hanging from it for a few months until they found a raccoon trying to make a nest out of it; damn thing put up a fight when they evicted it too.

Daryl had planned to just sit on the porch and let Zayla shed her tears. This was the first time he's ever seen her cry and it was shocking, to say the least, but she walked off the porch and to that Live Oak. Daryl watched her easily climb the tree like some kind of monkey-squirrel hybrid and she eased along one of the lengthy branches. Next thing he knew, she was dangling upside down, her hair like an incomplete strip of fire due to the pixie cut she was sporting. He'd never tell her, but he missed the kinky mane of hair she had back when they were still in middle school and he wished he could see it again. He remembered when she debuted her straightened hair on their first day of high school and he almost mistook her for a stranger. Since then, she's been cutting it and it seemed like she liked it short.

"What're you doin', Z?" He asked her, unsure of what he could do to console her.

"This makes me feel a little better." Was her response. She couldn't put into words how it felt like all those depressing and gloomy feelings were trickling out of her due to the position she was in.

"…sorry about your Ma." He told her, all honesty and sorrow.

Her brows pulled together and even though she shut her eyes, Daryl saw the tears fill them. "Me too."

Daryl's seen Zayla's mother a million times. He wouldn't start his walk home until he watched her go inside her house and he'd usually spot an older woman giving Zayla a hug at the door; it only took one look at the two together to know that they were closely related. He'd see her Mom pick her daughter up from school or when he was walking her home, they'd stop at the corner of Zayla's street to prevent an altercation with her overprotective father. Everyone in town knew about the high-ranking military machine that was Zayla's Dad and if they had a brain, they knew not to fuck with him or his girls. He wasn't very familiar with Zayla's older brothers, but she talked about them and he knew that they left home a few years ago, but recently settled in California.

In all the years he's known Zayla, Daryl never said a word to the other ginger woman. She looked like she could be Zayla's college-aged sister, but she confirmed that the woman in question was her mother, Zaria Krest, and that she didn't have any sisters or Aunts. It was bad enough that he was still shy around Zayla, but he knew he'd have a goddamn heart attack if she and her beautiful Mom were in the same room as him. He regretted never having the courage to ask to meet the woman because he knew she'd be as kind as her daughter and he was hoping that with enough time, he'd get the chance to, but that was never going to happen now.

Daryl didn't say another word, he simply stared at the redhead girl hanging upside down on the tree branch like a sleeping bat for another moment before he began climbing the tree. Once he was sitting on the same branch as her, he cautiously leaned backward and bent his knees, clenching around the bough.

Daryl and Zayla hung side by side, their arms grazing each others'. Without looking at him, she felt for his hand and when she found it, she laced her fingers into the webbing of his in a tightly gentle grip. After a heartbeat's pause, she felt Daryl's fingers twitch before they were intertwined with hers.

Neither said a word, though Zayla could hear what the boy next to her was saying in his silence: "I'm here."

Unknown to the pair, Merle Dixon was watching the duo from the backdoor of the house. He knew how horribly he reacted to a crying woman and Daryl was ten times as worse, yet there he was. His awkward and painfully shy little brother was comforting the redhead in an abnormal way, but consoling her all the same.

Ever since the ginger girl became friends with his little brother, he's noticed something change in the kid. He couldn't put his finger on it, but that girl was doing something to his little brother and it wasn't bad. For once in their lives, someone was doing something good for a Dixon. Merle knew his baby brother had the hots for the girl too, but it was going to be a long and bumpy road when Daryl decided to lay on the romance. Merle's been nudging them in the right direction whenever he could, but he could only do so much.

The eldest Dixon man silently watched the young pair for another minute. He thought back to when he was a wild teenager and wanted to fuck whatever he could get his hands on. He never had a Summer love, high school sweetheart or anything like that, nothing like what Daryl was experiencing. His little brother needed something like that, some kind of feminine attention that wasn't exclusively limited to meaningless sex.

With a smirk, Merle turned and went into the kitchen to cut a slice of Daryl's birthday cake.