Naomi
The space between us felt huge.
Sitting side by side on the bench on Eric and Aaron's back porch, there were only a few inches between him and me, but it felt like miles. The sun was starting to go down, the shadows of Alexandria's high walls getting longer and reaching towards us. I didn't know how long we had, how long he'd want to stay, before going back to his group. I'd never been so nervous in my life.
There was so much I wanted to say to him. I'd played over this moment so many times in my head; all the things I'd ever wanted to share with him, to tell him over the years. None of the ways I'd imagined this going involved this weird silence. An inability to talk to him.
I wanted to apologize for our dumb fight. Daryl had seemed so happy to see me. Running down the street towards him id felt like I was flying. He'd held me so tight I could still feel it in my ribs. But now, he could hardly look at me. What if he was still mad? What if bringing it up just made everything worse?
All I really wanted, was to tell him how much I'd missed him.
It all felt too much, too heavy for such a fragile moment. Like the porch we sat on was made of glass, and if I said the wrong thing it would break, and he'd go running. So, I swallowed it down. Baby steps.
"You hungry?" I asked. "We have food and stuff..."
I cringed when I heard myself. Small talk. Was this all that we were now?
"Nah, I'm fine," he said, so I knew he was feeling weird. I'd never known Daryl to turn down food. And he still wouldn't look at me. Spent the whole time staring at his shoes, while I felt like I couldn't stop staring at him. Without looking up, he asked, "How long you been here?"
"In Alexandria? About three weeks, " I said, trying to do the math. "Still not used to it, though."
"No?"
"Nah, it's crazy how untouched this place is. The people here... they're…"
"Soft?"
"Yeah."
He nodded like I'd confirmed something he'd been thinking all along.
"That Aaron guy…" he glanced at the house behind us like he didn't trust not to swallow us if we weren't looking. Still suspicious of anyone here who wasn't me. "He the one who found you?"
"Yup. I was out in the woods after-" I stopped. Didn't want to talk about Terminus. It was too heavy. Too much. Part of me was ashamed to admit to Daryl what a coward I'd been. I didn't want him to look at me that way. "Things are good here, but they need people like you... and your group. People who know what things are really like."
"My group are good people," he said, clearly worried they'd given off the wrong impression. "Sorry for all of the…"
He didn't know how to finish, but I knew he was talking about Rick's gun in my face.
"I'm sure they are," I said quickly. "I'm glad you found them."
He sat up, like he was about to look at me and then thought better of it. There was another silence while I scrambled for anything else to say, but it was Daryl who spoke first, "Met most of them just outside Atlanta. By the quarry, where we skimmed stones that time. You remember?"
"Yeah, I know it," I said. "Freshwater. Smart to head there."
I wished I'd thought of it, maybe we'd have met sooner and missed all of this time apart.
"You found a group?" he said it like he was a question, although he'd arrived with Perla and Lucas, so I knew he already knew the answer.
"Yeah," I said. I think he was looking for me to say more, but it was hard to think of them all, now that Perla and Lucas were the only ones left.
"That's good."
It was hard to breathe. So many emotions fought to get out that I felt like I was drowning in them. He felt so damn far away, I wanted to reach out. Instead, I looked away from him and out at the failing light as the sun set on Alexandria. It was the only way I could get out what I needed to tell him, even though he already knew.
"I lost her," I said. Felt something in the silence break. "Mia. She's gone."
I felt him shift in the seat beside me, but I didn't turn to look.
"You'll find her," he said, and then he took a breath. "We'll find her."
The way he said it was like a promise. So much like the Daryl I'd always known that something in my chest ached. I nodded, swallowed down a lump in my throat.
"I lost Merle too," he said. Of course, I'd noticed Merle wasn't with them. Knew what it implied but hadn't known how to ask. "Twice, actually. But the last time was for good. Had to… y'know…"
I closed my eyes for a second. Couldn't imagine how difficult it must've been for him to put his own brother down like that. When I'd been trapped in that room with all of the dead kids at Terminus, I knew I'd rather Mia bit me than have to shoot her in the head. Daryl and Merle's relationship had always been... complex. But they loved each other.
"God, I'm so sorry," I said, looking at him again. "Merle was..."
"An asshole?"
"Well, yeah," I admitted. Because he was, an unrelenting asshole to most of the world, but only because the world had treated him much the same. "But he weren't all bad. Deep down."
He nodded. "You and me are probably the only ones who knew that."
"I owe him," I said. "That time he let me stay with you… bet that saved me from a whole lot of shit."
Looking back on it, that week I'd lived like a wild animal with the Dixon boys - hunting and fishing and fighting - had been one of the best in my damn life. I'd never felt so free and so protected all at once.
"Mia must have almost grown up now," Daryl said, sounding kind of sad. "She'd be about thirteen, right?"
"Yeah," I said. "She's still a kid, though. We actually had a birthday party for her. In the winter. Probably not the right date because time is meaningless now, but we made a cake, played games. It was nice."
Remembering it made me ache. I felt another pang of regret at banning him from seeing Mia.
"She told me you guys talked," I said. "At your old man's funeral."
I worried it would be too heavy to bring up, or it would feel like I was accusing him of breaking a rule I'd only made in anger. But when I looked at him, the corners of his mouth twitched in a smile, and he said, "She snitched on me, huh?"
"She did. Although to be fair, she hid it until very recently."
"Surprised she remembered me," he said.
"Oh, she remembers you," I reached into my bag and pulled out the book that was in there. Daryl frowned at it, not understanding why any of it was relevant to the conversation. I could feel him fighting back the urge to call me a massive nerd and wished he wouldn't. Might make things feel a little more normal. I slipped out the photograph I'd kept in there since Terminus. "She carried this around with her all the time. Since she was little."
He took it from me, and I watched his face change. A soft kind of pain in his eyes. He didn't say anything, and I let him sit with it, remembering how overwhelming it had been to see that picture after so much time. When he did speak, his voice was gruff and a little choked up, "You give her this?"
"No," I said. "Didn't know she had it until a few months ago. She found it when she was living at Momma's. Brought it with her when she moved in with me. Carried it around ever since."
He passed it back to me. I smoothed it out on my knee but didn't put it away again. There was something about having in there that was comforting. Seeing us smiling, so happy even when things around us had been so shit, made me feel like we could get through this awkward patch. We had such a strong foundation, impossible to break. I thought about telling him what Mia had said, about me not being as happy as I was back then, but I didn't know how to word it.
"I was so happy when I heard you was looking after her," he said. "She like it in Washington?"
"Yeah," I said. "She really did. Good school, loads of friends."
"Wow," he said. "Nothing like you then."
"Nothing like us," I reminded him. "You weren't exactly Mr Popular either."
"Guess not," he said. He smiled. I smiled. Then he hesitated. I knew he wanted to say more, prayed he wouldn't shut down again. "Wouldn't have changed a thing, though."
"Nah. Me neither," I said, thinking about our childhood of late-night conversations looking over Atlanta, foraging in the woods for scraps to eat, long hours in the library with a silently bored, stubborn companion. Things that would normally have been shit but because I'd had him, they'd been the best. "What about you and Merle? What were you guys doing before all of this?"
He shrugged, looked away from me again. I could tell he didn't want to admit to anything. "Not much. Just drifting around… you know Merle."
I'd lost him again. Just when we were making progress.
I sighed. Thought about him drifting aimlessly with Merle. "I shouldn't have left Georgia."
I didn't really mean to say it out loud. My regret at not trying harder just kind of slipped out.
"You mad?" he stared at me like I'd insulted him.
"No. It weren't right. Leaving Momma," I hesitated. "Leaving you. I should've stuck around. Tried harder."
"Nah, fuck that," he said. "You did what was right by you."
"It was selfish."
"Nah, it weren't," he said. "Your Momma was always going to be that way. And me...? I wasn't your responsibility."
"That's not what I meant," I said, but I struggled to word how I was feeling. "I just got so wrapped up in my own shit, that I didn't-"
"No," he said. He sounded kind of angry with me but not for the reasons I'd thought he would be after all these years. "You can't think like that. You got that little girl away from your Momma so she didn't have to grow up like us. You got her through all of this shit, and soon, you'll get her back..."
"Okay," I said. "But I didn't have to move to do any of that. Didn't have to go off to college or work as much as I did."
He laughed. "That's who you are, Naomi. I dunno how you fit all them brains in that head of yours, but you wouldn't be you if you weren't working hard. Nobody works at things like you do. You was doing something good. Going places."
"Didn't matter in the end though, did it?" I said. "Where I was going... all that work... for what? Means fuck all now, doesn't it?"
"Don't say that," he said. "You made it. You actually made it out of that dump, and you were trying to give a voice to people who didn't feel like they had one. That means everything. Only reason folks knew about that kid on death row who got framed by that cop was because you wrote about it. And-"
"Wait," I interrupted him. "You read that?"
He started to go red, like he'd only just realized what he'd let slip. "Er... yeah."
"When were you in Washington?" I asked. I tried to remember roughly when I'd written it, and what might have been going on in Washington that he and Merle would have been at.
"I wasn't," he said. The red in his cheeks deepened. I tried to work out what this meant, but before I could ask, he sighed and said, "Got someone to send it down to me."
I couldn't wrap my head around it. "You got someone to..."
"Send me copies of the Post," he said.
It didn't make sense.
"But... why?"
"So I could read your stuff," he said. He was staring intently at the ground like he hoped it might swallow him up if he looked at it for long enough. I wanted to hug him, but everything he'd just admitted to was already too personal for him, I knew he was in danger of withdrawing.
"Daryl..." I said. It came out as just a whisper. He turned his head slightly away from me, and I heard him clear his throat.
"I'm damn proud of you, Naomi," he said. "Always have been. Didn't tell you that enough."
It meant so much to me it hurt. For a moment I couldn't say anything. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Just sat there, overwhelmed by everything Daryl had said, and how little I felt I deserved it after how I'd treated him. I knew I was letting the silence go on too long after he'd been so vulnerable, but I was too choked up. For once, I was glad he wasn't looking at me, and couldn't see the tears I was failing to hold back.
When I did, eventually, manage to pull myself together enough to talk, all I could say was, "I'm so sorry."
"What?"
He turned to look at me, and I hurriedly wiped the tears from my cheeks, but they wouldn't stop coming.
"That fight we had," I said. Now that it was all coming out, my hands started to shake. "I'm so, so sorry."
"Hey," he said, he was properly looking at me again, none of this glancing away bullshit. "Naomi..."
"No," I held up a hand to try and get him to shut up. I didn't know if I'd be able to get it all out another time if I stopped now. I owed him so much. "I said some awful shit to you, and I didn't mean any of it. When you came to my dorm, I knew something was up. I should've made us both leave."
"That weren't on you," he said. "I'm the one who turned up unannounced, off my face, and all fired up."
"But something happened?" I asked. "To put you in that mood? You saw your dad, right?"
He looked like he didn't want to answer, even now, after all this time. But we'd come so far. He nodded. "I was moving my shit out of his and into Merle's and he just-"
He stopped, but I knew how it ended. Same way everything with Mr Dixon ended.
"If the bastard weren't already dead, I'd kill him again," I said, and my fists clenched automatically. I looked at Daryl and remembered how I'd almost compared the two of them that night. Unforgivable. It had weighed me down ever since, but maybe now I had a chance to fix it. "You're nothing like him, you know that, right?"
He flinched. Looked away again.
"Daryl," I said. My heart started racing. "I didn't mean any of it. I was just so mad. About the drugs. About all of it. I... I didn't mean to… I would never-"
"Naomi," he whispered, shaking his head. I closed my eyes, tried to reorder my thoughts so that words coming out of my mouth made any kind of sense.
"You ain't gotta forgive me, but I just need you to know that I'm sorry," I said. "For everything I said, for the way I treated you, for no-"
"Will you stop it," he snapped.
He stood up. My heart dropped to my stomach. I remembered the way he'd run out of my dorm room, how I'd looked up from my bleeding hand to find him just... gone. I stood up too, my whole body trembled. I couldn't go through that again, I wouldn't just watch him leave. Not after I'd just got him back.
Daryl
She looked at me like she was terrified. I hated that look. Hated that it was me she was scared of. Wanted to run but I forced myself to stand still. I was so angry I didn't want to be around anyone but I needed her to know it weren't her I was angry with, it was me. Maybe then she'd stop looking at me like that. I took a few deep breaths.
"You were right to be mad at me," I said. "You were right to say all them things. I was being an asshole. I should've... I just..."
It's hard to get out years of regret in one conversation.
"It's okay," she said immediately, which was annoying because it wasn't. Nothing that had happened that night had been okay.
"And I said some horrible shit to you too," I reminded her, although I really didn't want her to remember. "It weren't just you flinging insults around, I was looking for a fight."
"Nothing you said was wrong," she said, maddeningly level-headed about it. "I wasn't being myself. I was acting like an idiot."
"You were trying to fit in," I said. "I didn't see it. Didn't want to see it."
"But you were right," she said again. "And I needed to hear it. Most of those guys weren't really my friends. Sure didn't stay my friends after that-"
"Shit." My heart sank. "Fucked it all up for you, didn't I?"
I hoped she'd say no, but I got my answer from the look in her eyes.
"In the long term, no," she said, trying to dodge the question.
"What happened?"
"Abbie was weird about it so I found a new dorm. Stayed friends with one of the guys, actually, but the rest of them..." she shrugged like it was no big deal. I swallowed back the guilt of having ruined everything she'd taken months to build in one night. "But, in the end, you reminded me who I am, why I was there. Got me refocused."
She really didn't look angry, which didn't make any sense. I deserved anger. I deserved everything she'd said and more.
"Bullshit," I said. Because it had to be.
"You can say that all you want, Daryl," she said. "But truth is, I don't know what else would've got me back on track. You say you're proud of me, then you have to know that you helped me get there more than anyone."
"Shut up," I said. I was not taking any damn credit for all of her hard work.
"Excuse me?"
"You're being a dumbass," I told her.
"You're the one being a dumbass!" she snapped.
"I didn't do shit to help you. Didn't do shit to help anyone before all of this," I said. "You want to know what Merle and I were doing? Fuck all. We were shifting gear and getting drunk and getting into fights. That was it."
I hated telling it to her, hated admitting what a piece of shit I'd been to the only person who'd ever believed otherwise. But she needed to know that I wasn't a good guy, no matter what she'd always thought. I wondered how hard it was for her to swallow the truth. Her jaw clenched. Knew she only did that when she was biting back a retort.
"You and Merle had it rough," she said, eventually.
"So did you, and you still-"
"I got lucky," she said.
"Bullshit. You worked hard."
"Yes," she said. "But I also got lucky. And no matter what you say, or what you think, I will always feel lucky that I knew you."
"I ain't worth that," I said. "All I do is fuck things up and yell at you until you're scared of me."
"I ain't scared of you," she looked genuinely confused.
"Yeah?" I said. "Well, you look terrified."
She swallowed, her gaze softened. "I'm just scared you'll leave again."
It came out a tiny whisper, but it was big enough to get me to sit back down.
"I ain't going anywhere," I told her. "Unless you want me too."
"I don't," she said quietly and sat down next to me. Silence settled around us, but it didn't feel as bad as it had before. Daylight was almost gone. Lights were coming on in the houses around us. Proper, electric lights. This place didn't feel real. Was she real? She looked at me. "I guess we've both been dumbasses?"
She offered it as a truce, a way to move past everything.
"We sure have," I said and she smiled. Her whole body relaxed. Felt like I could breathe easy again. Like, for the first time in a long time, everything in my life might start to go right again.
Everything Rick had said, about me not really knowing who she was now, stuck in my head. She seemed just like I remembered. I wondered if she thought the same about me. I felt different to how I had back then, less dumb and immature. More people around me that I gave a shit about. But she'd always thought the best of me, so maybe she wouldn't see those little changes. Would I see hers? There was still so much that had happened we hadn't talked about yet. The places I'd been before I got here, the people we'd met and lost along the way. Still so many unanswered questions about her time too. Like what had happened to her at Terminus, and how the hell she'd got out of the fire.
"Where you when it happened?" I asked.
"I was at Momma's," she said. "She got bit, but of course I didn't know that at the time. Just thought she was sick. I went to look after her. She died. Turned. There'd been a power cut, so I had all of these candles. Dumb idea because she…"
She stopped, saw me nodding along.
"I know," I admitted, although I didn't really want to. "I was there."
"What?"
"Merle and me were clearing out Dad's old place. When I saw your house was on fire, I… I tried…" I stopped. I know I'd failed, but I at least wanted her to know that I'd tried. "Merle pulled me away again."
"You tried to save me?" she said, with a smile like that was exactly the kind of shit she expected from me. I nodded. Looked like something made sense to her. "I thought I heard you out there. Before I got out."
"How did you get out?"
"Had to take out Momma. Managed to get one of the windows open and climb out," she hesitated. "I looked for you. But I had to get to Mia."
"Makes sense," I said. "Where did you and Mia end up?"
"We got a group," she said. I knew that. A group she avoided talking about. Only ones I knew were Lucas and Perla. Where were the rest? I wondered if she'd open up about them now, stop avoiding them and the subject of Terminus. I wanted to check she was okay, but the look she got in her eyes when the conversation even got close was enough to tell me that she wasn't. "Built this big community in the trees."
"In the trees?" I repeated.
"Yeah."
"The goddamn trees?" I laughed.
"Look," she said, maybe starting to get annoyed again, maybe amused. It was hard to tell. "They can't climb. It's safe up there. Humans have always-"
"Yeah, I know, I know."
"Then what's so funny?"
I shook my head. "I thought you were dead, and all this time you been living in the trees like a goddamn squirrel."
She started to laugh too. This huge smile spread all over her face, and our eyes met.
It was kind of a mistake.
I'd forgotten what it was like, the way she looked at me. Like she really saw me, right through to my soul. The only person in the world who looked at me in a way that made me feel like I could do anything. My whole life, I should've been working to be worthy of that look. Instead, I'd thrown it all away.
Not this time.
All I could see was her eyes. All I could feel was her looking at me and a huge, dumb smile on my face. My stomach flipped over, that feeling you get after a drop on a rollercoaster. Like you're terrified but also completely safe.
My palms got kinda sweaty, and my heart was beating so loud I wondered if she could hear it. I hadn't held her, hadn't had any contact with her since we'd first met. I wanted to reach out, put my arms around her again. Close this shitty space between us, and check that she was real.
I blinked, realized we'd moved closer than I thought. Didn't know if it was me that had moved, or her. Maybe both of us.
I think she realized it too, she'd stopped laughing, but she didn't move away. That smile was still there. Close to me.
Not close enough.
Time stopped until something broke the silence, and then a voice from behind me said, "Hello."
Naomi jumped back from me, blinking like she was emerging from some kind of dream. I turned.
Aaron.
Could feel myself staring at him like an idiot. Naomi was doing the same. I wondered if my face was as red as it felt. He looked between the two of us. "Er… everything okay out here?"
"Yeah," Naomi said. Her voice was all weird and breathy, like she'd been caught stealing or something. "We're fine. You? You okay?"
"Yeah," he said, like he was trying not to laugh at us. "Just wanted to let you guys know that Eric and I are heading to bed. But don't let that stop you guys from catching up."
"Alright," Naomi said. "Thanks, Aaron."
"You guys hungry?" he asked. "There's some leftover chilli if you want any. Eric made enough for four because we weren't sure if you guys were... well we didn't know if..."
"Yeah, I'm starving," Naomi interrupted his waffle. I wondered if he'd heard us arguing. Then, she looked at me. "You want some?"
I'd already said no once, but was secretly also starving. I nodded and I dunno why, but it seemed to make her real happy. Aaron passed two bowls out to us.
"Okay, well. Night you two," he said with a smile.
"Night, Aaron," she said. It was nice that she was so comfortable with him. Made me less suspicious of this place. Didn't much like Deanna. But it made me think this guy seemed alright.
"Night," I said to him, although I already had a spoonful of food in my mouth. He smiled again and then the door closed. We ate in silence. I tried not to think about that weird moment we'd just had. What maybe, almost, could have happened.
I glanced at Naomi, wondered if she'd been thinking about it too or if it was all in my head. "Good food."
"Yeah," she agreed with her mouth full. "Eric is great at making something nice out of basically anything."
I had a few more spoonfuls, couldn't really remember the last time I ate. I thought about Rick and the others, wondered if they'd been fed too.
"You got any more of this?" I asked. "Maybe I should..."
"They'll have got rations at the house," she said, knowing what I was thinking in that weird way she sometimes did. "I can show you to the house later... if you like."
"Yeah, sure," I said, although I already knew it was only a few doors down. I'd caught sight of Michonne and Glenn making their way there after their interviews with Deanna. I didn't want to cut our time short, so having her walk me over there felt like a good way to make it last longer without seeming clingy.
"So, where were you guys?" she asked. "Before you came here."
Terminus.
I didn't want to lie to her. Not after we'd so recently made up. But she was finally happy again and now didn't seem the right time to make her think about it. That look she got in her eyes, it was like she was haunted.
"Prison," I said. Not a lie but not the whole truth.
Her eyebrows raised. "Prison? God, that must've been weird. Nice and safe though, I guess."
"Yeah."
"If you were on death row," she said. "What would your last meal be?"
I thought for a moment. "Pie."
"Good shout," she said. "God, I miss pie."
"Kind of pie would you pick?" I asked her, watched her think about it for a moment.
"Judy's Diner's world-famous pecan banoffee pie." We said it at the same time. She stared at me, bewildered.
"How did you…?"
"Same," I said with a shrug. It was the one she'd most often brought home from the diner for us to eat, the one that most reminded me of hanging out with her. "DC have any good pie?"
"Yeah…" she said in a non-committal kinda way. "Nothing beats that diner pie, though."
Her smile as she remembered it made me want to invent a time machine just to go get her a slice. The lights from the house behind us went off, plunging us into darkness. Didn't take as long for my eyes to adjust to it as it used to. Light from the moon and stars always looks brighter when it's all you got. Naomi was looking up at them. "Nice that you can see the stars now. Properly, I mean. So much light pollution in DC. Made me miss that Georgia sky."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she said.
I wondered if there was anything else she'd missed about Georgia. But, I didn't want to make it weird by asking, so instead I said, "Never seen another kind of sky."
She turned to look at me again. "Man, do I have news for you."
"What?"
"That," she pointed upwards. "Is a Virginia sky.
"No way?"
"Yes, sir," she said. "You ain't in Georgia anymore."
"Well, shit."
"How does it feel?" she asked.
I looked around the place, breathed deep. "Air don't seem as fresh," I said. "Now you mention it. They got peaches here?"
"Nope," she said. "Peaches only grow in Georgia, nowhere else."
"Ain't staying here then," I said. "Pack your shit, let's go.
I'd been joking, but saying it out loud, I wondered if she would up and leave this place with me. I didn't much care for being around fancy folks and if she wanted to go, I'd follow her in a heartbeat.
She laughed. I loved the way she laughed. Hadn't changed one bit. Made me think that Rick might be wrong, about us being different. Course, there was so much of her life I'd missed. We'd started filling in the blanks between the dead rising up and now. But I didn't know that much about before either, from when I'd run out of her dorm room to when I'd tried to run into that fire. A whole lot could've happened then. She could've done anything. Met anyone.
"You ever…" I didn't know how to phrase it. Felt like my insides turned to snakes that wouldn't stop moving around. "I dunno… get married? Kids?"
"No," she looked at me like it was the craziest idea in the world. "God, no. Mia was enough of a handful."
"Yeah," I felt relieved although I knew I had no right to be. "Course."
"Did you?" she blurted out like it had only just occurred to her.
"No," I heard myself laugh. "Course not."
The silence was weird. Or, at least, it was for me. Don't know what it was like for her. I looked down at where our bowls had sat empty for a while now. I kept looking at mine, hoping there'd be some I'd missed so that I'd have an excuse to stay longer.
"I should probably go," I said, but it made my heart heavy. Felt like I'd just got here, like we'd already not had enough time together.
"Sure," she said it with a smile but there was disappointment in her eyes. Maybe she also felt like it was too soon. Wasn't much I could do about it though, night had to end at some point. We stood up and walked to the top of the porch steps. A prolonged goodbye felt worse. Maybe it was best to get it over with. Rip off the band-aid. I turned.
"I know the way, actually," I said. "You don't gotta walk me. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Oh," she said, surprised and maybe a little hurt but doing her best to hide it. "Yeah, I guess."
It should've made me happy. If someone had told me yesterday that I'd get to see her tomorrow, I'd have lost my mind with excitement. But the thought of leaving just bummed me out. Tomorrow already felt too far away.
Didn't know if I should hug her again or leave. Didn't know what she'd be okay with. We both stood on the back porch. She was right by the door, I was at the top of the stairs. I knew I couldn't linger much longer, but I the thought of being apart again so soon glued my feet to the floor. She was looking at me like she wanted to say something else but couldn't.
Probably trying to work out how to ask me to leave so I'd stop hanging around like a damn creep. She took a deep breath.
"You wanna stay tonight?" She sounded kinda nervous. I remembered her asking me the same thing when I'd dropped her off at college, the regret of saying no had followed me for years. She was looking at me in the same shy, hopeful way she had back then. This was my Naomi. She was back. The feeling of it took my breath away. I paused too long. She read too much into my hesitation and took a step back, dropped her gaze to my feet in embarrassment. "It's okay… your friends are here and you probably should go back to them. Sorry. I just-"
"No," I said quickly, taking a step forward. Couldn't bear for the space between us to get any bigger. "I'll stay. I want to stay."
She smiled and whispered, "Okay."
"Okay," I said. I could feel myself smiling back like an idiot.
The house was dark and quiet. It were weird to be standing in one that was still so… complete. I was so used to run-down, half-ransacked shitholes. This one was so clean. So tidy. It felt weird. Felt weirder to be following Naomi to her bedroom. Last time I'd been in her room, it was a college dorm, and I'd fucked everything up.
That why I'm so nervous now?
She climbed the stairs ahead of me. The lights were off, assumed that meant Aaron and Eric were asleep.
I'd have known it was her room even if she hadn't been the one leading me to it. Books were piled up against the walls.
"You opening a damn library in here?" I whispered, so I didn't wake anyone else up. She grinned at me.
"I had to stay in bed for about a week when I got here," she said. "These were all I had to keep myself sane."
"What? Why?"
"Doctor's orders," she said, cheerfully enough. "I weren't in great shape when I got here."
"You okay?"
"Yeah," she said. "Just hadn't eaten or drunk very much in a few weeks, think my body was close to shutting down. But I'm alright now."
Felt like my own body was about to shut down from shock. Then I got angry about it, about her being out there. Starving. Alone. Had nothing to do with the rage though, so it just sat there burning a hole in my chest.
"Top and tail like when we was little?" she asked, picking up one of the pillows. I nodded. She caught the look on my face. "You alright?"
"Just don't like thinking of you out there like that," I said.
She moved her pillow down at the foot of the bed, gave me a look like I was overreacting. "I'm fine, Daryl. Fully recovered."
"Still," I said. "Can't have been nice."
"Been through worse," she shrugged. I think she meant it to sound more casual and reassuring, but I caught the look on her face right after she said it. Haunted by something. I wanted to ask what but didn't wanna push her away. We'd come so far today. Figured when she was ready to talk about it, she would.
"As long as you're feeling okay," I said.
"I am," she replied, but I didn't really believe her smile. Before I could say anything about it, she climbed into bed. "Get the light, will you?"
I turned off the light and pulled back the comforter.
"Weird to be sleeping in a bed again," I said as I lay down. Didn't say anything about it being weirder to have Naomi's feet beside my head again. All the sleepovers we'd had as kids came flooding back. Telling ghost stories, talking shit about everyone else.
"Wait till you have a shower," she said. "Still think I'm dreaming."
"This anything like where you lived in DC?" I asked. I'd always liked thinking of her someplace like this. Safe.
"Nah," she said. "First place we lived in was a damp, mouldy one-bed apartment. Heating never worked, no air-con so we were always either too hot or too cold. Close to Mia's school, though. She had her friends round all the time."
"That's nice," I said. The place sounded like a shit hole but we'd grown up in shit holes and I knew if there was one person who could make it bearable, it was Naomi.
"Second place was huge," she said. "Had these big windows, fancy underfloor heating that I didn't know how to work. We had this fancy coffee machine that…"
She trailed off.
"You alright?"
"Yeah," she sounded distracted. "Just don't remember if I turned it off before I left."
"What? The coffee machine?"
"Yeah."
"Don't suppose that matters now." I tried not to laugh at her.
"No, guess not."
"Sounds nice, the second place."
"Yeah," she sounded unsure. "It was… just felt a bit big after the first one. Wasn't really a home, y'know?"
"Yeah," I said, although I didn't really know. I'd alway felt at home most places as long as she was there. Even here, in Alexandria, with its fancy houses and folks who stared at me like I was a wild dog. I could deal with it if she was beside me.
"Night, Daryl," she whispered, the same way she'd do when we were kids and she was checking to see if I'd fallen asleep or not. It made me smile.
"Night, Naomi."
In the silence and the dark, I listened to the sound of her breathing. Still couldn't quite believe it was her. It had been a long day, but I felt so awake. So aware of every sound she made. Every time she moved.
She sat up. The bed creaked and dipped beside me as she twisted around, setting her pillow down next to mine.
"You okay?" I sat up, immediately worried she'd been taken off bedrest too early. Wondered where I could find this dumbass doctor in the middle of the night if I needed to go get her help or smack him in the face. But she just lay down beside me and smiled.
"Yeah," she said. "Your feet are just stinkier than they used to be. Needed some fresh air."
"Shut up," I said. But I weren't even close to mad. How could I be mad at anything now? I could see her grinning at me in the dim light from the moon outside. She stuck her tongue out at me. I stuck mine out right back. Her eyes grew serious for a sec, "Truth is, I keep thinking you'll disappear."
"I'm here," I assured her. "Not so sure you are, though."
"I am." She turned her head to stare at the ceiling. "You really think we'll find her?"
Didn't need to ask who she meant.
"'Course we will," I said. "Found each other, didn't we?"
"Yeah," I watched her smile, felt my whole body tingle. "We did."
She closed her eyes. I looked up at the ceiling too, because it was easier than looking at her and feeling all of this.
I wondered if she was asleep. Then I heard one sharo intake of breatg and I looked back her. Eyes still closed, but eyebrows knotted together like she was holding back tears.
"I missed you," even through her whisper, I heard her voice break. "Even before all of this. I missed you every day."
"Back at you," I reached for her hand in the dark, found her reaching back for me. Her fingers linked with mine and closed the space between us.
(The news is pretty scary right now, I hope you and your loved ones are all safe and well. Look after each other. We'll get through it. Love to all of you ️)
