One Stone

3

Its hard knowing what happened to Rick. Especially when Lori is crying in the front seat worried to death about him.

She won't stop speculating about what's happening with him.
"Is he okay?"
"What if one of those things got to him"
"Maybe he's okay"
"But what if he's not"
"What if he's waiting on me to come get him"

I couldn't bear to be the one to tell her, so I sat silently. Listening to her cry.

Eventually dad had gotten enough of it and sighed, "Lor, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but Rick is dead. I went to check on him before i came and got you. It was too late. Im so sorry." He put his hand on her thigh and rubbed it as if that would make her feel better.

It didn't though. She kept crying.

Meanwhile, Carl and I were in the back. He was listening to music on his tablet, which was bound to die soon.

I pulled out my phone and checked the battery. 87. 'Great. Thats not gonna last long' is what went through my head.

Then my background caught my attention. It's a picture of me and my best friend, Andrew. We're standing back to back holding up hand guns.
I smile at the picture, then lock my phone.

I stare out the window wondering to myself if he's okay. If he's hurt. If he's even still alive. I let a tear fall at the thought of him being dead, or worse, one of them.

"Where are we going" are the words that startle me from my thoughts, of which came from Carl.

"You see that mountain over there," dad points out the mountain thats directly to the right of us, "We're going there. We're gonna go camping for a bit."

"Camping! I love camping!" Carl exclaims.

"How many times have you been?" Dad asks him.

"Dad took me once last year. He said he was gonna teach me how to fish, but we had to leave early because it started raining." The smile on his face faded slightly.

Dad saw this and immediately tried cheering him up, "Tell you what, when we get there I'll teach you how to catch some frogs instead. How's that sound?"

"Really? Cool!" Carl yells out.

The rest of the ride we all sit in silence.
By the time we got to the campsite Carl had fallen asleep and Lori still hadn't stopped letting her tears fall.

If she were anyone else im sure my dad would have yelled at her for being weak. Letting her emotions drive her.

But since she's Lori, all he did was try to comfort her.

He had never comforted me in my life.
I had asked why once, "It's for your own good. If I baby you then you'll get used to it. No one in the real world is gonna come to the rescue to make you feel better. You need to be strong, otherwise the world is just gonna beat you down."

I had believed him for a few years, until I met Andrew. He showed me how wrong my father was. When i needed help he was there. When I was scared he was there. When I was being bullied he was there to scare them away.

And in turn I did the same for him.
We fought every battle together.
I'm disappointed in myself for not being able to fight this one with him.

Dad turned the car off and we all got out. Lori decided to leave Carl in the car for the time being since he was asleep.

There were people here already. None of them looked familiar to me. All of them were older, except the one girl who was Carl's age, cuddled into her moms side at the fire, and one girl who was around my age sitting next to, who im guessing, is her sister. They look alike same blonde hair and green eyes, both very pretty.