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Ch. 20 - Avoidance

Time seems to move slower when you're avoiding someone. Almost like there are more hours in a day than the typical twenty-four, maybe thirty or forty. Time moves slow enough as is when you work all day and fight to survive regularly, but now that I had been steering clear of Negan, the minutes and hours began to dally along.

You're mine now.

His words echoed through my mind whenever I was alone and my thoughts began to wander. I'm not his, I'm not anybody's. I know where my loyalties lay, despite the confusion that had been clouding my sense of direction.

My people were behind those metal walls that felt so far away.

Even though I am loyal to my fellow Alexandrians, I couldn't bring myself to harm Negan as I originally sought to. While nobody believes me, I've seen a side to him that holds promise. My feelings for Negan have been eating me from the inside out the past few days, so I've been avoiding him. I haven't figured out how to deal with it or how to explain my situation to Negan without him feeling as if I've betrayed him. Because at the end of the day, I wanted him to live as much as I wanted my family to live. 

Eugene had been taking to The Sanctuary quite nicely. He has a room similar to mine, only a tad smaller, and instead of a personal bathroom he has a kitchenette. Right now, he's sitting on his lounge chair playing the Atari that Negan demanded Dwight to fetch for Eugene. I'm sitting on his bed with my back against the wall, my legs dangling over the edge of the side. Frankie and Amber just left, Negan instructed them to spend time with Eugene so that he felt welcomed. I questioned his motives because Negan wasn't known for his willingness to share what was his.

"You hungry, Eugene?" I watched as he leaned forward in his seat to concentrate on his game.

"I can confirm, I am feeling rather famished. I've got a hankering for a pickled cucumber if you can locate anything of the sort," his tone was flat like it always was. Eugene has always had a way with words. Sometimes he could construct the most beautiful sentences. Other times, the shit that came out of his mouth was just over-the-top obnoxious. This was one of those times.

"A pickle?"

"Affirmative," he continued to move the stick around on the controller, moving his spaceship around and shooting the enemies on the screen.

"Okay," I chuckle as I slide myself off his mattress. "I'll go see if there are any pickles."

Without a response, I make my way to the door and head toward the kitchen. I'm not sure if we have any pickles, but I figured at the very least he would like a bowl of soup.

I swing the kitchen door open to find Harry and Willow working hard. Willow expressed her interest in working in the kitchen, she said she wanted to help out more and the extra hours would earn her more points. So, Harry and I took her under our wings and had been training her for almost a week. She was a natural in the kitchen. Harry is portioning the soup while Willow is handing bowls out to fellow Saviors. As the door smacks shut behind me, Harry looks in my direction and offers me a kind smile.

"Hey, Jade," he greets me, turning back to the pot of soup in front of him.

"Hey, Harry. Do you know if we have any pickles laying around?"

He continued to ladle soup into bowls and push them toward the serving window for Willow to hand out. He hummed in thought.

"Maybe in our dry pantry, did you look there?" He asked, head still down. I shook my head in response, even if Harry couldn't see me do so. I looked to Willow, who began serving a few of Negan's men. I scanned the hungry crowd and found a few familiar faces. Then, my eyes landed on Negan, who was laughing at something that Simon had said. My heartbeat began to quicken as my nerves started to bubble, I hadn't seen Negan since we returned from Alexandria a few days ago. As his laugh let up, he looked through the serving window and his eyes landed on me. I began to panic.