"𝐜𝐨𝐰𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞„

nine, blackjack

LOUD MUSIC WASHED OVER him and his father as Jessie swung the door open for them. She greeted them with a pleased smile, happy they had actually been bothered to come. Carl's eyes darted around the room awkwardly, taking in a scene that he'd never witnessed before. A party. A party with adults and alcohol. Rick talked to Jessie for a minute as Carl continued on through the maze of people, smiling at ones he knew and even others that he did not. He hated this, he hated having to talk, maybe even more than he hated being out there with walkers.

"Carl!" Ron had shouted from across the room, his arm snaked around Enid's shoulder, which made him grimace. He shoved a fake smile on his face and headed towards the three of them, Mikey being there too.

"Hey man, we were waiting for you, we're going upstairs to play cards, wanna come?" Mikey asked, a mischievous grin present on his expression. He nodded his head, and followed his three new acquaintances up the stairs towards Ron's room, where he hadn't been since he stormed out of it.

When they had all made it in, Ron closed the door tight and rocked the knob to the left, locking it discreetly. After doing so, he bent down to the space behind his bedpost and revealed in his grasp what appeared to be a bottle of vodka. Carl had only drunk Alcohol once, when his mom let him have a sip of her wine at the CDC. He remembered loathing the taste, and hating the after-burn even more. He didn't quite know how to feel about Ron having alcohol, but tried to sweep it under the rug as best he could. Maybe the others might think it was irresponsible too?

"Are we playing blackjack? go fish? solitaire?" Michonne had been an excellent cards partner when there was nothing else to do. She taught him all the games she'd known, and he'd come to be quite good at them over time. He even beat her - only once, though (she was concerningly good). They all looked to him as if he were crazy, before smiling and shrugging it off.

"We're playing get drunk and be stupid." Ron sneered, unscrewing the cap to take a large swallow of liquid straight from the bottle. 'No good idea starts with alcohol' was a phrase he'd heard his mom say to her friend betty, back when he was younger. He had a strange kind of want then, a realisation that he wanted his mom here to yell at him for being stupid, to tell him he was being an immature teenager. She didn't, and so, when the bottle came around past Mikey's mouth to his, he reluctantly took it, taking more vodka in his mouth than even Ron had. He swallowed it fully, coughing and spluttering as it went down his throat, warm and raspy. It tasted horribly like kleenex smelled, yet he laughed to himself afterwards as he passed the bottle to Enid.

They continued to take turns until the bottle was halfway done, and had ended up playing some twisted version of truth or dare after all the liquor. He'd never understood the frenzy around it - as he said, he thought it tasted gross, and he was right - but the part that came after consumption was the focus, which he realised as soon as he began too see three of everyone.

The only one out of all four of them that wasn't completely smashed, was Enid, who was a little tipsy but nowhere near as far gone as the boys.

"Carl," Mikey asked, swallowing hard and swaying though there was no wind, "Truth or dare?"

"Uhm, Truthh," he slurred.

"Have you everr....kissed anyone?"

He scoffs, not sure what to say. "A girl once kissed me on the cheek one time."

Ron laughs at this answer, amusement occupying his mind as he thinks of Carl's unworthy act of affection. "Everyone knows that doesn't count. It has to be like this," He hardly even finishes his sentence before turning his face towards Enid's and crashing their lips together. They only kiss for a brief second, yet Carl turns to utter despair as they do so so casually in front of him, and to his horror, he feels something rising in his throat.

Getting up abruptly, he unlocks the door and flies out into the hall, Ignoring Enid's calls for him as he descends the stairs, right into the heart of the party. Most of the adults are too drunk to notice, and the ones that do don't think too much of him. He's just a kid, being stupid, cause that's what kids do, right?

"Carl wait!"

He swung the front door open just as jessie had when she'd welcomed him, and sprinted out to the porch, where he was met with cold air and a dark sky. Enid's palm made contact with his shoulder and he whipped around to face her, his premonitions of nausea switching to anger as he looks her dead on.

"He doesn't even like you! He doesn't give a shit, Enid." He yells, turning his back to her and perching himself on the porch steps.

"Oh, and you do?"

"So what if I did!" he snaps.

"But you don't."

"I-"

"I'm not her, you know." she tells him, solemnly. The night goes silent.

Carl doesn't say anything as Enid sits down beside him on the white step. He knits his brows together, pushing his hand through his dark hair and sighing, trying to think of something to say without bursting into tears. At this moment in time, he made a vow to never drink again. Blinking the water away, he stared at his feet, just thinking of her. Enid was right. This was all about her.

"Maggie told me. About Jane."

"Please don't." He couldn't bare to even say her name himself, let alone hear Enid shout it.

"I can see that she meant a lot to you, but you shouldn't be mad at me just because I'm in a relationship."

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm never usually like this. I've never been like this."

"Losing people is hard. I lost my parents. My friends."

He nods at her, Thinking of Jane and his mom. Beth, Hershel and Shane too. all those people.

"For what it's worth, she sounded really awesome." Carl smiles in agreement.

"Yeah. She was. You would've liked her."

Though he couldn't shake his mild dislike of Ron, they still tried to be friends. Enid and Carl became closer, over the few months they would spend together. It seemed like fate that they liked the same comics, and would often swap their differentiating volumes between one another when they ventured outside the walls together. Neither one of them talked much, but the silence felt almost understanding, and over time, Carl would begin to feel a little bit better, now that Enid was his friend. Ron was always cautious of them now, though, watching like a hawk. Carl didn't blame him, and it wasn't like the pair were anything more than friends, but still.

Yet, his nightmares never went away, no matter how hard he might've tried. Jane crept to him, in his sleep and in the wake. Sometimes, he would dream his memories as they had been, only her skin had turned a pasty grey and her lips a sacred blue. Other times, a bullet hole was painted to her cheek, a singular stream of blood running from it onto a perfect white shirt. It almost mimicked his mothers death, in which he dreamt of often times. Then there was the walker dreams, ones of her torn apart and after came the dreams of just her face, staring back at him. These were the worst of all, because they teased him with what he could have had. Tossing and turning never worked to silence these visions, and he began to fear his bed every night that he lay his head to it.

He could get better, he knew this, but he would never ever be okay.

-this is the shortest thing ever lmao