my tears ricochet

Chapter Forty Nine

"So, when were you hiding things in the woods?"

It took Ivy a minute to realize what Beth was asking. They still had that one bag they had found beneath the fallen tree. Somewhere along the journey they had found a second backpack that was sturdier, allowing the girls to stretch their supplies out between them and balance the weight. "Sometime after. Carl and I used the tombs to get out the prison, dropped a few things around. Didn't realize how hard it'd be trying to find it in a pinch."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Didn't want you to feel like you had to lie to anyone. Daryl didn't want me leaving the prison."

"I would've gone," Beth said pointedly, feet skirting around flowers that were stubbornly growing up through the tracks. "You can tell me things. Let me make up my own mind."

Ivy nodded. "Noted. I'm sorry, though. If it hurt you."

She felt the absence of her knife every single minute. Beth had found her a pry bar in a pile of scrap metal and it was a stronger weapon but she missed the emotional connection that she had to the knife. Twice she had used it, dispatching walkers to practise swinging it right, catching them cold on the third or fourth hit.

It had been days of wandering towards a mystery location. Paranoia still chewed at their heels and they kept pushing as fast as they could risk it, unsure of what could be on their trail. The two men bothered Ivy. They hadn't been carrying any packs so they might have had some kind of set up nearby or maybe they had more numbers somewhere else.

Nobody knew anything anymore. They couldn't know who was still out in the wild, who was still left to find.

"I also would have packed better," Beth informed her with a bit of shortness. "Maybe consider a lighter next time you're planning a bug-out bag."

Ivy hummed, knocking her shoulder against her. "Yeah, I'm aware. Lighter, fruit belts, and books."

Boredom was the other problem. Once the fear died away some and they could breathe easier, life felt suddenly dull. Talking about the prison felt awkward, verbally circling the Governor and Hershel's death, the people that they missed constantly. Beth told old stories of the farm but the gaps were still felt, pain buried beneath punchlines, the way a laugh turned into a ragged breath.

Ivy didn't have much good stories bottled up. A few okay moments lingered in her mind, the parts of her childhood where the monster didn't stand over her, but they were so private. She hadn't even told Daryl those little details.

"My mom," Ivy started weakly, feeling the threads of something come together in her mind, "used to steal police cars in high school, with her friends. They'd get drunk off peach schnapps and run around. Eventually, I guess, they'd break into the cars and take them around town."

Beth blinked, looking at her. They were slowly drifting into unspeakable territory but Ivy couldn't give Beth anything else. She couldn't give her safety, she couldn't give her back her father. Ivy didn't even know how to begin finding Maggie for Beth. "Really?"

"Yeah. She had a bunch of friends back then, they were all kind of the same. Skip classes and stuff."

"That sounds cool," Beth said politely, reaching an arm back for the water bottle tucked in the side pocket of her pack. It wasn't the one Ivy had used to bash in a man's teeth. "Were you guys close?"

"Kind of," Ivy tried to think back. "She named me after her. Ivy, because she was Ivy. I think she loved me because she was supposed to, though, but it wasn't enough to make her like me."

Beth knocked the bottle against her arm gently to get her to take a sip. They were rationing their water tightly in favour of moving forward. "I like you," she offered. "Not every family has to be blood. Maggie and I didn't have the same mom, but she always picked me. And I picked you. We all did."