Haunted | Daryl Dixon

8. Nervous Tic

She was doing that thing again. That thing she always did whenever she was nervous or anxious. She would tap her fingers against anything she could.

Right now, it was the diner counter. A couple minutes ago, it was the side of her leg as she was waiting for an order to come out.

"Yer doing it again, Ev." Daryl grunted, lifting his head from his plate, knowing that he couldn't stop the concern from leaking into his face, even if he tried.

Evelyn sighed, dropping her hand from the counter, "Sorry," She said, not meeting his eyes. She hadn't been all day, and he had noticed.

"What's wrong?" He asked, eyes scanning over her for any signs of what could be bothering her so much that she was acting like this.

She ran a hand through her hair, something he also noticed she had been doing a lot today. So much so that her curly locks were tossed every which way.

Finally, she took a deep breath and met his eyes from across the counter for the first time since he stopped by for lunch while she was working.

"We need to talk, Dare."

Immediately, his eyes hardened, he knew that tone, "We're talkin' right now." He said through gritted teeth.

"You know what I mean," Evelyn sighed again, "We need to talk about everything. With Merle and your dad-"

"An' ya really think the diner is a good place to talk about it?" He scowled at his plate.

"You can't just keep all of this bottled up without talking about it," She continued as if she hadn't heard him, going back to tapping her index finger against the counter anxiously, "It's not healthy, Dare. It can't be." She stressed.

"Ev," He gritted out, making sure his face was stern- not angry- when he looked back at her, "Drop. It."

She shook her head, anger beginning to morph her face, "I will not 'drop it'." She hissed, "This is serious, Dare, don't you get that? You can't not share this stuff, it's gonna eat away at you."

Daryl slammed his hand on the counter, causing every head in the restaurant to turn, but he didn't care, "Then that's my own damn problem, not yours."

Quickly, he stood, letting his stool scrape against the wood as he threw down bills to cover his lunch before stomping out of the diner without a look back in Evelyn's direction.

He hated making her worry, he really did, but he hated putting his problems on her even more. It wasn't her burden to bear, no matter what she thought.

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Evelyn didn't know what to do.

On one hand, she worried about Daryl and wanted to help him. But on the other hand, she knew it wasn't exactly her place to do anything about it, even if he was her best friend. All best friends needed boundaries, even when it came to their well-being, right?

The entire rest of her shift had passed in a blur. She was sure she had been a barely functioning robot through it all, though. Barely acknowledging anybody accept to take their orders and going at a snails pace.

When it was over, she needed to go to the one place she could think of to clear her head, their treehouse.

Over the years, it had become sort of like their hideaway. The place they would go to escape their home lives. A place they had for themselves, together.

"Hey," A soft voice startled Evelyn, causing her to jump up, consequently banging her head on the ceiling.

Evelyn and Daryl winced in sync as the boy finished scaling the ladder.