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PREVIOUSLY ON SACRIFICE ═══════════════
They'd been riding for about nine hours. They'd surprisingly made it around Denver earlier than they'd planned and without running into any problems.
If he didn't consider the circumstances, Tommy could almost imagine it was 2011, and he and his family were headed back home from a rare trip to the movies or the bowling alley, the traffic rather light, the spring breeze keeping them all cool in the heat of the sun. He could almost imagine that this was an innocent road trip, that they weren't at risk of getting gunned down by a gang or torn apart by a pack of clickers.
Whether she knew it or not, Tommy could tell Maria had become considerably paranoid the further away they'd gotten from Jackson, and they were almost halfway through Colorado. She was quiet. Tommy knew he should say something, but what? 'Hey, you seem like you don't really wanna do this anymore, and it kinda feels like I'm dragging you along, but we are almost ten hours into the trip, and halfway there, so it wouldn't be great to turn around now. Sorry.' Yeah, right.
Tommy had this nagging feeling that maybe they should have postponed the trip, or maybe he should have just come alone and told Jeanie she had to stay behind- it wasn't safe. Another part of him wanted to do this as a family for some sort of normalcy; they deserved that, didn't they? The other part of him felt like an asshole for dragging Maria along even after he knew she wasn't one hundred percent into the idea. And the last little smidge of him hated that Robin had such an influence on Maria's thoughts.
He just kept reminding himself that they were almost halfway there, and way ahead of the schedule, and he could reassure Maria that everything was fine. They knew the trip would slow down once they got into Texas because the roads were so blocked according to Darrius. But they would be fine. They'd dotted every i and crossed every t. They were okay.
The ding from the display simultaneously woke Jeanie up and made Maria jump from the sudden disruption of silence- they'd already listened to every CD Eugene had lent them. Tommy let his gaze fall from the road in front of them to the yellow light.
Low Fuel.
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Jeanie, to his right, hummed to herself, then almost hesitantly spoke, "Do you think maybe Jesse was mad at me for something? Maybe he was mad I left too, but he seemed supportive. I dunno, maybe I'm looking too far into it, but that just doesn't seem like Jess, y'know?"
This got Maria talking. "Look, Jean, us leaving again was hard for a lot of people. Maybe he really did just want to end things on a good note." Tommy could hear the underlying, 'Maybe if we didn't leave at all, Robin wouldn't be mad either,' and for some reason that made him feel like it was really his fault Maria came with him. It felt like a punch in the gut, a 'my best friend is mad at me and it's all your fault'. It made him feel guilty for even suggesting the trip in the first place.
