She's a Dixon (Daryl Dixon story)

Chapter 29

I couldn't believe it. After all the time I spent apart from them, I convinced myself that they had to be dead, but they're right here in front of me.

"Julie," my mother whispered, a few tears running down her cheeks.

She knelt down beside me and enclosed me in a tight hug, but I let my arms hang by my side as my mother was clinging to me.

"Okay mother, that's enough!" I snapped at her once I felt she had been holding on long enough.

She was very shocked of my sudden outburst but nodded her head almost like she understood why I was acting this way. She stood up and backed up, creating some space between the two of us.

"We missed you Julie. We were so afraid that we lost you," my dad said.

I held back my laughter caused by their insincerity.

"Where's Adam?" My mom asked after a few moment of silence, knowing that I wouldn't comment on my dad's statement.

I felt my heart stop and a lump grow in my throat as I tried to hold back my tears. It still hurt, having my brother killed in front of me as he was trying to save me. I did such a good job of coping and trying to forget the incident ever occurred until she brought it up.

"He's gone. Has been for awhile now," I murmured.

That was all they needed to hear about that day. My mother started crying again and my father hugged her, trying his best to muffle her cries and comfort her all at once.

"At least we still have you," my mother sobbed.

We spent the next few moments in silence, giving my mom a chance to calm herself down.

"You look very well for being out in this world for as long as you have. Are you with a group?" My father asked.

"No," I lied almost immediately after he asked the question, "it's just been me."

My father was suspicious about my answer but he choose not to press the matter.

"We do, come back with us," my mother pleaded.

"No, I'm fine on my own, I don't need you," I responded.

"Julie, it's a miracle that we found you in the situation that we are in," my dad tried to reason with me, "we're not just going to let you go again. Whether or not you realize it, we need you and you need us."

"I need you!? Bullshit!" I sneered at them, "I never needed you, ever. I mean seriously all you two ever did was get drunk at a nearby bar and then come home and take all of your frustration out on me. I can't even remember a time when you were sober and did something beneficial for me or for Adam! I learned to protect myself from you and that's all I've ever done my entire life. I never needed you back then and I don't need you now!"

"Honey," my mom tried again, "I know our past was very rough on you and your brother but you have to believe me when I say that your father and I aren't like that anymore, and I wish you would give us a chance to prove it to you."

"Of course you changed, I get that. You have to change in a world like this. You can't get drunk all the time or you would be dead. You may have changed your habits, but I'm convinced you didn't change your attitudes!" I argued back.

After a few moments of silence, I spoke up again.

"It's not worth hanging around here. I'm not coming back with you and that is final. Just get what you need and go," I said before turning around and heading for the door.

"Alex is with us. He misses you and would love to see you again," my mother said in her final verbal attempt to get me to go with them.

I froze just as was about to reach out to push the door open.

Alex was my "high school sweetheart". We were together all four years and received so much attention from others. I called off the relationship after graduation. We were attending colleges that were very far away and I wasn't open to a long distance relationship. The pain from the breakup was so heart wrenching as it was more recent, only a few months before the world changed. I wanted to see him again, I missed Alex and he was my only love, but I wasn't going to let my desire trick me into going back my parent's camp.

I turned back around to face them, "that's great, but I'm not interested in seeing him again."

"Okay, that's it then," my father said.

Before I knew it, my father approached me, grabbed my arms and slung me over his shoulder. I began thrashing, trying to escape from his grip. I screamed, kicked him, and hit him but I couldn't get him to loosen up his grasp enough for me to break free. I pulled out my gun, the only object I had left that I could use to defend myself. I didn't want to have to shoot my father, but they have my no choice.

I pulled out my gun, trying to aim it in a proper direction that would hit him but not in a place that would kill him. My mother saw the gun in my hand and swiftly took it from me.

We exited the back door and I was taken to a red sedan parked parallel to the curb. I was stretched across the back seats and my parents climbed into the car too.

The engine was started and the car doors were locked. I pushed myself up into an upright sitting position and watched to see where they would take me. They pulled out of the back lot and drove along the main road. I nearly fell back over as they took a sharp left and began to drive on a dirt path in the middle of the woods.

We continued to drive down the dirt path until the sun set and by then we reached a line of parked cars in the grass off of the right of the pathway. My father pulled the car over and parked it.

"We walk from here," he said.

They turned off the engine and exited the car. My car door opened and my mother pulled me out. Both my parents grabbed onto one of my arms, in attempt to keep me from running.

We walked a couple hundred yards before coming across a smaller camp. There was wire attached to the trees and surrounded the entire campsite. There were six tents set up, each only big enough to fit two or three people in it, and a fire in the center of the camp.

Everyone must have turned in for the night as there was only one other person sitting outside beside the burning fire.

"Hey Alex," I said as we approached the campsite.

"Julie!" Alex yelled as he stood up and ran over to me.

Alex hugged me and then picked me up and spun me around. Watching my parents, they both looked very pleased with the situation. Alex set me back down on the ground but still held onto me.

"I missed you," he whispered in my ear before pulling away.

"I'm so glad you found her!" Alex said to my parents.

"We are too!" My dad replied.

"It's getting late," my mother said, "Alex can you set Julie up in your tent?"

"Of course," he responded before taking my hand and directing me to his orange tent.

The inside of this tent was very basic. Only two sleeping bags set up, a few blankets folded in the corner, and a backpack full of supplies.

"Here, have this one," Adam pointed to the sleeping bag on the left, "it was my sister Emma's, before she passed."

I nodded, "well thanks. Goodnight Alex," I said as I made myself comfortable in the sleeping bag.

I feel asleep almost instantly as I needed the rest.