𝐇𝐀𝐙𝐀𝐑𝐃 │ 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋 𝐃𝐈𝐗𝐎𝐍 ¹ [✔]

[43]: happy

The last time I drank, I must have done some awful things. The repercussions were painted on three people's faces, and I hated that I couldn't remember what I had done wrong. To be entirely honest, I still didn't fully understand. I remember that last time I had gotten drunk - back at the CDC - it was just because I could. The moment was opportune and I took it.

This time, it was all that had happened. All I had done.

Wouldn't you just like to not remember everything, even if it was for a few moments? Even if when you came around again, the headache would be almost unreal and your stomach would burn.

So when I saw Hershel getting into a car, with no one else around in sight, I asked what he was doing.

"Going for a drink," he said simply, the tone of his voice was dull and flat and much less kind than when we had first met him.

Without thinking about it fully, I asked if I could join him and he didn't seem to think fully either when he nodded, yes. Hershel drove us away from the farm, away from prying eyes and curious ears so that spirits could spill truth onto our tongues and blur our eyes away from the horrors of every day. The liquid gave me a false sense of comfort. It's what I would imagine being hugged by a ghost would feel like.

So there we sat, on opposite sides of the bar, amongst broken glass and clouded mason jars, contemplating living whilst we were slowly killing our livers and brains. Hershel had opted to slowly drink his second glass of-- whatever the hell it was. Whilst I had already downed six shots of something else. It tasted horrible, the kind that made you cry out in discomfort as it felt like cleaning substance was being forced down your throat.

I was already feeling the effects, as I ran my finger across the wet lip of the almost empty bottle.

Hershel was silent, and I could already see the tears brimming his eyes.

"I thought that drink made you happy?" I slurred, my head lolling to the side and dropping to lay on my arms in front of me. My eyes hurt and so I shielded them from the lights that peeked through the shutters on the windows.

"Only the lucky ones get to be happy," he rasped, the drink making his voice more scratchy.

"That's sad, Hershey." I looked to him and he wasn't smiling. I giggled at the name I had given him. "Hershey. Hershey bar. Hershey in a bar. Hershey chocolate bar in a bar."

He didn't answer me. I don't blame him. Who would answer a rambling twenty-year-old girl, who had no advice to give him, only anecdotes.

"You seem happy?" he said, consuming more of his drink.

I frowned in confusion, shaking my head even if it felt like marbles were rattling inside of my head. "I don't know really." I filled my shot glass up again. "Maybe I should drink a little more."

Neither of us said stuff for a while before my mind got curious.

"Who di-i-i-id you lovey in the barn," I whispered, my chapped lips grazing the lip of my glass. I had bitten into it hard, resulting with alcohol burning the wound, stinging, and adding to the cloud floating over my head. "Imeanwehadsophia."

Hershel let out a long huff before speaking. "My wife and stepson."

"I love wives," I blurted out, without a filter. "Wives are grrreat. I would love one."

The old man chuckled at my state, seemingly being brought out if his disparity for a second before descending back into it. He lifted the bottle to add more sour poison, to his already empty glass.

My mind took a moment to scrape the barrel of memories I was slowly forgetting as I drank more. "I had a child once," I breathed, my forehead creasing in mourning. It was the truth. "Tech-kkk-nilly, I never haaad the baby but -- yaknow."