PART 12, SECTION 11

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The camper swayed lightly as we careened down the highway. Rays of morning sunlight, the very first of the day, were making their way through the windows.

"What did you want to say...?" I asked tentatively. 

Ian kept staring into the depths of his black coffee. "I wanted to tell you I'm sorry for how I treated you back there at the checkpoint. I told you before that I don't want to lose you. And that hasn't changed," he added with an earnest shrug. "Still, it's not my place to order you around. You're your own person. You'll do what you will or what you won't. I won't try to interfere with that any more."

Ian brushed his hair away from his eyes and back over his head. His movements were slow and deliberate; he obviously had a lot of recovering still to do. He'd become mysterious with his long, dark hair and beard, and yet, at the same time, he still looked so familiar. This combination of attractively strange and attractively familiar sent my mind into a few feedback loops in which all I could imagine was him setting his coffee down, stepping across the camper, and kissing me.  

But of course he didn't. I shut these thoughts out of my mind.

"We gotta get you a haircut." I laughed.

He smiled and pinched a lock between his fingers, examining it.

He laughed, "You don't like my new style?"

For a moment I just smiled at him.

Then I said, "I'm sorry, too."

"What for?" Ian asked, but he seemed to know exactly what I was going to say.

"You're right," I told him. "I'm my own person. And you or anyone else can't tell me what to do. I don't regret forcing us all to stop and treat all those people. But you saw that it was going to be a huge risk, for all of us. Jake especially. Lindsay too. Really, all of us. And we were lucky; we could just as likely be dead right now. My decision put you and everyone else in danger. That wasn't fair." I looked up at him and met his eyes. "I've made a lot of mistakes," I said. "And I'm going to be more careful. I promise." After a moment, I added quietly, "I don't want to lose you either."

Ian nodded and gave me that classic half-smile of his, which I hadn't seen since before the plague.

"You've done a hell of a lot right, too, Ash," he said. "Don't forget that. I sure haven't. Honestly, I'm kind of, well, in awe of who you've become. Maybe you've made mistakes. But we all have. And I know now that I don't have half the courage and capability that you do. That's the truth." He glanced down at his emaciated limbs, implicitly acknowledging that, for the time being at least, he'd become weak and dependent. "I have no doubt that as long as I stick with you, I'm in good hands." 




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Please VOTE 🌟 before continuing. xxBailey

DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second BookWhere stories live. Discover now