Crestfallen ↬ Carl Grimes (old version)

A F T E R

CHAPTER SEVEN: AFTER

❝Behind my smile is a story that you'll never understand.❞

❝Look at me. The girl who's wondering if birds and bugs could talk to each other.❞

➳

"TO BE HONEST I DON'T REMEMBER THAT MUCH FROM THEN ON. I don't know if I blacked out, or just blocked the rest of the memory out of my brain. All I remember is waking up to my father smiling down at me with a gun in his right hand, an empty camp, and more bruises than anyone could ever imagine littering my small body.

I don't know what happened to the boy. I don't even remember his name. It's odd how a memory like that seems like it's stuck in my brain, yet I only remember half of it," I purse my lips and shrug, putting a strand of knotted blonde hair behind my ear as I turned to look at Carl. He was obviously in some sort of deep thought. His eyes were clouded and wondering, finger tapping against his jean clad knee as his brain wandered. I wonder what a boy like him would think about my story. It wasn't much. Just a random memory that I decided to share, and it wasn't even that personal. What was I thinking telling him that story? I should've just told him about one of my cats or how I used to be a volleyball player or something along those lines. Something easy, which obviously, the story that I had just told was not.

My eyes train down to the hands in my lap, which were fiddling with the plain red T-shirt that I currently had on, the penny that sheriff boy had given me was left to lay on the shingles beside me. I should've kept quiet, a penny didn't mean anything, I wasn't forced to tell Carl about my life. He was probably judging me right now, engrossed in disgust or pity for me. If he doesn't say anything soon I swear-

"Want some pudding?"

My brown eyes meet his blue ones, the color soft and inviting as he tilted his head slightly in a questioning matter.

Slowly and softly, I nod my head and smile, the rare kind of smile that I actually mean.

And then, we ate. We ate every single ounce of the pudding in that can.

And we were happy.

➳

Sadly, however badly I wanted our story to end there, It didn't. Eventually, we had to get off that roof, however reluctant we may be does not change the fact that night is a dangerous time, and I'd rather not face the darkness and its hidden dangers who prowl the streets as rotting corpses. But even as we left, I felt like a piece of me stayed behind. A small fragment of me was still sitting on that roof, pudding in hand, smiling down maniacally at the small copper penny that was now taking shelter in my jean pocket. Something about that roof, with the blue-eyed boy beside me and the chocolate pudding between us, made me feel as if I didn't need to worry about anything. Like everything was back to normal. Like me and Carl were just friends talking to each other about anything and everything just to be in each other's presence. Neither of us wanting to leave the other alone.

But now, here we were, back in the reality of this cruel world which we have been placed in. Nothing had changed. Carl's father was still lying stone cold on the couch, there were still bloodstains on the walls, my book lay exactly where I had left it. I have to remind myself, no matter what I do, nothing will ever change.