Afraid of Being Alive (Shane Walsh Love Story)

Chapter 10: Three Strikes and You're Out

Chapter 10: Three Strikes and You’re Out

LOLA’S POV

A week had passed and Zelda and I had settled in perfectly well. We did our womanly duties, cooking and washing. Well, I decided to stay close to the cooking and washing up, that is. Zelda was far more adventurous than I was, venturing far out and into the forest areas to go hunting for dinner. She got the food, I fixed it up. Our relationship was a lot like that as well. Zelda was always the one to catch what we need, even if it got messed up along the way, and I would always be the one to fix it; make things right and tidy it up a little.

Zelda had gotten close to the males most of all over the past week, going out hunting with Daryl and keeping watch with Rick and Shane. Zelda and Shane’s relationship with each other was strange, stranger than ours; one minute they’ll be laughing together and the next they’d be at one another’s throats. Daryl on the other hand was a person not too many people seemed to take a liking to. He was gruff, but both Zelda and I knew that he had a heart of gold, no matter how rusty and dirt ridden it was. Daryl and Zelda had developed, from what I could see, a stable friendship that was only destined to become rock-solid. However, whenever it was Rick and Zelda, things became professional. The two were a powerful duo and had the camp running like clockwork, despite the short amount of time that Zelda had actually been here.

I on the other hand was all around friends with almost everybody and decided to maintain a low-key status within the group. I didn’t want to have people coming to me with their problems, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to become the one with the problems. There was one person I could go to no matter what though; one person that I could tell all my problems to. That was Amy: Andrea’s younger sister. I wasn’t sure what was bringing the two of us so close together, but whatever it was, I didn’t intend to get in the way of.

“What do you miss the most about the old life?” asked Amy as we sat next to each other on the fishing boat, the bait hanging from our rods bobbing joyfully in the clear blue lake that was only a ten minute walk from the campsite.
The wind rustled my blonde hair that was currently trying to break into my mouth. I lifted my hand up to my mouth to wipe the stray hair away before speaking, “I don’t know. Everything I guess.”
“Even homework?” she giggled, jabbing me playfully in the arm with her slender, pale finger.
“In a sense, yeah.”  I replied, “Now that I don’t have any…. Now that there isn’t any school…”
Amy didn’t interrupt but only leaned closer to listen to what I had to say.
“Everything just feels so empty, you know? I feel like there’s nothing to live for… like some days I don’t exist. I just keep wishing that this is all some horrible dream…. That I just fell asleep in English class again… but I know that’s not the case.”

I looked over at Amy to see her rod being tugged on and pulled by some force in the water. Her face lit up in excitement as she reeled the rod, some kind of trout emerging from the water attached to her hook.
“I got a bite!” she exclaimed in exhilaration as she lay the fish to rest with our other catches.
“You did.” I smiled, giving Amy a wicked high five, the sound of skin slapping on skin echoing.
I looked out from our little boat across the lake to see Zelda sitting with Andrea, Carol and Jaqui , the four of them scrubbing dirty clothes next to the water’s edge. They were all bare footed and talking quietly amongst each other, Andrea keeping her eyes tamed on Amy for most of the time to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.

Andrea doubted her sister. Amy was an incredible gal and was quick to become one of my best friends. Despite how she looked and her childish means of behaviour and thinking, Amy was clever and it was a shame that Andrea couldn’t quite see that.