I wish everything would stop. I wish the world would stop spinning - just for a moment. That's all I'm asking for. I just want everything to stop so that I can finally breathe again - something I haven't been able to do for three months, one week an...
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For Jacey, it felt as if the camp was at 10x speed. She couldn't tell if that was the norm for them but either way, it threw her into a state of discomfort. She watched as a small group of the adults assembled close to where the blonde woman still cried over her sister.
Her parents had pushed her away every time she attempted to go over, which she understood but it still hurt, she just got her family back and they won't even stay around her for longer than a second except for Carl of course.
Carl had yet to withdraw his hand from his older sisters, which Jacey didn't mind at all. She knew that she missed her brother while separated but not to the extent she felt right now.
Another thing she knew as well is that she'd have to leave soon. It pained her to say but she already had a home and that just wasn't with her parents, not anymore, it was with Addie and Mitchell. Now she just had to summon the strength inside her to tell her family.
Jacey could hardly breathe due to the rotting flesh of the dead, it seemed she was the only one affected by it or rather the only one who couldn't hide it. Earlier, she had heard a commotion from the Korean that saved her and Addie a day earlier about the importance of burying the dead and to not treat them like those things. She couldn't agree more with what he was saying but it still hurt her thinking about it. No, she didn't know any of the people that died or if they deserved it or not but she couldn't stop her mind from wandering to the idea that if she hadn't shown up when she did her father would have the bury her mother and brother as well. For that reason alone she wanted to stay, just to protect them but she knew she had other people to protect, people that didn't abandon her.
"What you thinking about, Jacey?" Her brother asked interrupting her guilty thought stream.
"Nothin' kiddo," she smiled down to him, hand still intertwined, "What about you?"
"About you," he admitted curtly to which Jacey furrowed her eyebrows at, "You were dead. Y-you were gone... but you weren't. We left you Jacey, why don't you hate me?"
Jacey could see the tears beginning to form in the younger boys eyes and dropped down to his level brushing away the already fallen ones, "I could never hate you, squirt. Don't ever think I could. And besides, I did say I'd always find my way back to you"
"B-but I was such a bad brother I didn't protect you, I didn't talk to you. I was just so upset about dad a-and I took it out on you. I didn't know you were gonna leave me but you promised you wouldn't," He choked out.
"I know squirt. I'm so sorry but I'm here now, okay? And I'm okay and you are too."
"Promise you won't leave me again?" Carl said, unlacing their hands so he could hold out his pinky finger for her. Jacey looked at it guiltily, trying to blink away the tears, "I can't promise that, Carl."
Carl looked back to the girl his young mind attempting to comprehend her words, she was going to leave again, she was going to leave me again.
Carl grabbed her small hands which were still bigger than his own and hooked their pinkies together, "Now you can't. You already promised a-and you can't go back on that." Jacey removed her hand and stood up.
