"Sam. Please read silently," Jessie snapped at her younger son, in an uncharacteristic outburst of frustration. She had been listening to him narrate The Hunger Games for nearly an hour, and it had begun to drive her insane. She needed quiet.
He looked over to her in surprise, and timidly replied, "Sorry."
The Anderson home was a mess of emotions, Jessie and her two boys walking around in varying states of depression. She didn't know what to do, what to say, or even how to actually feel. On the one hand, the biggest weight in her life had been lifted from her shoulders, and being able to breathe again was… nice. But then she would look at her children, who'd just lost their father, who didn't fully understand who their father was and how much he'd hurt her, and the sadness on their faces only gave her a different burden to bear.
Instead of addressing it, the three of them mostly just avoided the topic altogether. Pete had been gone for less than two days, so his presence still haunted them. His voice still echoed in the halls. And Jessie wanted nothing more than to keep herself and her boys distracted from it until he finally disappeared, once and for all.
"I'm so sorry, sweetie," she reconsidered when she realized how short she'd been with her son. "You can keep reading to me."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded, offering her best attempt at a smile, just as there was a knock at the door. "Just hold on a sec." With a sigh, she got up to answer, but her older boy, Ron, came trampling down the stairs just in time to beat her to it.
He swung the door open, expecting to find another neighbor with another casserole for his family; or perhaps his girlfriend was finally coming by to express her condolences and hang out with him. But he was less than thrilled when he saw that Rick Grimes was waiting on his doorstep. The man that killed his father. The man that was ruining Alexandria, but had still somehow become the de facto leader of the place. Ron hated Rick Grimes.
With a roll of his eyes, he turned back to his mother to announce the visitor. "Your boyfriend's at the door," he declared sarcastically.
Rick didn't respond, but waited patiently at the doorstep as Jessie came into view, pushing her messy blonde hair behind her ears as she smiled at him warmly. "Hey, Jessie," he awkwardly grinned back. He had no idea how to speak to her anymore, it seemed.
"Hey." She looked back into the house before pulling the door closed, joining him on her porch.
"I just came to check on you," he said, examining her face. He noted that her black eye was slowly healing, but the splotches covering her cheeks told him she had been crying quite a bit. "How are you guys holdin' up?"
"We're okay," she nodded, biting at her bottom lip. "I'll admit, I kind of expected you to come by sooner."
"I just didn't wanna bother you," he said, sighing, scratching at his forehead with his thumb. "Thought it might be best to give you some time. Let you and your boys grieve."
She nodded again, folding her arms over her chest as she looked out to the rest of their neighborhood and the impending wall project taking place that day. "Truth is, I should've walked away a long time ago. And I wish it hadn't taken you intervening for me to finally wake up." A couple of stray tears ran down her cheeks and she wiped them quickly. "I'm just relieved, Rick."
