crooked heart → the walking dead ⁵

[ 002 ] ticking time bomb.

CROOKED HEART.

chapter two, ticking time bomb.
[ original epiosde ]

SIX MONTHS AFTER.

BREATHING IS STILL HARD.

It's been two months since her attempt. She sits in the infirmary with her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped firmly around her legs. She stares at the floor in front of her. Siddiq sits across from her, silently pleading with her to speak up.

Koda lays at her feet, she's grown so much over the last few months. She's incredibly healthy now. She's a happy dog, but she knows her own isn't happy like she is. Whenever Odessa is forced to leave her room and come to the infirmary, she takes Koda with her. The Golden Retriever loves to be outside, she loves to walk. She loves to make sure her person is okay.

"You aren't going to get better if you don't want to, Odessa," Siddiq tells her. "It's hard, I know. I lost my parents, too. But you aren't going to get better until you allow yourself to."

She says nothing to him. 

He sighs in defeat. They've been trying this for weeks per Michonne's demand. Odessa is forced to go to the infirmary and sit with Siddiq for an hour every day for a "therapy session," as Michonne calls it. 

Her knives have been taken away from her. Her gun. Her brass knuckles. Anything that can be used as a weapon has been locked away in the Grimes home. They aren't taking chances.

"Do you want to get better, Odessa?" Siddiq asks with concerned eyes. "Do you like who you are now?"

Her eyes cut to him. Dangerous and glaring. Daring him to ask that question again. Do you like who you are now? Of course she doesn't. She's never hated herself more than she does now.

The last six months of her life have been hell. She hasn't spoken to anyone since her father's death. She barely eats. And when she does, she has to be held down to eat. She doesn't sleep, she doesn't do anything. She still can barely get up and come to the infirmary.

Her own sister is terrified of her. Brielle is wary of her now. Some of the people of Alexandria send her judgmental stares when they see her making her way to the infirmary. They don't understand. They just don't.

"I'll take that as a no." Siddiq says. "Your death stares don't scare me, Des. You might can intimidate others with those looks because they haven't been receiving them every day for two months. I'm immune to them."

She says nothing.

"So," Siddiq starts. "I want to try something new." He stands and makes his way to the cabinets. She turns so she can see what he's doing. She watches as he opens one of them and grabs something in a bag.

He walks back over to her and plops back down in his seat. "I know what you've been doing. Writing down things in notebooks for how long now? Three years? That's good, I want you to keep doing that. Thoughts in one notebook, hallucinations and voices in the other. But I want you to draw."

She watches as he pulls a sketchbook and several different packs of different drawing utensils. Colored pencils, markers, charcoal, normal pencils, pens, crayons. Everything.

"Draw." Siddiq says again. "Draw whatever you're feeling. Whether it be just a doddle or nothing but angry lines. You know what you're feeling, no one else does. Express it through drawing, Odessa. It might give me a better understanding as to what's going on inside your mind."