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ME AND MAGGIE returned to camp soon after Daryl's disappearance. To my surprise, she didn't ask any questions about him and I. She didn't ask how we wound up at the governor's doorstep or how we ended up escaping the prison. Whatever went down for us to escape together was better off not said. That was old news now, we survived and that was all that mattered.
"Still hurt?" Maggie asked. She took my hand in hers and began to unwind the dirty bandage. "A bit," I answered. The ointment she used stung like a large wasp stinger piercing through my skin. It covered the bright red area that used to attach my pinky. I unconsciously winced from her applying the cream. She moved faster, trying to speed the process up so the irritation would calm down.
"You miss him?" I asked. Noticing this painful expression written on her face. Glenn was her husband whom she had parted with back at the prison. Their love was genuine, if they both were still alive there was no force imaginable could keep them apart. "I do." She replied. "He's alive y'know? He's not dead, I can feel it."
The others in our small group thought otherwise, and had no trouble expressing their thoughts. Sure there was a slim chance that he managed to make it out in the weakened state he was in, but that small chance could mean the world to someone like Maggie. She wouldn't give up on him until she saw his corpse with her own eyes.
"It must be nice, having someone that cares about you as much as you care about Glenn," I said. Leaving my comments about how he may be dead to myself. It would none of us any good to say that he's dead and to just give up on him. In such an unforgiving and cruel world, the two of them found one another. Such a tragic love story.
"Like you and Daryl?" She asked. I almost choked on my spit. Maggie had this confused look in her eyes, like she didn't understand what she said that was so funny. "I can assure you that we're not a thing," I said. A few seconds later a small smile crept on her lips as she winded a fresh set of cloth around my hand.
"Denial stage, yep that's how I and Glenn started out, and before I knew it we were married." She chuckled lightly. Just the thought of me having a lovey-dovey relationship with him made me want to throw up. I tried imagining it, but no scenario of the two of us doing any of that romantic shit came to mind. It could never work between the two of us.
We would slowly turn into those old couples who bickered about every little thing. "Notta chance in hell that I would ever wind up with a guy like Daryl." She wasn't listening to a damn word I said, she just kept working with that grin plastered on her lips.
"Mhm, whatever you say missy." She cooed. Humming a soft melody like a small child would in this kind of situation. "I see the way you look at him with that love stuck look in your eye." Her words made me question things. How could she tell that just by looking at me? Not like that was true at all.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say as she finished with my bandages. She made it sounds like I had fallen hopelessly in love with him. Which I can assure her will never happen. A relationship is the last thing I'm worried about in a world like this one, where I'm not sure I'll survive another day.
"You two should go out hunting, y'know? Get a little bonding time in." She nudged my shoulder hard as the other two in our group approached. Maggie wasn't going to let this go. She stood at attention to Sasha and Bob ambling towards us. "We got the perimeter secured, no walkers are going to get in on our watch." Sasha ensured us.
"We interrupting something?" She probably noticed the troubled look on my face as my mind jumped around the fact I may have feeling for an asshole like him. I nodded slowly, still deep in thought about everything Maggie and I had talked about. For sure it was all so new and confusing, but in the end, I still couldn't see it.
Everything that she was talking about, I had never felt it happening. Like the look in my eyes that told her I was falling in love, I didn't see it at all. Because I wasn't falling for him, that would just never happen. These feelings that have been bugging me are the farthest thing from love. I could never love someone like him.
"Oh, it's nothing." She gave a very obvious wink in my direction that I'm sure the other two caught a glimpse of. "Speak of the devil." She muttered under her breath. I glanced in the direction she was looking and saw Daryl approaching. He had a string of small creatures like rabbits and squirrels tied up on a rope for dinner.
I couldn't bear to look him in his eyes as he approached. Someone that I had survived with for so long that I'm now having these shameful thoughts about. It felt wrong, like I was committing some type of unforgivable act. He tossed the creatures down by my feet. Without a word I picked them up and scurried away, not uttering a word to anyone. I hated this feeling.
