Losing you ; Joel Miller

xxvi. My final bellyache

ONE DAY LATER
OUTSIDE OF KANSAS CITY

" Easy, easy, easy"

" What did I do?"

" Henry, gimme the gun"

" What-what-what did I do?"

" Sam?"

" Gimme the gun, Henry"

" Henry no!-"

EDEN

The ringing in Eden's ears muffled the cries that echoed through the room, holding onto her daughter with shaking arms, she was worried they'd give up and drop her. " Eden" Joel's voice seemed so far away, her gaze stuck on the dead corpses of Henry and Sam.

" Eden? Baby- don't look at them, look at me." She flinched as he took Ada, eyes darting from Henry, to Joel and her daughter, before landing on Ellie, the young girl sat on the floor, tears rolling down her cheeks, frozen.

Her legs wobbled as she stepped forward, crouching to block the girl's view of the young boys. Scarred hands cupping wet cheeks, Ellie's distant expression shifted into one of mourning when her eyes met Eden's.

The older woman wanted nothing more than to be able to comfort her, but she wasn't able to speak. Her mind kept repeating the same sentence; I'm sorry. Pulling her into a hug, the two girls embraced on the floor of the decrepit motel.

     " Can we please just bury them?" Ellie's voice broke, sniffing as she wiped her tears. Eden nodded, moving to pick the young boy up into her arms.

The silence that laid over them was thick, Joel dropped the shovel into the dirt with a soft thud. " Which way's west?" Ellie broke the silence, causing Eden to flinch her gaze away from the graves. So much had happened in the past 24 hours, she wasn't able to process it.

She had thought they had gotten out, that they had done it, then the sniper caught sight of them, and everything came crashing down.

     What Eden really couldn't process, was the infected. She had never seen a bloater with her own eyes before, having to navigate hundreds of infected while having Ada strapped to her chest was terrifying.

     When they escaped, Eden had been taken aback by their luck. Nobody had been bitten... or so they thought. " Let's go" Ellie started walking west, Eden's eyes fell to Sam's board lying on top of his grave. I'm sorry.

     Eden felt like she had failed to protect Ellie, and Ellie felt like she failed to save Sam.

[1998]

     " Thank you for tonight" Eden whispered out, tucking a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Callum stood by his bike, shrugging nonchalantly " you don't have to thank me, I should be thanking you for coming."

     Callum had taken her out for the fourth time that week, they had known each other for about two months, throughout the summer Eden had gotten to know Callum, she met his friends, went to parties and tried alcohol, danced, swam, laughed. " You don't have to thank me for coming, I like hanging out with you" the whispers exchanged between them were hushed, not wanting to accidentally awaken someone as they were standing outside the gates of the manor. " I like hanging out with you too" Callum sounded breathless, his dark eyes shifting down to her lips, Eden's heart hammered in her chest, chewing on her lip as she mustered up the courage to kiss him.

     " Can I kiss you?" He asked softly, she couldn't respond, feeling her brain short circuit as she nodded frantically. She stood on her tiptoes, hands fisting his shirt before moving to comb her fingers through his wet curls.

     They had gone swimming, Eden felt too embarrassed to admit she couldn't swim, as they had walked into the water, she panicked and blurted out her secret. Callum was empathetic, gentle as he held her in his arms and taught her how to swim. Now he was teaching her how to kiss.

     He was warm, his scent surrounded her as her stomach flipped. When they pulled away, she couldn't help but giggle, she felt so happy.

" I'll see you tomorrow" Callum whispered out, having the same cheesy grin on his face. Eden couldn't help internally gushing over his dimples. " Yeah, goodnight Callum" she softly said " goodnight Eden."

     When she sneaked back into her home, she felt herself freeze by the window. The stern gaze of her father met hers as he coldly asked her " where have you been?" Eden stood frozen, like a deer in headlights, her mother was anxiously pacing the room, tears in her eyes. " I asked you a question!" Her father yelled out, tugging her inside and making her sit on her bed, he loomed over her, eyes dark with anger.

     " I went on a walk" she signed in ASL, shrugging his hand off her shoulder. Her nonchalant attitude angered him further " you sneaked out in the middle of the night! Do you understand how worried we were?"

     Fury blazed through her chest, he had never cared for her, why was he acting like he cared now? Eden felt her stomach ache, she hated him, she hated him more than anything. " Like you care" she signed, her movements curt as though she was snapping at him. Her father continued to yell, ranting about how dangerous it was to go outside alone. Little did he know, she wasn't alone.

     " Have you been seeing a boy?" Her mother's question seemed to take both Eden and her father aback, their eyes staring wide at the woman in the corner of the room. Eden shook her head desperately, pleading her mother not to take this away from her.

     Her father was furious. " You've been seeing a boy?! Has he touched you?" Continuing his rant filled with curses and threats, Eden sobbed as she tried to convince her parents that it wasn't true, they didn't believe her. At one point, her father slapped her, she stared at him with shock as he continued to scream into her face about how disappointed he was, and how he expected better of her. It reminded her of the lecture he had given Isaac the last time she had seen him. The lecturing seemed to go on forever, when he was finally done, Eden had been grounded for the rest of summer.

     As she sat alone in her bedroom once again, anger brewed dangerously inside of her. She had found out that she doesn't hate her father. No. In fact, what she felt for him was much worse, something that no word in the dictionary could describe.

     She was going to leave, for good.

Honey is typing...
No surprises by radiohead has been stuck in my head all day, so I decided to dedicate the chapter name to my favourite line in the song

Also I've been listening to a lot of Mitski while helping my mum clean the house, a lot of her songs have started reminding me of Eden so I've decided that it's canon, Eden would've been a Mitski girly if she had been able to listen to her music