not a big deal~carl grimes

<fifteen>

time skip

it had been a while since i had gotten to alexandria. it was nice, quiet yet busy at the same time. and it functioned just like any other town.

aaron and his boyfriend eric took me in as their own when i got there and they were amazing. they treated me like i was their own.

the best thing about alexandria was that there was one person there i was happy to see. when the cabin got overrun and i got away, turned out that matthew did too. and he had made his way to alexandria. he was also living with aaron and eric so i finally had my brother back after thinking he was dead.

there were even some other kids there that i had managed to become friends with. enid, mikey and ron. enid was my best friend. we would always go into one of the unoccupied houses and gossip. mainly about her and ron. ron was also her boyfriend.

he was never the nicest to her but she seemed happy so i let it slide. both ron and mikey seemed to have a thing for me but even if i hadn't seen him since i left, i still only had eyes for carl.

i told enid about him. i told her everything. how i found them, how everything with carl happened, the kiss. i told her about carol and daryl and how they acted like better parents than my actual parents ever did. i even told matthew about them. he always jokingly told me that if he ever found the chance to meet carl he would kick his ass. as for carol and daryl, he said he wished he got to know them as they seemed amazing. and i told him about beth, saying that if he was with me, they would have made a great pair.

i began to regret leaving but there was no going back. i didn't know if they were even still at the prison or if they had left by now. and if i found my way back and they weren't there, i wouldn't be able to find my way back here to alexandria.

but i never gave up hope. sometimes i would walk around outside the walls. i just walked around, killing any walkers i came across and kept an eye out. wether it was for either carl himself or maybe daryl or carol. or even any of them, i just wanted to see one of them.

i often dreamed about it to. i would be wandering around in the woods and i would catch a glimpse of carls face, of course he would look older by that point. i mainly knew it was him from the bright blue eyes shaded under the sheriffs hat and the blue flannel shirt. i would chase him down, calling after him. but them it would always end as i caught up to him. or sometimes he was just walking and i would catch up to him but it wouldn't be carl anymore, instead carls body as a walker.

those were the nights i prayed. i was never religious. i always thought that god didn't exist because there were bad people out there and when the apocalypse started i knew there definitely was no god. but still, i prayed, more to any sort of all powerful being. i would pray for them to come to me and i could see them again.

aaron and eric were out, looking for a group they heard about. at first i hoped for these groups to be them but eventually gave up because it never was. enid came into my room 'ron just got mad and screamed at me again. i'm going out you want to come.'

i pulled on my flare legging and a tight white cropped top, layering a brown zip up hoodie and black high tops. i stepped out the house before climbing back over the fence to get out.

we did this when ron and enid fought, which was a lot. we had built a tree house like the one i slept in when i left to find daryl but found alexandria instead. we sat in it, reading books most of the time. she would show me comics while i showed her my kind of books, misery, the green mile, to kill a mockingbird, frankenstein etc.

every time we came out, i couldn't help but keep one eye on the book, and one eye out for who i wanted to see out there, even if i never saw them.

it had been an hour. the treehouse was actually pretty high, and only a few trees out so we could see over the wall around alexandria. we could see ron running around. and we could hear him faintly calling out 'enid?!'

i sighed and rolled my eyes 'why does he like to keep tabs on you 24/7?'

'because,' she shoved her books back in the book box we kept up there. it was one of the first things we did. 'he's not like your little lover boy, carl. unlike this prison boy you never shut up about, he doesn't let me run away so that i never see him again because he cares.'

i frowned, sitting back as she went to get up 'i'm sorry tay. i didn't mean it. i just meant, you guys clearly loved each other but you still managed to run away. but i'm not in control of my own actions with ron and i have no freedom so i can't escape him. believe me i wish i could.'

i giggle. 'you're forgiven.'

we climbed down the tall ladder before jumping the last few to safely hit the ground beneath us. every time, she laughed at me because i would try be funny by doing a spider man landing, which she loved.

i couldn't see it from up in the trees when it came in but when we got back, the gates were open. aarons rusty silver but now orange car was there with a big trailer behind it. i ran up, trying to find aaron i didn't even notice enid wasn't behind me now.

as i tried to find aaron i stopped dead in my tracks. my jaw dropped at the face i saw turning around to see me.