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❝ I turned and ran to save a life I didn't have. Deer in the chase, there as I flew, forgot all prayers of joining you. ❞
In The Woods Somewhere,Hozier
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SOME STRANGE, UNSEEN THING ripped her apart. It put aside her innards, sewing violence in her bones — and when she pained too close to awakening, hurriedly, falsely pieced her back together. She would not dare to look in a mirror alienated. Begging for a sweet reunion with the dead behind, the moths would touch the sun, the animals would live with fed bellies and warm furs, and their food would taste well.
Perhaps she was romanticizing. She did not wish to name that strange, unseen thing trauma. She called it life. She prayed for its abundance.
So when a knife was stabbed into her back and dragged down her lungs, her air would not be cut off again. Harlene couldn't even look at Dale.
"Are you coming?" Glenn asked.
"No, I'll go with Rick's. It's too jammed in there." She nudged her nose to the RV. "Go ahead, call shotgun. You're better with maps, anyway."
He didn't point out how it was her third time feeding him the same excuse. She didn't even bother thinking of different reasons. Glenn knew not to push and shouldered his backpack with a soft voice, "Okay."
He saluted her playfully, flowering a smile on her stock-still cheeks. She waved him off to the motorhome. It was all that mattered, really, that he made her laugh and stood beside her through thick and thin. She needed no more reasons to love him. They would've gotten along even before the end of the world. She would not say the same for Amy.
But it didn't change how terribly Harlene missed her.
Andrea had grown the habit of noticing whenever she was toying with the feather necklace. It was never mindlessly. Maybe that was why they threaded lightly around each other, bearing kindness. Harlene had thanked her for saving her grandfather by giving up her freedom. They had both grown bitter against him for taking away their choices.
