Struggling to Connect: The 6th Book

Chapter 28: Left

It takes me about a half an hour to stitch up Lydia's wounds and calm her down, "hold that right there." I direct her to put an ice pack on her arm, she moves it and winces and I say, "easy, now."

Daryl walks in, "hey. All good?"

Lydia nods and I say, "just about done."

"I'm so sorry this happened to you." Daryl says to her. She keeps herself balled up on the table, "Lydia."

"He was so sweaty." She recalls out, "never liked deodorant. Said it... it made his armpits itchy. So I got used to it.  Sometimes he smelled like garlic and onions. I miss him."

"Who's that?" Daryl asks her.

"My dad. My dad would've protected me." She tells him.

"Tell me what happened." Daryl directs calmly.

Lydia sniffles but answers, "Negan saved my life."

I suggest, "why don't I go talk to him."

But before I could take a step, Daryl argues, "naw, I'll go. You stay here."

Daryl leaves and I stay behind with Lydia to make sure all of her wounds are tended too. When I'm done, I say to her, "yanno, you're dad might've been able to protect you, but it's about time you start to try and protect yourself."

"What do you mean?" She asks.

I pull over a chair, dragging it across the floor so it's scratching against it, I sit across from her and explain, "I uhhh, I grew up in the foster care system. So I've had a lot of shitty things happen to me. And for a long time I blamed everyone else but myself."

"Are you saying this is my fault?" She gets angry.

"No, no. Let me finish." I calm her down, "the shitty things that happened were almost always the so called parents that were suppose to watch out for me. But they never did. They used me for the system. And I held all that hate and resentment and let it control me for a long time. I made so many poor decisions in my life because I was blaming them for what they did to me. Some people just aren't meant to be parents."

I pause so she takes the moment to say, "I don't understand."

"I was never good at protecting myself. In the beginning of all this" I glance around meaning the world we live in now, "I went a long time letting others protect me."

"You?" She wants me to confirm it.

I smirk, "ya, me. I wasn't able to kill anything, I wasn't even able to feel anything. I was so broken up about my past, I almost didn't make it."

"How'd you fix it?" She asks, sitting up a little when she lowers her legs off the table.

"Well, I had help." I tell her.

"Negan?" She asks.

I shake my head, "Negans been helping me lately, yah, but back then, no. It was Daryl, mostly. But also Rick, Carol, Michonne.. a lot of others who haven't made it. Everyone I've come across since the beginning has helped me let go of protecting my past and start to work on protecting myself now."

"Daryl?" She squints, "we're you and him dating?"

I smirk and inform her, "we were actually married for awhile. Yeah."

"Wait, really? What happened?" She asks.

I shake my head, "that's a story I'm not quiet ready to tell yet. But I'm working on it, because it's my past. And if I want to protect myself now, I have to move forward." She nods a little, hopefully understanding what I'm getting at and I stand up and put a hand on her arm, "you can go now, I'm going to clean up in here."

She thanks me before leaving and Siddiq and I spend the next few hours cleaning up and moving Margo to a burial site. By the time I'm done with helping, the council has already met and is waiting on Gabriel to decide what his vote is on what to do with Negan. The next morning, I quietly slip out of the infirmary where I slept, knowing there's too much going on around Negan to sleep down there last night. I catch Gabriel in the street heading down to talk to him, "can I come?"

"I don't see why not" he shrugs one shoulder and the two of us head down into the cell.

Except when we get down there, Negan's not in the cell. Gabriel leaves the cell and I just stand there, my heart quickly picking up its pace. I start to wonder "where is he? Did he leave? Did I forget the key? Did someone else let him out? Why didn't he tell me he wanted to leave? Why didn't he trust me? Will he come back? What do I do now?"

All of these thoughts jumble in my head at once and I do my best to try and slow them down and go through them one by one. Negan's gone. He's isn't in Alexandria anymore. I know I didn't forget the key in the room. Someone else must've let him out. But the last four questions I don't have an answer too. My breathing picks up and I find myself walking into the cell, putting my hand on the wall to try and stabilize myself through the start of a panic attack. I'm not sure how much time has passed when in walks Lydia, ignoring me on the floor and putting herself on Negan's former bed after shutting herself in.

We don't say anything to each other, just quietly sit in the cell that makes us both feel safe from the world. A while later, Daryl comes down to the cell and I assume he is there to talk to Lydia. I sit with my knees bunched up and him and I make eye contact for a moment before he turns back to eye Lydia and open the unlocked cell door, "come on. You didn't do this." He says lowly.

"Yeah, I did." She tries to argue.

"I kept watch last night. You never left the house." He calls out her lie.

She spits back, "does it matter? This is where they want me." She sits up from her curled up position on the bed.

Daryl shakes his head, "doesn't matter what they want."

"You know, for a long time, I blamed myself for what happened last year." She looks at me for a moment as I listen, "kept thinking, what if I just stayed in that cell at Hilltop? If I never let myself be taken alive by you people in the first place? Never went off with Henry? Never said what I said to my mother?"

I inject, "you're not to blame for her." Trying to remind her of our conversation the night before.

"My mother was right." She eyes me for just a moment but speaks to Daryl, "she said you people put on these polite faces, but it's just a mask 'cause when things get bad... when you get scared... you pick a target, aim, and shoot. Me, Negan, anything but you."

"Negan's different." Daryl says, catching my attention. He still can't stand him, "you didn't know him.

She pushes, "the Negan I know stood up for me when he didn't have to. He takes care of the people he cares about." She looks over to me, causing Daryl to look over to me as well. She goes on, "I tried fitting in. I wanted to be like you."

"You don't belong in a cage." Daryl simply puts it.

"I'm better here. I feel safe." She answers, and I know her and I are feeling very similar feelings.

Daryl adjusts to look at me, "Sadie-Mae, can we talk?"

I shake my head, "maybe in a bit." He bites his inner lip in thought but nods once before shutting the cell and leaving us alone.