Junebug • TWD

12. Sorry.

"Dad? What's goin' on? Where's everyone else?" I ask quickly, my voice up high. The group left with Rick, Carl, Lori, Shane, Andrea, Glenn, Dad, and Carol. The only people here now are Glenn, Andrea, Dad, and Carol. Everyone else is missing. That can't be good.

"Carl was shot," Glenn says in a rush as he climbs over the guard rail. And my heart stops beating for a moment because Carl is dying and Sophia is missing and that leaves me all alone.

"Shot? What do you mean shot?" Dale asks, and his eyes are all wide with disbelief.

"I don't know, Dale. I wasn't there. All I know is this chick rode out of nowhere like Zorro on a horse and took Lori," Glenn explains as fast as the speed of light. I don't know who Zorro is, but I'm panicked all the same.

My dad climbs over the guardrail next and I'm looking at him for an answer, but he's not looking back at me. "You let her?" Dale asks him, because in his eyes, Dad's in charge of the small group that came back from the woods just now.

"Climb down outta my asshole, man. Rick sent her," Dad says. I can tell by his voice and by the way he's walking that he's way past irritated. Probably because he went out there with a big group to find Sophia, and now he's come back with no Sophia and four more people gone. Plus, he's got dirt and grime all over him. Looks like it must've been rough. "She knew Lori's name. And Carl's," Dad mutters, walking off.

When he passes by me, I look up at him with wide, confused eyes. I still don't understand what's happening. How could Carl have gotten shot? By who? Who was helping him now? Dad doesn't answer my questions. He puts his hand on my back and starts pushing me along with him.

"C'mon," he murmurs. And I go with him because no way I'm disobeying him now. I already got smacked today. I ain't getting spanked, too. He walks us down to the car we stayed in last night.

"You didn't find-?" I start to ask about Sophia, but Dad knows me too well. He knows what I'm gonna ask.

"I don't wanna talk about it, June," Dad says. He puts his crossbow down in the backseat of the car.

"I'm sorry," I say quickly, just in case my question had annoyed him.

Dad looks at me weird. "For what?" he asks. I'm sorry for a lot of things. I'm not even sure what I'm sorry for this time. I don't have an answer. Dad doesn't say anything for a moment, and then he looks away, digging around in the back seat. "You say that too much," he tells me.

"I have to," I tell him. What am I supposed to do? Not say sorry when I do something wrong?

But Dad scoffs at that answer. "Why?" he asks.

"I do things wrong too much," I say, shrugging my shoulders.

He scoffs at that, too, and he stops digging around in the back seat to look at me with a look of disbelief on his face. "Since when?" he asks.

"Since forever. I always get in trouble," I murmur, tugging on my shirt.

I got in trouble when those people took me away from my dad for having stuff in my backpack that wasn't supposed to be in my backpack. Maybe if I would've just answered the teacher's question, she wouldn't have gone in my backpack. And then she wouldn't have found the medicine, and I wouldn't have been taken away, and my dad would still love me like he used to.

"I did just earlier today," I remind him, just to prove my point.

Dad rubs his hand over his face, pressing his fingers into his eyes. "There's a difference between gettin' in trouble and learnin' a lesson. You said somethin' bad, now you know not to say it again. You learned," he says. He sounds like he don't wanna be saying it, though.