Struggling to Connect: The 6th Book

Chapter 39: Believed

By the next day, everyone got out of Alexandria and we are holding up in an abandoned tower. Although I push to go out on look out duty with Daryl, Gabriel decided it would be best if I stayed behind to keep an eye on Lydia. I didn't mind at first, I was glad she found her way back to Alexandria before we moved out but it was frustrating to always see Negan lingering around. I haven't had any time with Lydia yet to see how she is doing, and I refuse to talk to her about it when he is around. Luckily, the 2nd afternoon in the tower, Negan finally makes it a point to talk to her. I was sitting around a corner, sharpening some knives when I hear him approach, "hey. I, um... I don't think you've eaten anything today."

"I'm good." She replies lowly.

"You know, I can't tell if it's just one of those things or the craziness of us all moving to an abandoned tower... or if you're just avoiding me."

I stifle my snarled laughter as she answers honestly, "I'm avoiding you."

"Well, shit, that... that's honest." He replies and I can tell there's a sort of smirk on his lips. I hate that I can tell that about him.

"You want me to lie?" She quips, "make you feel better?"

He says, "No, I don't."

She tries to get him to leave her alone, "okay. Well, you can give someone else the rat stew."

"It's not rat. It's possum. I mean, yeah, basically a big rat, but I, um..." he catches himself going off track, "I just wanted to say... that I liked her. Your mom, I mean, she did some horrible shit that there's no excusing any of it, but...I liked... I liked a lot of things about her." There it is. The churning of my stomach again. I grab it tightly as he goes on, "and I wish to God I didn't have to do what I did. But I like someone else a lot more. But besides that, if there's something that you wanna say to me, then you should say it."

Lydia doesn't answer right away, and I wonder if she's just going to ignore him or lash out like I did. Suddenly, she simply says, "most of us wish you'd died, too."

After Lydia, rounds the corner to join me, she eventually questions out loud, "was that too harsh?"

"You can't be too harsh, if you're being honest." I tell her, "it's okay to be honest."

"I don't like him telling me what to do. He's not my father, he's not even my friend" she growls out, moving over a bit so dog can squeeze in between us.

I nod, not having anything to say back to that. Instead, I change the subject and try to see how she's doing, "I never really had a mother to lose, so I can't say I know what you're feeling right now, but I can imagine it's shitty. You wanna talk at all?" I leave it open for her to decide. She stares ahead for a bit and eventually shakes her head no. I nod to tell her I understand and we go back to sitting in silence together.

A few hours later, Lydia hasn't come back from the bathroom. I decide to head out to find her, wanting to make sure she didn't go outside of the tower. A couple of turns in, I hear her yelling, "it's not okay! It's not okay!" Over and over again and a whacking sound like she's hitting something. I round the corner to see her hitting Negan and him letting her do it. Her hitting slows as she starts to sob and Negan wraps his arms around her to console her. Although I want to walk away from him, I don't want to leave her there upset. I take the few steps towards them and put a hand on her back, "hey, you're right. It's not okay."

She turns from sobbing in his chest to sob into mine and somehow the three of us end up in a hug as she cries uncontrollably. Negan keeps his arms tightly around us, and although I also want to punch him over and over again, I let myself also accept the fact that I am happy he isn't dead and able to help me with dealing with a teenager through this loss. As she continues to cry, we end up sitting next to her on either side as she cries into her knees, all of our backs against the walls. When she finally stops, and a few moments have passed, I ask her, "you feeling better?"

She shrugs one shoulder, "I'm tired."

I nod and she wipes her face with her sleeve before standing up to walk out. Negan and I sit there, feet apart from one another in awkward silence. Eventually, he breaks the silence with what he thinks is a joke, "you wanna come beat me up too?"

I mock his words from the other night in the field, "don't threaten me with a good time."

He chuckles low from his gut, "touché, my darling. Touché."

I smirk, wishing it wasn't this easy to fall back into a bantered rhythm with him. Instead of lashing out again, I decided to ask, "you liked her a lot, huh? Did you uhhh.." I trial off, unable to say the words.

Negan sighs and confesses, "she might've ordered me to undress, and then undressed herself and..."

"Stop, I don't want to know." I put my hand up and also grab my stomach again, "you've made me sick so much since you've been back."

Negan turns his head to look over to me and whispers, "I know I hurt you Sadie. And I am sorry. If there was more time, I would've told you everything, hell, I asked Carol to tell you what the plan was."

"Well she didn't." I utter back with annoyance, not knowing he asked her to do that.

He sighs, "everything I did once I left, was too only get to the point where I could kill her. I would've stopped at nothing to get that done, for you."

"Why are you pushing that so hard?" I question, "makes me feel like you're over selling it a bit. Hiding the fact you liked it and liked her more than you're admitting too."

"Hey, I'm not hiding anything. You heard me say I liked her. But it's not like liking you. You, Sadie, are one of a kind."

"So that's it, I'm just Sadie to you now?" I ask, moving my hand over to rest on the floor between us, in a gesture of semi forgiveness.

I can see Negan smile and move his hand to grab mine, "you were pretty pointer serious out there about not calling you Sadie-baby anymore."

I rest my head on my knees and glance over to him, "I'm still mad at you, but I can't lie and say I'm not relieved to see you on this side of things. I don't know exactly what went down with you two and I don't want too, but you did never lie to me, so if you say you did it to help me, and that you love me, I'm inclined to believe it. You've never lied to me before."

"And I won't start now" he assures me. We sit holding hands for about another 2 minutes before I pull mine away and stand up, "I'm gonna go check on Judith, see ya in a bit."

"I ain't going nowhere without telling' ya next time." He smiles from where he sits and I nod without smiling back, wishing that to be the truth moving forward.