To the Light { a joel miller fanfiction }

Chapter Four - Resistance

"There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights."
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

_________________________________

Her name echoed all through town, existed on the lips of every resident of Jackson.

"That new teacher, Adeline."

"Adeline, she just got here a few weeks ago."

"I think her name is Adeline, I heard Joel Miller found her out in the woods by the ski lodge."

"She's real pretty, isn't she? That Adeline girl."

The sound of her was no longer confined solely to his head, it was everywhere, ringing through the streets, creating a buzz among the town's busybodies. Every time he heard her name he stopped dead in his tracks, idling somewhere nearby so he could eavesdrop. That made him no better than the people facilitating the gossip, but he couldn't help himself. It was a major feat that he— so far— hadn't interjected himself into their conversations, their whispered assumptions, and false theories about her. That wasn't without great restraint, one he could feel dwindling with the passage of each day, each moment that he heard her name on the lips of someone else. It didn't sound right when they said it, it didn't carry enough weight, it didn't slide past their lips, soft and melodic, like a line in a poem, the last note in a song. Though, a part of him did feel a little swell of pride each time someone made some inaccurate statement about her or her past, because it meant that he knew her better than anyone else in town did. Still, the constant chatter of her name did make it hard for him to focus on anything else... not that he had been before.

The one time he'd almost cracked, almost violently inserted himself into someone's conversation, had only been a couple days prior, at the bar.

He'd been there with Tommy, after a rare day shift on patrol that hadn't brought him back through the gates of Jackson until after sundown. They'd taken down a small group of infected, and he'd missed his opportunity to see Adeline, so he needed a drink, his hand twitching to close around a glass of whisky.

They'd taken a seat at the bar, were in the midst of a conversation about scouting out a couple new patrolmen over their second drink when he'd heard it— her name. It had summoned his attention immediately, his head turning just slightly to the right so he could peer toward the front of the bar, where Devin— a relatively new addition to town, who worked predominantly as a farmer— was sitting at a table alongside Willy and Earl.

"Adeline, you know, the new teacher." Devin had said as he lifted his glass to his lips, so the last bit of his sentence was muffled into his beer.

"Oh, right, yeah, I think I've seen her a couple times going to and from the school." Earl said in response, eyes briefly flickering toward the bar.

"She's real pretty. I tried to talk to her a few days ago when we were both at the market, but she kind of blew me off."

Joel's jaw had clicked at that, his hand that was still holding his glass of whisky tightened, knuckles going white.

"She's probably just shy." Devin had continued on, "I'm thinking about asking her out on a date. Girl that pretty can't go to waste."

Joel had unconsciously sprung out of his seat as soon as the words left Devin's lips, his stool teetering, almost knocking onto the ground with the force in which he'd stood up. Violent images flashed through his head alongside a heady, potent wave of jealousy, unyielding possessiveness, surging through his core, viscous and thick and rooted so deeply in his bones that he was blinded by it.