Borrowed Time

Chapter 144

Winter in Upstate New York was miserable, it always had been and Juliette wasn't a stranger to that and had no intention of pretending like she was. The cold was something that seeped into her skin and settled deep into her flesh through her jacket even if she could sometimes ignore it, but there was one time that she could not ignore the freezing feeling around her, and that was whenever she was in the graveyard. It seemed to be colder than the rest of town, and maybe that was because it was so lonely... She felt like she was surrounded by people and yet she would never meet them...

She felt like her mother was right there but she'd never feel her touch on her cheek again... It was painful, she hated it... But she wanted to talk to her mom, and this was the closest that she was going to get, this was the only way that she could do it... But she wasn't allowed to go alone. Shelby, Esme and Micheal were scared she'd freeze to death out here alone, so they'd insisted on tagging along even though she could have handled it...

They're just trying to love you, you've gotta let them... She knew that was what her mother would've said if she was alive, so she figured it was only fitting to let them come along out of respect for what her mother's wishes would have been. So now, instead of the silence of the graveyard, she could hear the sound of the crunching of snow under her friend's boots as they walked behind her and Esme walked beside her, hand in hers, holding it firmly...

My tether to the world. She felt Esme bring the chilled skin of her hand to their warm lips as they looked over at her, smiling.

"What're you gonna talk about with her?" Esme asked, and Juliette sighed and shrugged... She wasn't sure. She knew that the one thing that she wanted wasn't going to happen unless zombification had come very far in the past few months... Which it hadn't, she knew that.

Unfortunately, her mother wouldn't be coming back to her while she sat down in front of the grave... She'd accept it if she did, she'd willingly let her mother eat her brain if it meant that she got to die in her arms, if it meant that she got to be held by her one last time... That was all she wanted out of life, really...

It just felt right to visit her... Her mother was the only one who could truly understand what she was saying right now, and even though she wouldn't get a response, she knew that telling her mother that she was struggling would be healing... Normally it helped, and she hoped it would help today too. She didn't like feeling like this.

"I don't know..." Juliette kicked at some of the snow on the ground, trying to think of how she was going to explain what she was feeling right now... She didn't really know how to make this not sound stupid, she didn't want Esme to think that she was stupid, that was one of her biggest fears. "I just miss her a lot, I kinda just wanna sit with her, you know?" She asked, and she half expected Esme to laugh at her, even though she knew that they wouldn't, even though she knew that Shelby and Micheal would beat the hell out of them if they did...

But she was still surprised when all they did was nod at her. I love you.

"Sure, yeah." She cleared her throat at that... Oh. That was fast... That was understanding.

Sometimes she forgot how quick Esme was to understand what she was going through, and how quickly they would be there to support her.

"She used to sit on the couch with my head on her lap and she'd braid my hair when I was sad because the sensation would calm me down... I really wish she could do that right now. I think it'd help." Juliette said, and Esme sighed, looking at her with a pained expression as they drew her hand to their lips, pressing another lingering kiss to the back of it before speaking again.

Juliette liked when they did that, when they kissed her skin like that, no expectation... Just affection. Not that Esme ever touched her with expectation, but it was just really nice to know that no matter what with Esme, she was never going to be pushed to do anything... Esme just wanted to exist around her.