Missing Heart

Chapter 13: Kelly

Shelly seemed cool, and was cool, from the very beginning, but at first, I hated Shaun. His initial impression wasn't very good on me, but he's so cool! Other than the avocadoes we're very similar and we have similar morals about school and stuff!

We had a long conversation about our everyday lives before the apocalypse with the occasional break to smash a zombie's head in (after a while, destroying the zombies actually became kind of fun) until Julie interrupted everything with an announcement.

"Ok! I've decided I'm going to be in charge! Let's go to Martin's house to pick him up!" Ugh... seriously? Martin? That boring stupid-dumb-ugly dude? Him? We really had to save Julie's stupid-dumb-ugly boyfriend?

"I don't mind going to Martin's house to see if he's alive, because the more survivors the better, but why are you the leader? I'm older so... actually, I'm not qualified, I think Kelly would actually make the best leader".

"Me?" I said, stunned and rather flattered. Woohoo! I'm amazing!

"B-but..." She looked so defeated, how refreshing!

"Alright... I suppose she is the least scared and most mature... even if she is the youngest and I want to do things..." I was surprised she gave up so easily! I was expecting at least a 'But I'm the smartest!' or another shit excuse, but no... just gave up. That's not like her at all, is something wrong? I may hate her, but she's still my sister and I hope she's ok. I felt bad for being happy at her expense when I realised something was wrong.

"Great! So Kelly, do you want to be the leader?" Nick asked. It felt like everyone was relying on me, it was so stressful, I felt like the world was on my shoulders even though no-one was expecting much from me, it felt like a lot for my 11 year old self. But, I really wanted everyone to think I was amazing and I wanted to prove to everyone that I am strong and mature, so...

"Yeah, sure!" I said, trying my best to sound confident.

"Can we pleasepleaseplease go pick up Martin?" Julie begged. She was practically on her knees, she was so desperate. Did she really love him that much? Why? But seeing how desperate she was and that she already seemed really sad, I couldn't just disappoint her.

"Fine..." I said, while I was reluctant, I didn't want her to be sad. I didn't really hate her, we were just siblings bickering like siblings do...

As Shelly would say, 'we're two peas in a pod'.

"Uh... who's Martin?" Shelly asked.

"My boyfriend!" Julie replied.

"Oh! You have a boyfriend? That's so sweet! What is he like?".

"He's very sweet!".

"He sucks," I told both of them.

"Ugh, ignore her," Julie told Shelly.

"You're just two peas in a pod, aren't cha?".

Then we started walking to stupid-dumb-ugly Martin's house while Julie obsessively talked to Shelly about him. Shelly seemed genuinely interested (she must be a saint, or just an idiot like her) but Shaun seemed a little uncomfortable with the girl-talk he clearly didn't understand. And that was yet another similarity between us!

Wait... now that I think about it, why is Julie sad? She's acting similarly to how she was acting when dad died. Since we think mother may be dead, is history just repeating itself?

God, I hope not. I don't believe in God (if he existed, why do bad things still happen to those who don't deserve it?), but if he is up there, then please don't let history repeat itself...

When dad died, Julie got more depressed than me, Nick and mother were combined. At first, she acted like she was fine, but after a few months she became very antisocial, hardly ate, and she even...

I don't wanna think about it...

Thankfully, she got back to her normal self after a few years of therapy, but of course that really strained mothers bank account...