When The World Caves In |C.G.

twenty two

I don't speak a word to Merle when we comes in that night. Instead, I sit there ignoring him and pretending I'm fast asleep. If he knows I'm pretending, he doesn't say nothing. He just stomps around the small apartment, just like he used to at our house to get ready for bed. 

When he disappears again the next morning, I find myself wandering around Woodbury again. Eventually spotting Andrea talking to a girl on lookout. I climb up the ladder and awkwardly make my way over to her. 

"Hi Andrea." I say, sitting on the tire in front of her. 

"I thought that was you last night." Andrea says smiling. 

"You shouldn't be up here." The girl she's talking to says to me. I look at her and the way she's holding her bow. Like she's trying to prove something. 

"She's good." Andrea tells her before I even have the chance to open my mouth. "How'd you get here?" 

"Got separated from Daddy, Merle found me." I say shrugging. 

"I'm sorry to hear that Rory." She tells me and I look down at my feet. It's been a while since I've seen her, but at least she's a familiar face. I turn to the girl with the bow. 

"You shoot?" I ask her, pointing at the bow. The question sounds stupid, because why would she be holding it if she didn't know how. She nods proudly fixing her cap. 

"Sure do." She says, holding the thing up for me to see. "We got a training area, my old bow is even there if you'd like to try." 

"You must be pretty good." Andrea says taking a sip out of her water bottle. The girl looks at her real humble like, but she doesn't do that great of a job acting like she is. 

"Yeah," The girl says. "My dad taught me, he used to take me hunting; wanted me to be in the olympics. This one was his, it's worth more than my car, I mean it's awesome. So I totally killed him for it." 

"Right..." I say trailing off. This girl's demeanor is confusing. It's like she's trying to be a badass, but she's trying really hard.  

"Rory's Daddy taught her." Andrea says and points to me. "When you were young right?"

"Yeah, been shooting since I could walk." I tell her, putting my hands in my pockets and awkwardly shuffling around. I miss my bow, and the mention of Daddy has me missin' him too. 

"She's probably the best shot I've ever seen at her age." Andrea gloats for me and I laugh. 

"I wouldn't go that far, Daddy's way better than me." I remind her and she just smiles before something catches her eye in the distance. There's a walker lumbering towards us. 

"Cool, watch this." The girl stands up, pointing her bow at the walker and I expect that to be the end of it. Except for the fact that her arrow  bounces off the shoulder of the thing, not enough power to make it fly forward. She tries once more, but the next shot simply flies over the walkers head. 

I can't help the look that I give the girl. They got her on watch duty? Andrea gives her another look, before taking her knife and taking care of the walker herself. She kicks it to the ground and quickly stabs it in the brain. 

"What the hell was that?" The girl yells. 

"That is how it's done!" Andrea yells throwing her arms up in the air. 

"I said I could do it." She tells her angrily. 

"Obviously you couldn't..." I whisper, climbing down the other side of the wall to meet Andrea when she comes back in. We ignore the girl crying out about the dangers of going over the wall and make our way back into Woodbury.