[ season 2 ]
✰ in which every corner of the world becomes the world's most loneliest corner, but the girl tucked away on her family's farm would bet all the money in her pockets that hers is the loneliest.
and the guy who meets her up there, bringi...
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CHAPTER NINE ➶ SHANE WALSH
"YOU'RE NOT speakin' to me now?"
the look on andrea's face is bored, if not a bit furious, too. "you made it very clear you're stickin' around for a few people and i'm not one of them. so forgive me, shane, if i don't say good morning to you."
i come up beside her, place my hand on the well pump she's pushing down again and again.
eventually she stops and looks at me, lets me take over. it's there for a second, the look in her eyes she's had these past few weeks when we'd sneak off into the woods or in my car. but then it's gone, flashes away in an instant, replaced with that hard look again.
she takes a step back as i continue collecting the water into the bucket.
"you get why, right? with lori." i ask, bring up the conversation andrea and i had at my brother's house a week ago, how i can't do this thing with her anymore.
"she wants rick, though. why make a fool of yourself, pining after a woman who doesn't want you anymore?"
"that's my kid she's carryin'." i tell her, not a beat missed, not a shake of uncertainty in my voice.
now andrea's looking at me the way she has since we met, like a friend. like someone who could understand me, tolerate me. lori doesn't look at me like that, never did, but andrea isn't the mother of my unborn child, so it has to be lori.
even if she doesn't look at me, doesn't like to talk to me anymore. even though she's married to someone else, it's still lori.
"is there a reason you try to burrow yourself into people's lives even when they don't want you there?"
"maybe she should've thought about that before sleepin' with someone who wasn't her husband. before rick came back, there was no doubt that lori wanted me in her life. now—"
"now he's back. he's not dead and i don't blame her for picking her husband over her boyfriend."
"'s that right?" i ask, squinting under the mid-afternoon sun rays.
a curt nod, "and you said it yourself a few weeks ago, your brother's never needed you here before, why would he now?"
"you're tellin' me all this for what?"
"i don't care if you've decided to cut me out of your life, that you're not staying here for me, but i think you're making decisions while thinking of the wrong people. i think you know it, too. you didn't wanna stay here with this group, now all of a sudden you do; for jack, for lori ..."
"that was before i knew she was preg—" i clamp my mouth shut, not in the mood to raise my voice today. "i wanna stay."
i feel a bead of sweat trickle over my brow. a soft, warm breeze drifts past our faces and with it, carries the sound from within the well. the handle of the pump squeaks with one last thrust and i watch andrea's eyes flick away from mine.
