"𝐜𝐨𝐰𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞„

Fifty one, black star

EVERY NIGHT, HE WOULD toss and turn to deter the scenes that fought like wars in his sleep.
What hurt the most was that they were never his most traumatic sequences, but his happiest ones. His father, running to embrace him as he emerges from the truck; a light kiss on the head from his mother or a smile from Jane.

Last week, before he'd even seen her again, he had a vivid dream of her standing behind him, cutting his hair. She was so gentle with the way she touched him, the way her fingers ran through his locks like she'd been born to caress him. She didn't even say anything - but the small traces of her laughter had seeped their way into his mind, the sound that he could never forget. When he woke up that morning, just like this one, the mist of her was gone but the sadness stayed.

The worst ones were of his dad - the dream didn't even have to have him in it, but his scent or his voice or his demeanour would almost always be present; like he was there but ever so slightly out of reach.
Like his life was dangling happiness in front of him, like some cruel torture for the entertainment of his own self loathing.

A quick, ruthless rapping at the door sends him flying upwards, throwing his hands over his face and groaning as he does so. He's tired, as usual, and being woken abruptly in the middle of the night doesn't help.

He gets up, feeling around the dark floor to find his jeans just to shove them on for a second. The knocking continues, and he winces as the sound hits his ears. He'd had a headache for as long as he could remember.

"Jesus christ-" he starts to say as he opens the door, but when he sees Jane Peletier standing there infront of him, he shuts up. She looks him up and down, his shirtless body illuminated aptly by the moonlight.

"Jane?"

"Where's Daryl?"

"I'll get him," he says, swallowing hard before retreating back into the trailer. He's certainly not awake, and so Carl prepares to have to tap him out of his deep slumber. Instead, he finds Daryl nowhere: his sheets hardly upturned, his bag gone, and only when he enters the small kitchen does he see the note standing upright on the table.

"Leave your shirt at your boyfriends house?" She asks sarcastically, her voice carrying throughout the whole trailer.

"Fuck." He picks it up, scanning Daryl's scrawl like handwriting. The note reads: couldn't live with myself.

"What's wrong?" She calls from the hall, now inside the trailer. He turns round and passes the note to her, watching her face turn as she reads it.

The two of them know he's talking about Lydia, it's blatantly obvious.

"Henry's gone too."

Carl's eyes widen.

"Do you think they're together?" He asks. She shakes her head vigorously. In no world would Daryl have let Henry go out to fight a group of ruffians with him. Especially after seeing what they did.

"I'll get my stuff."

"I'm going alone," she demands abruptly.

"You're not going out there alone."

"Watch me."

"Jane, cmon-" and with that, the door is slammed shut. He curses under his breath, shoving his shirt, jacket and boots on. When he finally catches up she's halfway to the gate.

"Go back to sleep."

"Couldn't if I wanted to."

She doesn't say anything, instead she grabs her knife and stabs it into a fraction of the wood, using it to help her climb up.