Lost | Daryl Dixon

37 - Cherophobia

First Person POV

For the first time in almost ten months, my rest was completely dreamless. Darkness entrenched every aspect of my body, as sleep came, but rest didn't - I felt my arms and legs frozen as I stayed still in my bed.

I was oddly comfortable - oddly isn't the right term. Having a bed after months of the floor and ground, and the occasional rest in the car; anything was comfortable compared to that. But my heart for once wasn't beating rapidly, my breathing wasn't shallow and terrified. I didn't feel myself awaken every few hours from the slightest noise, no bolting awake and my body having the sensation of falling.

Maybe it was I who had become unusual, for not being able to rest how I had before. My sleep slowly unfurling from my mind as I came out of it - the sound of breathing and snoring all around me became audible.

I sat like that for a few minutes, taking it in. My hand slowly gripped the edge of the mattress, and I sat up in the dark - I stretched and sighed, knowing there'd be no more rest for me, stepping up and looking out of the edge of my cell, across the room.

Hints of sunrise crept across the walls, the few windows atop the wall showcasing pinks and oranges around the room. Some reflected off of Daryl, sleeping out in the open on the perch. The old me would have had a stupid digital camera; the one that I broke within 3 months of owning, but insisted on using despite the fact every forth picture was corrupted. My mind could picture it now - me stood, done up, aiming and taking a picture as the pinks lit up his face, making him look romanticised.

My eyes traced his sleeping body, my heart beating softly. He was so pretty when he slept - more so than I expected from the big, scary, serious hunter I met in a survival camp. He went from being just another person, to someone I cared about so intensely.

Part of me wanted to say loved; I'd spent 8 months just watching him, wanting him, as I healed. 8 months desperate to quicken up my healing so I could be with him. 8 months wondering why he cared about me too - I was broken, I knew that. The woman who had not one but two horrible past relationships, a woman with mommy issues and a dead father.

But then, I knew he had his secrets to his own upbringing. I could see it on his face, everytime he hinted to what his childhood was like with Merle, his life with an absent father and drug addicted, criminal brother. I didn't know the full extent, and I don't plan on pushing him - especially with my own dirty laundry. But it reminded me of something painful and crucial in this group.

There were those of us who suffered since the beginning of the apocalypse.

And those who suffered long, long before.

I knew which group I belonged to; a woman abused by the most sadistic man in the world, meaning that Shane Walsh, a man who cared for nothing and no one but himself, became a better option. Shane would've been most women's nightmare ex, I know that. I almost wish he was mine - better than carrying the scar and tattoo on my body that serve as reminders of Henry.

That's part of the reason I trusted Carol, and why I'd been so jealous. She was the closest to knowing what it was like - she'd suffered at the hands of an intimate partner. She'd faced the judgement and sympathy of these people, she knew the pain either emotion caused. And, she knew the type of special Daryl was - I was stupid to be jealous even briefly.

My sensation returned to me, I turned in the mattress, facing the wall. Bits of cement had crumbled off, the poster of an inmate's laid there - a pin-up woman, sat on a motorbike and pouring beer down her tits stared back - though it peeled at the corners. I stared at her a moment, her perfect hair, her make-up, he fixed smile. She was how I imagined myself before the apocalypse, making myself the perfect woman. That girl. The one who's funny, and hot, and put together.