A New Reason (Shane Walsh Love Story)

Chapter 3: A Walk in the Park

Jaq's POV

I sat next to Lori, Andrea and Carol in the shade of the RV. Chance was at my side with his head in my lap.

"So Jaq," I turned to Lori. "Shane said that you were heading towards Fort Benning too, am I right?"

"Yes. I'm going to Columbus. My mother loves there and I want to make sure that she's safe. I'm not sure how far this... Thing spread, but I just wanna make sure."

Carol smiled. "We'll help in every way we can."

I smiled back. "Thank you guys. It's nice to see that kindness hasn't faded as much as I thought."

The four of us talked until the sun started to set. "Wow." Andrea said. "Didn't realize that much time passed."

"Neither did I." Carol stood. "I better get Sofia to bed."

"Yeah, same with Carl."

The three of them stood and started to walk away. Carol turned back around. "Goodnight Jaq."

I smiled and waved. Really I only stayed because I didn't know where else I should go.

Soon the sun disappeared and the stars rose in the sky. I moved to a spot in the bed of a truck. Chance laid his head in my lap and I rested my back against the truck. Everyone has gone to bed already and I was the only one out here.

"Hey."

At least I thought I was.

I turned to see Shane standing next to the truck and smiled. "Hey."

"Why ya out here alone?" I questioned.

I shrugged. "Don't really have anywhere else to sleep."

"Oh." There was a moment of silence until he spoke again. "You can sleep with me."

I snickered and he seemed to realize how wrong that sounded. He quickly started stuttering. "No n-no t-that's not- I mean- that's not what I meant!"

I chuckled. "I know. I know, I'm just fucking with you."

"Oh. Okay. Good." He sighed in relief.

"And thank you but- I don't want to intrude or anything."

I waved his hand. "Don't worry about that. I just want you to be comfortable. Not exactly good if our newest member sleeps in the bed of a truck on her first night with us." We both laughed at that and he held out his hand to me. "Come on."

I waited a moment, then took his hand. He helped my down the truck. Chance followed obediently. Shane led me to a green car that I assumed he'd taken for himself. Shane opened the passenger door for me.

"What a gentleman you are." I said with a smile.

He smiled back and closed my door. I heard him open the back door for Chance to get in, then he himself got in the driver's seat. We both leaned our seats back to a laying position.

I shifted so that I was facing him fully. "Thank you, Shane."

He shook his head and smiled. "How many times do I have to tell ya, you don't need to thank me."

"I feel better when I do." I looked around. "Nice car."

"To be honest, the only reason I got this car was so I could-" He paused. "So I could leave."

"Why?"

Shane sighed. "I feel like, like I don't matter anymore. Before Rick came back, everyone was depending on me. Now, they just through me to the side."

I stared at him. "I know how you feel."

He looked up at me. "Ya do?"

I nodded. "When I was little, my dad was never there for me. Always busy, always working. I was cast aside. Then, I didn't really care too much. But now... I feel like there was part of me that was missing."

"I'm sorry." Shane whispered.

I smiled and rolled my eyes. "Ugh, let's tall about something happy. Tell me what you were like in high school."

Shane laughed. "Uh ha. Well there really isn't much to say."

I narrowed my eyes playfully. "I find that very hard to believe."

Shane chuckled. "Well, there was this one time I pull off a prank."

"Ooh this just got interesting." I said as my eyes lit up.

"One day at lunch, I decided to uh... take my principle's car for a spin." He said with a smirk.

My eyes widened. "Shut up."

He nodded. "Yep."

My smiled widened. "Oh. My. Gosh. Details please!"

Shane laughed. "Alright, alright. So I high jacked his car and drove down the highway which was next to our school. And crashed it."

"Ho-ly shit!" I started busting out laughing.

"Yeah. And so I ran back to school, which was now 2 miles away, and still made it back before the bell rang."

"Wow, just... Wow."

"And you know what the best part was? I ran into him in the halls, looked out the window, and said, 'Hey Mr. Douglass. I think something happened to your car.'"

I had to take deep breaths because I was laughing so much. "That's pretty amazing." I said. I calmed down. "That's the hardest I laughed for a very long time."

Shane smiled. "So what about you? What were you like?"

I shrugged. "Nothing much to really say. I was always the quiet one. Never really had a lot of friends. But- never mind."

Shane shifted. "Come on. Tell."

"Fine. So there was this girl at my school named Brianna. She was always a total bitch to me since we were in 7th grade. But, one day I've had enough so I pretended to be her 'secret admirer'"

This time Shane's eyes widened. "No way."

"Way. One day the 'admirer' told her his true identity which so happened to be the quarterback Kevin. So, Brianna confronted Kevin and was humiliated in front of the entire football team."

We both started busting out laughing.

"Oh man! I wish I was there!"

"Yeah! So that was the only thing bitchy I did in high school."

We both calmed down and started talking about other things. Anything really. Then at some point I drifted off to sleep.

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Shane's POV

I stared at Jaq's sleeping figure. She fell asleep sometime during a story I was telling her. She looked so peaceful.

This was the first time in a long time that I've had a casual conversation with anyone.

Like a regular walk in the park.