Alone

Chapter: 2 // lean •

"I remember her comforting me before she left," He said, the fire illuminated his face as he stared at it longingly as if he was almost hypnotized by it. "I never thought that was the last I'd ever see of her until the next day I realized she had run off again... I tried to convince her to stay but I guess she felt like she had nothing to stay for."

"You said she ran off again, did she run away often?" I investigated.

"She sneaked over the gates sometimes, yeah. But she always came back.. this time she didn't."

In the back of my mind I knew she wasn't coming back for him, there was no way to sugar coat it. There's no such thing as love or a happy ending in what we like to call this apocalyptic world.

People we care about either survive or die trying. Chances are most will die trying and few will survive. Just like I'll probably never know the fate of my parents and he'll never know what happened to his girlfriend Enid, who disappeared and never returned.

You would think that after he told me about his girlfriend and I told him about my parents and everything and we're pretty open with each other that we would be on a first name basis. You'd be wrong.

Sometimes I try to guess his name by pondering what rhymes with Sam, the name of his younger brother. All I keep getting is Graham, Cam, and Pam.

But usually twins have rhyming names, and from what he told me about Sam the brothers sound nothing alike, with the exception of the auburn hair.

I think the fact that I don't know his name just makes him that more interesting, on top of his married eyebrows. He turned out to be this noble, flawed, sarcastic hero and I can relate to him easily and talk to him like he's been my best friend all my life even though we just got introduced improperly a week ago.

I realized I was not only scared of being alone, but I was scared of getting close to anybody because I didn't want them to leave me again like my parents. But I ended up growing close to him anyways, I didn't want to honestly it was just fate.

"Well, that's another thing we have in common," I poked at the fire with a stick. The flames heightened, I felt the warmth on my cheeks and hands. "I'll tell you how I learned to cope with it; you don't think about it, at all. You don't talk about it, remember it, obsess over it, because there's nothing you could've done to prevent what happened. You didn't know she was gonna leave that day, the only thing you knew is that she was there and she loved you."

He started crying, and I kind of just sat there uncomfortably because I've never seen a man cry in front of me- and that doesn't include my parents wedding when dad burst into tears watching mom walk the isle with grandpa on her arm. As a kid, I looked at men like hardheaded, narcissistic, selfish, lazy, and sometimes romantic beings who are incapable of crying and doing their own laundry because it was too 'feminine' and caring about our female emotions.

Also the stereotypical type of guy who only gets up off the couch when he's rooting for his favorite sports team and usually works at a boring office job or something uninteresting. As I grew up, I learned some of that was true, and I also learned men can be sensitive, understanding, good companions, smart, and great leaders. Him? Well, he at least personifies half of those qualities.

"It's getting late, we should probably put out the fire and call it a night." I poured half of my water bottle over the fire, enough to put out the flames. He looked at me through his tears and frowned, his eyes felt like knives piercing into my skin, a ping of guilt flashed through me. What could I have done or said? Men aren't like women when they cry, you can't baby them or make them talk about their feelings. It's not my place to give him advice, I don't know him that well.