afraid | the walking dead

Chapter 4

I was facing a boy around my age with medium-length brown hair and a bandage where his right eye should be, but the other one was bright blue. He wore a blue flannel and gray jeans.
He looked shocked. I immediately felt awful, yelling at him.

"S-sorry." I couldn't manage to say much.

"It's cool." He laughed it off. "You must be Quinn."
I hesitantly put my guard up. How did he find out about me so fast?

"How'd you know?" I asked, furrowing my brow.

"I heard my dad talking to Michonne about you,"

I remember Maggie mentioning Michonne, and from what she told me, she seemed pretty badass.

"He seems genuinely worried you're gonna mess up. Now that Maggie finally has another family member, he's afraid of you screwing up and getting yourself killed."

I was almost overwhelmed by all this information he was giving me. Underestimating me was a bad idea, especially in Rick's case.

"Wait, did you say your 'dad'? As in, Rick is your dad?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah," He replied with a grin. But not like one of those annoying, 'smirk' grins. It was more of a 'Yes, obviously that's what I just said' type of grin.
Did he say Rick was worried about my safety?

Quinn, quit it. He only cares because your Maggie's sibling. It's not like anyone else wants you here except for Maggie. If you were anyone else, Rick wouldn't have minded blowing your head off then and there.

"I, uh, need to get back to what I was doing."

Way to keep it cool, Quinn.

He raised his brow at me.

"Don't look at me like that," I said, no emotion in my voice. I walked back over to the couch and sat down, trying to wrap my brain around this situation.
I could feel him staring into the back of my head. I turned around.

"Can I help you?" I asked, kind of annoyed. I looked into empty space and sighed.

He slowly walked around to the side of the couch.
"You okay?" He asked.

I looked up.
"Don't ask me that," I said quite harshly. Whether I was okay or not was not a question I could or would answer. I didn't want his help. I didn't want his input. I just wanted to be alone.

He understood, something I wasn't used to, and started to leave the room.

I thought about the decisions I had made alone before. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

Shit. Quinn, you can't make this decision on your own. Not this time.

As much as I hated it, my conscience was right. I forced myself to ask for help. "Are you any good at advice?" I asked abruptly before he left the room, making him stop in his tracks.

"Depends," He responded, turning on his heels. I took this as an invitation to tell him what was going on.

"I haven't seen Maggie since the beginning...and I'm really glad I found her but...it's just hard to trust people after what I've seen. What I've done." I gulped and continued. "Everyone here is a mystery to me. And for them to stop being mysteries I would have to get to know them, but I just don't trust myself to do that. Not that I don't trust Maggie, but she's the only one I know here. She's the only one I can talk to. And I haven't seen her in years, I have no idea how she's changed. She doesn't know how I've changed."

What the actual fuck, Quinn? What the hell was that about? What happened to 'I just wanna be alone' and 'I don't want his help'? God, you're a fucking idiot.

I said too much.

"Well, you're talking to me. That's a start," He told me as I gave him the 'That's not helping' look.
There was a brief moment of silence as he sat down and started again.

"I lost my mom when I was really little...I know, if she was still alive, I could trust the people she had around her..."

He's opening up to you, Quinn. Look what you did.

He continued.

"She was a good person...and I'm sure she would surround herself with good people." He looked down and smiled, probably because the thought of his mom still being alive made him happy.

I looked at him. I wondered what else he had been through.

If Carl lost his mom, and Rick is Carl's dad...that means Rick lost his wife.

"Maggie's a good person. Surely you know that she would join good people."

"Is that why you're being so nice to me?" I asked, wondering this from the start.
"Because you know Maggie's a good person? And you know she would accept me into the group because...she surrounds herself with good people?"

You don't get a lot of nice people in this world. And, I mean, you don't exactly expect a guy with one eye to be friendly.

He gave a half-smile in my direction. It was comforting to know that Maggie was still a good person after all of this.

But was I?

"Thanks," I said genuinely. He gave me a quick smile and got up to leave.

"Hey, I never got your name," I called out.

He turned towards me.
"Carl Grimes," He said straight-forwardly.

I gave him a kind of half smile and he left the room.

Quinn, don't get too comfortable. You don't know if you can trust this Carl kid.

I laid back on the couch, relieved.
I made my decision.
I was joining this group.