Bleeding Love | Daryl Dixon

Chapter One.

Age 8:

"Get your ass back in here girl!" I heard my daddy shout from inside our home. Daddy had been screaming for a long time, but he cant find me where I am...My favorite spot. My favorite spot was this big oak tree behind our house, it was far away but even here I could always hear my daddy's shouts. I was high up in the tree, hidden by the leaves..My tiny frame was curled up on a large branch, my long blonde hair cascading around my tear stricken face. If anyone could see me up here they wouldn't just find a crying little girl, they would see visible scars all over my body.

My daddy wasn't a happy man, never has been as long as I can remember. My momma died when she gave birth to me, and daddy blamed me for her death every day of my life. Daddy couldn't even give me a proper name, and just named me after the city in Georgia I was born in, Savannah. "I'll find you, you little bitch!" I heard daddy scream again, only this time he slammed the back door and I could hear his loud footsteps running down the wooden stairs. I leaned back against my tree to get a look at him, he was wobbling around in the tall weeds in our backyard, a beer bottle of course in his hand.

I wiped my tears and winced as I hit a fresh cut on my forehead. I got in daddy's way when he was trying to get another beer, so he struck me, his ring cutting open my face. That wasn't the first time that happened, daddy has been hitting me ever since I can remember. There's a large scar on my back from when I was five, and daddy took his belt to me. A scar down my left eyebrow that was barely visible for afar, from when my daddy threw a brick at me last year. Scars were hidden and visible all over my entire body, but there were too many to explain, it would take a lifetime.

I could see him coming closer to my hiding spot, the beer sloshing onto the ground as he clumsily walked in my direction. My breathing was getting quicker, knowing if daddy ever found my hiding spot I could never come here again. This was my safe haven, a spot that I didn't have to worry about getting hit, where no one could touch me.

"Savannah!" He called taunting me, I just sank back farther into the branches. There were many days in my life where I contemplated just jumping from this tree, ending everything—there were more and more of those days lately.

I looked back towards our home, if you could really call it that. It was tiny, and so close to the neighboring house we could probably reach through and grab the neighbors—if there were any. My small bedroom window was the one connecting to it.

Our house was rundown, yard full of weeds, cigarette buds spread in every crevice you could find. The house reeked of beer and vomit from my daddy's drunken days...every day was more like it. I hated it here. I hated my life and everything it was, and I don't know what I deserved to receive this pain.

I was very skinny, daddy rarely fed me. I got most of my food from school, but it was summer so I wasn't in school, meaning I was starving—have been for days. My big blue eyes were sunken into my face, which was hollow and pale from lack of nourishment. Daddy I saw had wandered back towards the house when he saw a moving van pull into the small house next door. He tripped over a hole in the ground, falling flat onto his face before quickly getting back up and stomping next door. I couldn't help but smile when I saw his face covered in grass and dirt.

I could see daddy talking with another man who was moving in next door. I saw there were two other boys with him as well. One looked a few years older, possibly a teenager, and the other looked around my age and height, and I was tall for my age. I was happy at the thought of having someone around I could play with, maybe his daddy was nice and could get me out of this hell I called life.

The younger boy had wandered away from his daddy and was walking around in the backyard the connected with ours. He grabbed a stick off of the ground and started drawing circles in the dirt under his feet. I watched him for a while, he looked bored and really upset and I could have sworn I saw him crying at one point. He wasnt too far from my tree, and I'm surprised he hadn't noticed it, it sort of stuck out....and the woodline was maybe fifty yards away from it.

"Hey!" I called out softly to the young boy who was sitting indian style on the ground.

He looked around frantically to find the source of the voice, before shrugging his shoulders and playing with the dirt again. "Up here" I said again. He looked up and finally saw the tree I was sitting in, stood up and slowly walked towards it.

"In the tree." I said. He looked up and our eyes met for a second before he started to ascend the large birch. He took a seat on the branch across from mine, and let his legs swing. He had shaggy brown hair and these really intense blue eyes, but that wasn't what caught my eye....what caught my eye was the fact that he had a busted lip and a black eye.

He seemed to be looking me over as well, our eyes meeting and instantaneously the both of us knowing that we were both in the same boat, and neither of us could help the other.

The young boy's name was Daryl Dixon, he lived with his daddy and his older brother Merle who was four years older than him. I could hear the yelling all throughout the night from my bedroom that was locked shut. I would hear banging and shouting and wanted so badly to press my pillow around my head and drown out the sound, but I never did. I was secretly wanting to make sure that Daryl was ok, that his daddy hadn't beat him so badly I might never see him again.

Daryl had been living next door for a week now, and everyday we would sneak out to my tree and sit without worry...without worrying about our daddys who hated us, both of whom drank to numb the pain of their dead wives. Daryl's I learned died in a fire shortly before he moved over here, but his daddy was still mean way before then. He could hear my daddy just as I could hear his, and the both of us could never do anything about it.

I was sitting in our tree, my back pressed against the trunk of the tree, I was waiting for Daryl...My daddy had passed out a while ago from all his beer and i snuck out the second I heard him snoring. I could hear the shouting from the Dixon house just like I normally did. I would normally hear two pairs of voices, Merle being the second trying to shut their daddy up, Daryl normally kept quite....but now I could hear Daryl's prominently higher voice shouting back.

"I hate you!" I heard him shout before he slammed the backdoor shut and sprinted through the yard. He ran right past our tree and kept on running, and I couldn't see him anymore when he dissapeared into the woods. I sighed before quickly climbing down the tree and landing on the ground softly. I took off running after him, tripping over tree branches several times. "Daryl?" I called out trying to find him, realizing I had gone into the woods pretty far and wasn't sure how to get back.

I heard some sniffling off to my right, and I called out his name again, and again....until i found him sitting on a tree stump with his head in his hands. I bent down on my knees in front of him and placed my hands gently on his knees. He jerked for a moment before realizing it was just me. "I hate him" Daryl said wiping the tears from his eyes. I nodded in response because I hated my daddy just as much. "Me too" I said softly looking down at the dirt my bare knees were leaning in.

"Merle only riles him up, he hates the both of us...I don't have anyone" he whimpered, the tears falling down his face again. I didn't know what came over me, except for wanting to comfort the boy who went through just as much hell as I did. I stood up and wrapped my arms around his thin body, him wincing under my touch. "You have me Daryl, im not going anywhere" I said softly. Daryl then stood up and wrapped his own arms around me tightly, the both of us I could feel needed this comfort from the other. We both knew our lives would probably never get any better, but we could help each other's be a little more bearable.