𝐇𝐀𝐙𝐀𝐑𝐃 │ 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋 𝐃𝐈𝐗𝐎𝐍 ¹ [✔]

[57]: the snow

I didn't flinch, even as the string wrung through my skin. It pulled taught, tugging on my flesh. I just kept my face down, eyes closed. I was too tired.

The grip I had on Daryl was vice-like. I didn't know whether he felt uncomfortable or not about the position we were in; him sitting on the sofa, with myself clutched and close to him. I had my arms wrapped around his neck, nose nuzzled into the dip in his shoulder. I let my body relax against him, only opening my eyes once or twice to see Hershel still tending to my arm.

He had a concentrated look on him, handling me gently and carefully - which I appreciated to no end.

Blood had coated Daryl's back, dripping down the wings on his leather over jacket...

Footsteps approached the room, gaining my attention away from the darkness behind my eyelids, and the stitches now riddling my arm, to the doorway where a new figure stood.

Everyone else had congregated away from this one, giving me space and silence. No one spoke a word when I was pulled from the dumbwaiter, simply ushering my sobbing body to a lighter area of the house.

Hershel cut the last stitch, wrapping gauze where he had done his handy work. I wiped my nose, staring at the new scar I would have. Mix it in with all the other ones, and it became something of a shell. A sign of past weakness. "There we go," he whispered, laying a hand on my shoulder for a moment before standing up from his seat, brushing down his shirt.

Rick stepped further into the room, taking steady steps towards the three of us. He had put his gun somewhere else, I noticed. He approached my eyes like he could still feel the friction between us.

I had grown tired of that feeling.

Sure, we had scared each other. Hurt each other. And it was time to move on from it because I'm sure he knew what we had done to each other.

I shuffled backwards from Daryl, taking a seat in the far corner of the sofa, crossing my legs over one another. The man I once held looked between me and the ex-cop, and I nodded in assurance.

Both Hershel and Daryl left the room, leaving only Rick and me, taking up the air.It was quiet. So quiet and I needed him to talk first because I was sure I had already screamed all the words I had left, down in that basement.

"I'm sorry."

I whipped around in my seat so fast my stomach spun. He had an almost ashamed and embarrassed look on his face, taking his fingers and pressing them into his forehead, closing his eyes tightly. "I'm sorry, Marley," he repeated, putting more feeling into the words I had heard from no one.

"What?" My voice whistled, going no higher than a single decibel. I wrung my hands together in my lap, only moving my right arm slightly due to the pain that still pulsed through every nerve.

He stepped closer, slowly taking a seat on the other far end of the sofa. He didn't look at me for any moment, instead staring at the space between his knees, curling his hands into fists. "I'm sorry for having you go down there."

A pause lifted between us, and the only reason I spoke was to fill the air with words. "We had to see what was down there."

He handled me with a gentle touch to his words, and I appreciated how much effort he was putting into his words after everything I had done.

After everything I had done, I was grateful to each and every single person who treated me like a human being in the group. Because I had treated them so selfishly, yet I was just trying to be something I couldn't put a word to.

"I'm grateful," he voiced my thoughts, looking to my eyes and then down to my arm which lay limply over my crossed legs. "Has anyone asked you if you're okay?"