Bleeding Love | Daryl Dixon

Chapter Fourteen.

My fingers started to prune as i sat by the water and scrubbed a dirty plaid shirt, Daryl's shirt. Amy, Andrea, Jackie, Carol and I were washing the groups clothing down by the water quarry in camp. Daryl and Merle had wandered off to go hunting, and since I hated it I just grabbed their pile of dirty clothing in their tent and decided to wash it. I felt beads of sweat rolling down my forehead from the hot summer heat, and i reached up and wiped some away with my now wet hand. I sighed and tossed Daryl's shirt in the clean bin and grabbed one of my own. Washing clothes was incredibly boring, and there had to a better and more interesting way to contribute in camp.

With the exception of Daryl, Merle and Glenn most of the men thought it was the woman's duty to cook, clean and look after kids even after the world went to hell. I could shoot any weapon with the best of them, including Rick and Shane who were cops, but they never wanted to let me do anything, so here I am scrubbing until my fingers fall off because this is where a woman should be. I saw across the water Shane was splashing Carl with a bucket of water. I smirked and rolled my eyes at his immaturity but was glad that Carl was having some fun.

"Im beginning to question the division of labor around here" Jackie said as she ringed out a shirt and grabbed a new one to wash. "Tell me about it" Amy mumbled from my left. I laughed and nudged her with my elbow making her gasp and toss some water on me. Over the past week or so Amy, Andrea and i had become very close and I treated Amy like a younger sister since she was probably ten years younger than I was. And even though Andrea was a bit older, I still loved hanging around her. They were the two women I would talk to the most, the other were pretty quiet most of the time. Miranda, Morales's wife was determined to home school her children even in these circumstances so I rarely saw her. I liked Jackie, she was smart but was also quiet. 

Carol made me angry a lot of the time, everyone in the group knew Ed liked to knock her around, her and Sophia but she would never do anything about it. As the child from an abusive home, I know exactly how it feels to be little Sophia, but she had a mother that could protect her, I never had that. I like to think that if my mother had lived she would have protected me, that my father would have never turned out that way but I will never know. Carol might be broken and in a terrifying marriage that she couldn't get out of, I might be mad that she didn't try harder to protect her child, but the larger part of me just wanted to keep her safe no matter how mad she made me.

And then there was Lori....Words wouldn't even express how badly I wanted to punch this woman in the face. When I first met her I felt like she was sweet and caring, a grieving widow who had been through hell and back but boy was a I wrong. I soon realized that Lori had a thing for the deputy along with the sheriff, I caught her and Shane making out against a tree a few days ago, even though her husband was clearly alive and well. Cheating was unforgivable, and even though in my younger years I slept around a lot I was never in a committed relationship with any of them, and I quit sleeping around the second i realized my heart would always belong to Daryl. 

Lori had this air about her like she wanted to be in charge, like she felt she was the queen bee in camp and could do no wrong. She wasn't even down here helping with the rest of us, she never helped with anything she just sat on her high horse and watched the rest of us and like I said it only made me want to punch her in the face. I looked over and saw she was talking about something with Shane and then Carl storming off back to camp. "Bitch" I mumbled under my breath looking away from Lori and down to wash a pair of Merle's pants. 

I heard someone laugh beside me and looked over to see Andrea nodding her head in agreement. "I miss my washer" Carol said sighing in boredom as she continuously washed one of Sophia's shirts. "I miss texting" Amy said not looking up from the wash bin. I shrugged never really having anyone to text other than Daryl, and that was normally only asking him to grab something on the way home from work.  "I miss my vibrator" Andrea suddenly said causing me to jerk my head up to look at her. I made eye contact with her and both of us started laughing.