Never Have I Ever Fallen in Love

Chapter 3

Daryl.

I stood there for a second, eyes wide and thoughts racing, not trusting myself to speak.

I cleared my throat awkwardly and did a quick sweep of the landscape before turning and striding back into the house. The sound of his boots stomping away filled my ears along with the sound of my own heart beat.

Daryl. Fucking. Dixon.

I shouldn't really be surprised though. If anyone was going to survive this damn apocalypse, it was going to be him.

A tough redneck who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty and could use a crossbow better than he could use his own fucking brain?

Seems legit.

I swallowed again and started playing with my hands as I switched my glance between Daryl through the window and the room with Carl in. The poor boy was in so much pain and I felt sympathy for his parents. I'd never had kids, nor did I want to, but if I had, I'd be dying if I was in the position Carl's parents were in now.

Daryl.

The name interrupted my thoughts.

That name. That face glancing up at me. That voice.

They all bought back memories of when I was younger. When we were together.

You see, I've know Daryl all of my life.

The guy was my everything at one point in my life.

We were friends for years. Best friends actually. I would often go to his house, spend hours on end just messing around with each other then running out the back door and deep into the woods whenever the front door slammed open. Daryl lived with his older brother, Merle, and his dad in a tiny shack on the out skirts of Georgia. Merle would constantly hit on me whenever I was there, winding me up and causing him to chuckle every time I snapped back a sarcastic remark. It was worse when he was drunk or high, constantly letting his eyes wander as well as his hands. Daryl's "dad" would often lunge for his son, knocking me out of the way and pinning Daryl to the floor in the earlier stages of our friendship. The first time that had happened, I was demanded by Daryl to "get the fuck out". He showed up at my house later that night with a face full of cuts and bruises and from then on, Daryl had made sure both me and him were well away from his house when he came back.

Me and Daryl went out after that and Merle suddenly backed off.

Daryl was my first everything. He was the person I went on my first date with. He was my first kiss. My real first love.

My first...

And here he was. At my fucking safe haven.

The guy who had tore my heart out and ripped it into bits was here, smirking down at me.

Maggie suddenly appeared next to me and nudged me softly.

"You've been stood like that for almost 5 minutes now...you alright?"

I didn't answer and just glanced out at Daryl again.

"What? You like the new guy? He is kinda hot..."

Something snapped inside of. I didn't know if it was anger that someone other than me thought Daryl was hot or sadness because I couldn't call him mine anymore. But something did. And it made me feel awful.

I narrowed my eyes at Maggie and took a step backwards.

"Nah. The guy looks bad news. C'mon, lets go meet them all."

 The group of people stopped talking and looked up at us as we exited the house and me and Maggie smiled kindly but both of us never letting our guard down. Me especially. 

"Hey! I'm Glenn. T Dog, well, on the highway there was a herd, a huge one, bigger than like, this field and we all hid and T Dog, he bent down and he accidentally..." a Korean man stood there, stuttering helplessly, staring at Maggie as if she was pure gold or some shit.

I rolled my eyes and walked towards the man who had held his arm out. I gently lifted the old shirt that had been made into a make shift bandage and nodded slowly. 

"I'll sort it out." I said quietly, fully aware of the eyes of a certain redneck burning into my skull.

I gently led T Dog into the house, closing the door quietly behind us.