Fallout

65 Days Since Outbreak, 3:00 P.M.

Her eyes lock with mine and we stare at each other until my vision clouds with tears and, for the first time in two months, my walls come crashing down, reducing to a pile of rubble around me as debris dance through the air, encasing me- I finally break.

"Mom?"

***

Whatever I am about to say gets caught in my throat as my mom runs toward me, closing the distance between us and wrapping her arms around me tightly. She squeezes me as though if she doesn't hold me tight enough, I will turn to smoke and slip through her embrace. She strokes my hair and kisses my forehead. "Faith, oh, my beautiful, little girl."

I hesitate before pushing her away from me. Her teary eyes are filled with confusion. "Faith?"

I avoid her stare at first, glaring down at my ripped, blackened boots. I can feel my face contort in disgust and my lips press together tightly. My voice is barely audible and it breaks slightly when I begin to speak. "I thought you where dead."

Mom opens her mouth to say something, but I interrupt her, shouting loudly this time. "I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

If they weren't already, practically the entire camp has stopped what they were doing and turned to listen. "Do you have any idea what I've been through in the past two months? What we've been through?" I gesture to Isaac, who puts his hand on my shoulder gently.

"Faith-"

"No!" I shake him off. "She needs to hear it!"

My mother reaches for me, but I back up so that I am just out of reach. "The night of the outbreak, Isaac and I went back for you, for all of you. Do you know what we saw when we got home? Nothing. No traces of you, or Dad, or any of Isaac's parents. Nothing but empty drawers and bare walls. Not even two hours after the outbreak and the place was picked clean!"

"Faith, we had to leave. There was an evac-"

"You think I don't know that?" I can feel my heart rate picking up and reach for my pills again, as if they had magically reappeared in my pocket. "Imagine what it was like for us getting out of Athens in that! Listen, I get it. You got caught up in the fear and the chaos and suddenly I wasn't a top priority, but don't you think I was scared, too? You could have called! You knew I would come back for you! We could have met up somewhere. We could have-" My words jumble together in a slur of desperation and I pause to breathe and try to slow my heart rate.

Now she is shouting back at me, "Everything was down! Phones, computers, running water. Everything! There was nothing I could do to reach you ...and that guilt ate at me every damn day! All I could think was that my baby was gone and I wasn't good enough of a mother to save her! And then your father-" She stops immediantly and I can see a small tear slip down her cheek just before she turns away.

All my anger vanishes and, before I can stop myself, the words have already slipped from my mouth, obliterating the silence and wedging open a void within me. "He's dead, isn't he?"

My mom turns back to face me slowly, as if any sudden movement will send me running. Her bloodshot eyes are filled with only the kind of saddness you see in people who have lost so much. Her lips are trembling as she opens her mouth to confirm what I already know. "Yes."

Isaac rubs gentle circles on my back, waiting for the realization to set in and for the floodgates to come crashing open, drowning me in sorrow. But instead of feeling sadness or anger or any emotion at all, I feel nothing. I am absolutely numb.

The void inside of me widens and sucks every humane thought and feeling into it like a vacuum. In a matter of seconds I am left an empty shell of a person, and I can't even feel scared that I may just be losing my humanity, piece by piece. I look into my mom's eyes and suddenly I am glad that I don't feel the pain that she is obviously feeling. Or at least I think I am glad. I just nod my head, as if to say "I figured" and turn my back from her astounded stare that watches me so closely as I walk away.