You don't control me, Dixon

➋ 45: Fuck Strangers, no, Not Like That

♤

As we walk up to the bar front I tap each of my knives, lingering and fingering at the notches. I don't want any but my stomach is twisting painfully. My heart pounding as we near it. I don't like this.

I roll my eyes and push the doors only to see Hershel throwing one back.

I wait as the boys flank me and we walk forward. Rick sits to his left as Glenn sits to the right, I'm next to Glenn. I stand from my seat and go behind the bar, I don't want to drink I just want water. I look under the counter and a gleam of a gun stares me down. I shrug and find a bottle of water.

I walk back to my seat and open the bottle, drinking some as Rick scolds the older man.

As Hershel pours another one I can tell Rick is getting frustrated. I tap the counter and softly call "Hershel."

He sighs and looks at the Glenn and me, the youngest and Glenn's probably not able to drink. I'm definitely not.

"Glenn. Did Maggie send him? Maggie send Lucy too?" I stare at the broken man. His face stern sand frozen. If I didn't know better I would guess he was a statue.

Rick lean back on his stool as he voices "They volunteered. They're good like that."

I watch as my stomach twists as Hershel pours another. I look around him, the wrapping for the bottle was next to him. He's almost downed half a bottle. I twitch as my hair on my arms raise.

I bite my lips as Rick asks roughly "How many have you had?"

Hershel down it as he breathes "Not enough."

I fiddle with my hair as he pours more to drink, I don't like him drinking this much. Who knows what kind of drunk he is. My mom, The nights that memories grew too much and her phantom leg pains began to hurt, she'd call some of her old Army buddy's and drink.

I -of course- would wait up worried and -even though I wouldn't admit it to my mum- just the smallest bit of scared. You never know how people truly are until they are drunk. It was the first time, maybe eight months after dad got in jail. I was panicking and was sobbing, it all halted the moment I heard the car pull up.

I ran behind a chair and watched as she stumbled in, bumping into walls, every sound making me flinch and cringe, my eyes dry and wide as my face was wet from the previous meltdown.

Finally, as I watched as she stumbled to my room my hair rose and my heart wanted out my chest. She quietly opened the door and must have found my messy room from my panic because she sobered and whipped around.

I -not being used to worry and not anger- sprinted from the couch and to the door she recklessly left unlocked, sprinting down the street in my pajamas. She found me the next morning by the playground, stuck in a tree.

"Let's finish this up back at home. Beth collapsed, is in some sort of state." I flinch out of the memory and focus on Rick who spoke, I nodded subtly and murmur "Must be in shock. I think you are too."

He gives me a look and I give a lackluster one back. He eyes the marks on my face from Shane, there's a dark bruise on my jaw and a scrape on the side of my face on the opposite.

He -seemingly uninterested in my face or my cast thingy- turns to Rick, voice rough from the booze "Maggie's with her?"

I shift as Glenn mutters bitterly "Yeah, but Beth needs you."

He grunts before sighing and placing his head in his palm, muttering "What could I do? She needs her mother. Or rather to mourn like she should've done weeks ago. I robbed her of that."