sweet caroline | n.

vii. silent treatment.

sweet caroline. chapter seven.
SUMMARY ; caroline refuses to talk to negan, and he won't quit until she tells him why.

❝ go ahead and cry little girl
nobody does it like you do
i know how much it matters to you
i know that you got daddy issues ❝
——

CAROLINE WAS struggling to set her tent up, to say the least. she had never done this before and she didn't bother reading the directions on the paper taped to the back of it, she didn't think it would be this hard. the blonde huffed, blowing a piece of hair that had fallen in front of her eye away, as she was seated on the ground with the fallen tent surrounding her. the sun had completely gone down about twenty minutes ago, long after caroline had started this process. negan kept shooting her looks as he watched the situation unfold, she refused to let him help her, she wanted to do it on her own. negan of course had his up within minutes, and caroline knew he did it just to frustrate her more than she already was.

caroline turned her head over to negan's tent — which he had thankfully sat up about ten feet away — rolling her eyes when she saw the amused grin tugging on the corner of his mouth. "would you just shut up and help me?" caroline said, her shoulders falling in defeat. the man chuckled, pushing himself away from the tree he was leaning against to make his way over to the blonde seated on the ground. he ruffled the hair on the top of her head once he reached her, before he got to work on standing up the poles and stretching out the material of the tent.

caroline watched him have it put together within minutes, her mouth gaping open in shock, how had negan — out of all people —possibly been able to do it so easily? when the man turned his head to look at the girl she shot him a glare, rolling her eyes when he chuckled at her. caroline pressed her palms into the cold, dirt ground beneath her to push herself up onto her feet, standing next to the man in front of her purple coloured tent. negan snatched her blanket up off from the floor, to instead toss it inside the tent through its unzipped opening.

"thank you." the blonde mumbled to him, before turning her head to the right to look him in the face, after he was finished admiring his work, negan met her gaze, shooting the girl a warm grin once the two made eye contact. "sure thing, blondie," he spoke as he lifted his arm to squeeze his fingers around the back of her neck in a playful gesture, it was only for a mere second, but that was enough time to make caroline's heart jump against her chest at the feeling of his hands near her neck. once he had dropped his arm back down and left the blonde's side to retreat back over to his tent, caroline could still feel the spots his thumb and other four fingers had squeezed against.

the girl swallowed hard, her eyes squeezing shut to try and rid of the unfamiliar feeling in the pit of her stomach. she needed to stop, she was about to head down a path that would lead neither of them nowhere good, she knew she needed to listen to her father and stay clear of negan, it would be for the best, it was the only way neither of them would get hurt, physically or emotionally.

but he made it so difficult, negan was nothing like the others, nothing like anyone else she's ever met, he said things others were too afraid to and did things he wasn't supposed to, most of all he worried about caroline, he made sure she ate, he stayed up alongside her all night long, and for once in her life he made the girl feel like someone would notice if she left.

but they were just silly, immature feelings. they didn't mean anything, he was the first man to ever do and say the things that he did, and caroline's teenage emotions were just simply acting out. it was what the blonde had to tell herself, she couldn't risk them being anymore, it would only leave her heartbroken.