Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
╚═══════════════╝
H E R
I slammed the book shut and threw it onto the white canvas of the light blanket resting beside me on my bunk. I ran my nail bitten fingers through my hair, catching all the knots and leaving the bedraggled curls to rest.
Letting out a breath from between my teeth, I hauled my body, heavy with tire, to its feet. I had not slept well lately. My midnight encounter with Carl might have been the culprit.
God, did it leave some kind of strange affect on me.
While the conversation had been a total disaster in my opinion, but my impertinent optimism was hopeful I could find redemption by speaking to him once more and being normal. But at the same time, I wanted to leave it be; not lead myself to further embarrassment and call it quits on any more Carl Grimes communication attempts. It was not worth losing my dignity over. Then again, my curiosity got the better of me.
I stayed up, wondering if I should venture onto the veranda in hopes of maybe seeing him. And eventually I did, but he was never there. Either he started going at different times or stopped going completely.
The latter made sense, considering he never made an appearance at meals after that.
He had a funny way of making himself disappear.
So after a Carl-less breakfast, I made my way outside. Feeling slightly free, no weight on my shoulders knowing Carl was in his cell, moping, and I wouldn't be running into him.
The sun was low hanging and languid in the sky, a molten orb that seemed to melt the very air around it, drenching the earth in a heavy, oppressive heat. The humidity of it was thick, cloying. Clinging to my skin like damp velvet. I could feel it seeping into my bones, reminding me of the unrelenting Alabaman spring seasons of my youth, when time itself seemed to slow to a crawl beneath the weight of the heat. Promising a miserable approach of summer. Made me almost miss winter.
It was going to be another long day.
It made me wonder what Carl did between the hours of dawn and dusk.
I couldn't place my feelings about the boy. He left me utterly confused yet somehow wanting more, like one of those mystery series I used to read. Except with a book, you can skip to the end and get your answers. But with this Carl Grimes man-boy-thing, all I got was that sharp stare that hid a tangled cobweb of his background. Who was he? What was he? He moved and talked with such sharp precision it's like he was hardly human. Some kind of child-weapon.
