Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
╚═══════════════╝
H E R
I'm bullshit at lying and I'm bullshit at keeping things to myself.
So, when he found me hunkered in the corner, it was like he just knew.
"Are you sick?" Carl asked, eyes narrowed and head tilted accusingly. He towered over me, almost threateningly as I leaned heavily against the wall since my legs were having trouble supporting me.
I didn't answer.
"Are you sick?" He repeated, louder and angrier, his fingernails dug into the my wrist as he flipped my arm over revealing the specks of blood soaked into the fabric covering the crook of my elbow. I tried tugging my arm away but Carl kept me in his vice like grip, his head ducked and shaggy hair covered his eyes. "How long?" He asked after a long time.
"Since yesterday, I think. I'm not sure." I answered, swallowing the lump in my throat.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Although his voice was still full of venom, it broke off at the end and I could tell that he wasn't really all that angry with me.
I tried wrenching my arm free from his grip but that only resulted in his fingers tightening around my wrist. He kept his head down, resisting eye contact from me. It didn't matter. I was afraid of what awaited me in the blue depths of those eyes. I wasn't ready to see the hatred and loathing that I had seen all those months ago when I had first arrived and he was nothing but a pubescent ball of angst and self-pity. He had come so far from then. So so far. I didn't want to be the one to drag him down to where he had begun.
Then I felt something wet drip onto the palm of my hand. And Carl looked up.
He wasn't mad. He wasn't angry. I saw how scared he was.
Because Carl Grimes was crying.
Another tear made its way down his cheek, leaving a wet, red streak.
For a moment, he let me watch him weep. I'm not sure which one of us was more shocked at his incredibly vulnerable expression of emotion, this boy, usually so void, had broken first. I wonder if he, too, had made a silent vow to keep such an emotion in check.
I hated seeing anyone distressed, in tears, any of it. And here I was: being the cause of it. I had made him cry. Something that took a split second for us to both realize and then recoil in disturbance at the gloom-ridden fact of it all. Neither of us moved for a moment, the weight of it heavy in the air. I wondered what had afflicted Carl to express such sorrow so candidly, so readily that he almost hadn't realized he had been doing it.
