Don't Get Dead | TWD | Volume 1

[6] I was Bored

I can't express how hard it was to stop myself from laughing at that moment. All I could do was watch. Watch as Glenn drew his eyebrows together as he looked back at Merle. Watch his head snap back to look at the grease on my arm now concealed by the sleeve. Watch as his eyes bulged out of his head when he finally realised what happened.

His eyes flew up to meet mine in a silent question.

It was you?

Fidgeting in my chair, I pursed my lips.

It was me.

I stood up, quickly rushing past Glenn to leave my bowl on a table outside the RV. I had to leave; if Merle had seen me there, he would have known. I needed to clean the rest of the grease off my arm in case anybody else saw.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Shane at the Dixon camp. He was trying to calm Merle down, who just kept arguing with him. Shane looked fed up, just trying to quieten Merle down so he didn't wake up the rest of the camp.

I left quickly, following the dirt road down towards the quarry so I could clean the grease from my arms. As I was walking, I heard footsteps behind me. Fearful that it might've been Merle, I glanced back over my shoulder.

Glenn was the one following me. "Are you insane? Do you have a death wish or something?"

I didn't answer.

Rolling back the sleeves of my hoodie, I rubbed at the splotches of grease still on my arms. I missed so much the night before, I would never have been able to get rid of all this with a single rag. It was lucky I was wearing the hoodie, because the sleeves concealed most of them.

"Why would you do that?"

"I don't know," I shrugged.

There was a pause before Glenn spoke again. "You don't know?"

His tone sounded more concerned than anything, like he actually thought that Merle was going to kill me. Not that I doubted it for a second, why else would I be running down to the quarry to wash my arms?

I wasn't going to let Glenn know that. "I was bored, I guess."

"So bored that you wanted to be killed?!"

Stopping in my tracks, I spun on the heel of my feet to look at him. "That's a little dramatic."

He didn't get the chance to speak before I turned back to the quarry to continue my journey, swinging my arms as I walked. He followed me, walking at my side. His silence told me he was less panicked than he originally was.

"Why do you care anyway?" I asked. "It's not like he's going to kill you."

"I can't keep secrets," he told me. "I suck at lying, I can't play poker, it's too much like lying."

I stared at him for a moment, wondering if this was really the excuse he was going with. "You wouldn't be lying if you don't speak to him."

"You don't understand," he told me. "I'm going to tell him."

My eyes widened, and I turned to look at him. "Why?!"

"Not on purpose!" He defended quickly, raising his hands in defence.

"Glenn," I started, "you never even talk to him. Why would you suddenly just tell him now?"

"Just . . . because!"

"That's not an answer."

It took us a few minutes to walk to the quarry, neither of us speaking as we finally made it to the water's edge. I kneeled, dipped my hand in the cold lake and started scrubbing at the black marks that covered my arms.