Reflections - TWD

109. Happy birthday, dingus.

The winter wasn't over yet. Daryl had sent Isabella to the kingdom to stay warm, she couldn't understand why he wasn't coming with her. He needed to stay warm too. But he said no. He'd prefer to stay out there, just incase something came up. He promised that Isabella could go back out to him in February.

Freddie walked over to the steps where Isabella was seated next to Henry, talking and laughing. It had been like this a couple of times, but Freddie had just brushed it off.

"Hey, Belly," he smiled, sitting down next to her.

Isabella let her gaze fall from Henry for a moment and glanced at Freddie. "Oh, hi, Freddie," she said before looking back at Henry. "So, what does it do?" She pointed at the small thing he was holding.

It was a silver knife that folded in, there were multiple blades all coming from it in different angles.

"It's for different things," Henry pointed at one of the blades. "This one is for opening boxes, that's what my dad said."

Freddie always felt a little resentful towards the fact that Henry called Ezekiel 'dad' and Carol 'mom'. He just couldn't say the word 'dad'. It hurt him too much. He loved Ezekiel like a father, but that word was just too much. It would never be the same again. All thanks to Pete Anderson.

"Cool," Freddie mumbled, craning over Isabella's shoulder to get a better look.

Isabella nodded. "Yeah. Cool."

"Can't we have a conversation without you, Freddie?" Henry said. Isabella looked down at her shoes. Henry was being nice...to her. She didn't want to ruin this.

How had it come to this? A couple of years ago, Isabella was sticking up to a grown man to protect Freddie, now she wouldn't say a word to someone her own age.

"Yeah- yeah, you can. I just wanted to see Belly while she was here," Freddie said.

"Maybe you should stop calling her Belly. None of us are little kids anymore. It's a stupid nickname. She doesn't even like it," Henry shook his head and continued flicking the blades in and out.

Freddie swallowed the lump in his throat. "Yeah...sorry, it's just- I haven't seen her in a couple of months."

Isabella started picking at her nails. This was her one chance with Henry, she just couldn't screw it up. She liked being called Belly by Freddie, it was his own nickname for her. But she couldn't speak up to Henry.

Maybe it was the fear of Henry acting mean again. The way he humiliated her in front of those boys never left, she'd never not feel hurt by that, no matter how nice Henry was being.

"Neither have I and I'm not calling her stupid nicknames," Henry grumbled. "You need to grow up, Freddie."

But he was growing up. Didn't they realise?

"Sorry," Freddie mumbled, feeling the same sort of shame he would when Ron would yell at him in front of his friends, calling him embarrassing and telling him to go play at the park.

Freddie nudged Isabella with his elbow. "Hey, do you wanna-?"

Henry and Freddie were both looking at each other, waiting for Isabella to say something. She could either go with her best friend and make him happy, or stay with her crush and take this chance. If she didn't stay, Henry was bound to spread rumours about her again. That would make her never want to leave the woods again.