𝐓𝐈𝐋 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐎 𝐖𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 ⚠︎︎ 𝐉. 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑

chapter five

"H-how was your day?" He didn't answer, she heard him shrugging off his boots, the hard thuds making her wince, every time. Joel walked into the kitchen and completely ignored her, something he did often when he came home.

They didn't even sleep in the same bed anymore. She slept in the bedroom and he would pass out on the couch, drunk out of his mind. Every single night.

Thalia stared at her hands in fear, she wasn't scared of Joel, he'd never lay a harmful hand on her that was for sure, but his ever changing mood did. How they could go from fine to screaming at one another within a matter of seconds.

"There's a bar across town, I'll be there." She stood from the table to find Joel in a different jacket, putting the same boots back on. "What do you mean?"

He looked up at her, "I said I'll be at the bar, I'll be there." She couldn't believe the words coming from his mouth, he came home to change his fucking jacket. "You're not gonna stay?"

"Why the fuck would I stay?" Thalia stood before him with a shocked expression, "Maybe because I asked? Maybe because I'm your wife and you haven't spoken to me in four fucking days?" Her voice was getting louder and louder with each passing word.

"I don't know what you want me to say or do Thalia. Our life has gone to shit and I want to drink that pain away, you got a fuckin' problem with that?"

"Yes! Get your shit together Joel!" His jaw ticked at that, head tilting at the angry tone. He wanted to yell, he wanted to do badly to take his frustrations out on her but he refused. "I lost a lot of shit that night. Don't... give me some fuckin' speech that I need to keep it together."

A tear drop ran down her cheek as she stared at him, quickly wiping it with the sleeve of her shirt. Technically his shirt. "You aren't the only one who lost something that night Joel..."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" The words were right on the tip of her tongue, she had yet to give him his birthday present. Now wasn't the time, that's what she told herself over and over again, but the words slipped anyway.

"Sarah was my daughter too, I lost her, I lost you... and I lost our fucking baby." With those last few words the energy of the room shifted so suddenly. All air left her husbands lungs as he stared at her in disbelief. "You- what?"

Thalia was now sobbing, tears running down her cheeks, "I was pregnant and... stress, or injuries I don't know but I lost it... I lost our baby Joel, so you aren't the only one who lost a child that night."

She returned to the apartment building with a solemn expression, she took her emotions out on the hoard of infected outside the walls. There were dangers, yes, but it took away the pain, even if it was for a short amount of time.

There was something so liberating about letting her anger out on the infected, smashing heads in with the beloved weapon that hasn't left her possession in twenty years.

Thalia looked down at her hip, her holster not holding a gun, the one on her left hip was for the gun, but the one on the right was for her axe. The one Tommy had bestowed upon her that fateful night.

She opened her apartment door with an exaggerated sigh, gently shutting the door behind her and quickly shrugging off her jacket. Thalia groaned at the ache in her lower back, something that happened with age. She was almost fifty, that thought comforted her and scared her.

She'd lived so long and yet most of those years were filled with sorrow and sadness. After her mom died and after the outbreak. There were really only a few good years of her life and they were spent with Joel.