For my sister | Negan |

25 - You, all of you

'Whatever happened to forgive and forget, Christina?' Negan asks me in a dangerous tone. 'I thought we shook hands on a fresh start. Now this, does not feel like a fresh start.'

'I'm sorry', I say quickly. 'You're right.'

'Did you not mean that?' he asks with a deep frown on his face. 'Did you lie to me?'

I back away when he takes a step in my direction, but even though I got away from the chair, there's not much space to go in the relatively small doctor's office.

'I did mean it', I say weakly. 'I wouldn't lie to you again. I promise I'm doing the best I can, I just can't...'

'You can't what?' he asks impatiently.

'I can't forget it! I can work for you, I can be loyal to you, but I can't forget the looks on my friends' faces when they came back after you trapped them in that forest.'

Instead of backing away, I take a few steps in his direction now. I've been holding back ever since I got here. Afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid to unleash his anger. How can he expect me to just move on from everything he's done? Yes, he did one good thing for me, but it's not enough to make me forget. Besides, Ella's right. He found the meds for us, but they're not ours. They're just another thing he can hold over our heads.

'I can't get the image of Spencer's guts out of my mind', I continue, locking my eyes fiercely on his. 'Or Olivia's face with that bullet hole in it. Or Ron...'

I stifle a sob, thinking back to the sweet old man. Negan may not have personally killed him, but I'm pretty sure he would have pulled through with the right medication.

'I had to put him down', I say, swallowing back tears. 'Because you took his meds.'

I jab my finger into his chest to empathize the point, and he staggers back a little. I'm expecting him to yell back at me or grab my throat again like he did at Alexandria at any moment, but he doesn't.

'You've been different since we got here', I go on, not even sure what point I'm trying to get to. 'I thought you were the devil himself before, but maybe... Maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe you can be kind. But I remember what it felt like to be on the receiving end of your anger. Do you have any idea how scared I was when you found out that I hid the drugs? Or when you grabbed me by the throat? I thought you were going to kill me.'

'I apologized to you', he says, having recovered enough to respond to my rant. 'You got any idea how fucking rare that is? I don't apologize to anybody.'

'Okay', I say, rubbing my forehead as I turn away from him. I can not get this angry with him. He's never going to trust me like this, we'll never get out. But I can't help myself.

'And I appreciate that', I say, trying to calm myself down a little. 'But I still can't just get past everything. And if I could... what kind of person would that make me?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean...'

I need to stop talking. Seriously, stop talking now.

'If I could really forget it, if I could forgive you, wouldn't that be an insult to their memory?'

My voice breaks a little at the end. Because this is exactly what's been keeping me up all night. How could I kiss him after everything he's done? I tell Ella that I hate him as much as she does, but while I can lie to her, I can't lie to myself.

I don't hate him as much as I should.

And that's dangerous. Because he's dangerous. He's staring at me with his brows deeply furrowed. I've no idea what he's going to do. I don't want to know what he'll do if I made him mad.