It Ends With Us

Chapter 19: Infection

Juliet

     We've been on the road for what seemed like hours, the drive along the way was just dead silent. I couldn't bring myself to play music in the truck like I did last time, so as much as I hated the silence I just dealt with it. I looked outside my window, we passed by many tall trees and rural houses. We had gotten out of Lake City long ago, wherever we were at now, it looked completely unfamiliar to me.

    We had started to pull into a small isolated town, I noticed through the snow foggy windshield that a few sickos were limping around here, not aware of our presence yet. We both knew we couldn't risk them seeing us, so Noelle continued to drive farther away into the town. We ended up finding a good place to rest in with no sickos around, Noelle pulled into a parking lot in front of some old diner. Next to the diner was a small pharmacy.

  I noticed the giant sign from above the place that spelled out 'Parker's Diner'. Chills ran down my arms when I noticed the name, the same last name I carried. For some reason that seemed to have made me feel off about it, as if there was no one out there who also carried the same last name as me.

"What are we doing here?", I questioned.

"I figured why not look around inside the pharmacy to see if we can grab any more medical supplies for us", she replies.

"We already have plenty of medicine though?", but then it hit me. She was referring we get more 'medical' stuff such as bandages and all that crap you use to clean your wounds. We had run out of bandages ever since that awful day. Ever since my right eye got blinded.

   Now having my mind remind me of that day, I couldn't help but think about Dani. The way she kept me going through the day with that bright smile of hers. A sting pinches my heart when I think of her, I wondered to myself if there could've been a way for me to save her. A way to help her, maybe if caught up to her just in time before that sicko had bitten her, she would still be here with us. 

That pure hearted brunette girl could've still been here.

Was it my fault?

I swallowed away the guilt, it took me a moment to realize that Noelle had been calling my name.

"Sorry, what did you say?", I snap out of my trance.

Noelle looks at me concerned, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, perfectly fine", I say sarcastically.

I sigh, leaning my head against the window, "I'm sorry, it's just that... I was thinking about her"

Noelle places a hand on my shoulder, "I miss her too"

   I shake my head, "I don't know how to feel, I used to think that having the world fall apart would cure everything that happened in my past life. It clearly didn't. If anything, it just made things worse...a whole lot worse. Who could've ever thought that'd be possible? Now Dani is gone, and it kills me knowing I could've maybe done something to stop it. I don't know if I should feel wrong for feeling like this... but I just can't help it"

Tears began to spring into my eyes, a knot forming inside my throat. Silence fills the truck.

"There was nothing you could've done Jule, please don't blame yourself. I thought the same you know, if I had noticed there was something wrong with Dani at the time... I thought that maybe we could've saved her somehow. But then I remember she was bitten. A bite like that would be quite impossible to save anyone from, and it's the hard truth", she says. 

"That's just the world we're living in now"

  Noelle looks out the windshield, staring at the diner in front of us. "Let me please tell you this though. Now, I don't what you've been through or what your life was like before, but just know that you should never feel wrong about how you feel"