like real people do | c.g [#wattys2019]

E M P T Y

THERE ARE A FEW SECONDS right when I wake up, where I just forget. I'm laying in bed and the sunlight's hitting my face, and I haven't opened my eyes quite yet but I can feel Carl next to me. And in those small periods of time, in those feeble moments, I forget.

And that makes it even more painful when it all rushes back. Because the image of Glenn's body laying on the ground surrounded in a pool of his own blood is still etched on the back of my eyelids and it's the first and last thing I see every day.

I wish I could stay in that moment, right when I wake up. Where everything is warm and safe and there's nothing wrong. It's just another day in Alexandria, and I'm gonna get out of bed without waking Carl up and go back home where Glenn and Maggie will greet me with a warm smile.

But that's not my life anymore. Instead, if I go back to my house, I'm met with emptiness. Most of the time, Rosita and Eugene have already left. They're both working their asses off, everyone is, for when he comes. I think it helps with their grief.

And as for Maggie, she's still at the Hilltop. So, the house is empty and cold all of the time. I remember complaining to Enid about it being always packed with people, about everyone being too loud. I think I'd give anything to go back to those times.

Carl asked if I wanted to just completely move in with them. It's not like I'm not always there, and I can tell he doesn't think the empty house is helping me. He just wants what's best for me right now, and I know that, but I still told him no. The last conversation I ever had with Glenn was exactly the same thing, and the last words I told him were that I loved them and wanted to stay at our house. I'm not gonna go and break that now, even if there's virtually no one there to notice.

He didn't push me. We just left it there, he didn't even ask why I'd rather stay in a dead house instead of with him. If you look at it from that point of view, I think he could've found it insulting. But he didn't, he just nodded and wrapped his arms around me before pressing a kiss to my forehead. I think he understood. Even if he didn't fully get why. And that's enough.

Carl keeps trying to walk on eggshells with me, though, and it can get a bit annoying. I know there are things he wants to say that he keeps to himself, I know that he's worried. I haven't been eating much and the only sleep I seem to get comes to me way too late at night. And I know that it upsets him. Because he knows I'm hurting and that there's nothing he can do to stop it.

I've been on the other side of this, I know how he feels. So, a part of me wants to tell him to stop. That he can talk to me, that I'm not gonna crack under his fingertips like some sort of porcelain doll. That maybe all I need is to be snapped out of this weird, self-pitying trance I seem to have adopted, but I don't. I never do.

Because another part of me doesn't want him to. I feel like I need to be as sad as I possibly can right now, so I won't be in shambles when we need to fight. Because we're going to have to, and I want us to. I'm done bottling up my feelings. Glenn is too important for me to drag his memory under the rug and try to pretend everything's okay.