Let Me Be Your Shelter (Being Re-Worked)

Day 93: Life Goes On

That hadn't been the last time Gally had fallen asleep in my bungalow. He stopped by a few more times, mostly after a particularly long day he'd stay and we'd talk in a quiet murmurs, building our fantasies in our heads until he thought I had fallen asleep. After, he'd quietly make his way back to his own hammock, and I'd wake up in an empty bed the next morning. They day would drag on with neither of us ever speaking about the previous night's events. Why would we? Those were our secrets to keep. 

Things in the Glade were quieter than usual, but I couldn't help feeling like there was something wrong; like there was something a few of the boys had been keeping from the whole group. It wasn't far off from Ben's arrival that he replaced Bach as Minho's running partner. Bach was perfectly content going back to building with Gally, and a the time, Ben couldn't have been more ecstatic to get away from him.

It wasn't that he disliked Gally on a personal level. On the contrary, Gally and Ben got along quite well when they weren't working. Unfortunately though, Ben just couldn't deal with Gally's need to be right all the time. Alby quickly recognized that, as well as how how close he and Minho had become. It certainly helped that he was one of the more agile members of the group as well.

It wasn't long after the pair had started running together that the atmosphere in the Glade seemed to change. Everyday they'd come back more exhausted than the next. He'd never admit to it, but Minho was scared and by the quite tense conversations he would have with our leader, he was making Alby scared too.I tried asking Minho about it one morning before he left, but he simply replied, "Worry about your own job Jo, and I'll worry about mine."

Maybe I shouldn't have been prying, but then again if it was something that affected all of us, didn't I have the right to know?

Gally was glad to have Bach back in his corner, and he was even happier to finally be completely healed from his injury. Newt on the other hand, pretended like it didn't bother him, but I knew that it did. I saw the disappointment, and even a little jealousy as Gally threw his crutch into the grass, sprinted toward me, and joyously lifted me over his shoulder. He missed having someone like him around; someone else with a limp; someone who at least partially understood the obstacles he faced. "It was nice. Having someone I could talk to about it," Newt confided in me one afternoon.

Days turned into weeks, and the next thing we knew, we were at another box day. I anxiously awaited, still hopeful that another young woman would appear.

I was let down again. But the two new boys seemed nice enough. Jeff, who remembered his name almost right away, was the smaller of the two, but he was still and inch or two higher than me. He was quieter than most, but much less of a loner than Bach was, and didn't isolate himself the way Mikey did.

It would take the second boy a few more days to remember his name, and even than he wouldn't tell us what it was. Eventually after watching him spend some time in the kitchen with Mikey, and how much better of a cook he was, Newt decided to declare him Frypan. When Alby asked why, Newt replied. "Because he's good with a frying pan, does it have to be any more complicated than that?"

Jeff, and Frypan were brought up with a pair of pigs, a male and a female, just like our goat friends. And, as Alby sent Jeff off to work in the Gardens, he officially put me in charge of the animals full time.