ALL THE LOVELY BAD ONES | CARL GRIMES

thirty one. absence of everything

"I don't have any secrets. And from how you're talking, I'm sure you already know what I'm thinking."

"I want you to tell me that I'm wrong then. That that isn't what you're planning."

"Don't worry about it." Was all he said.

"I am going to worry about it, Carl." I told him plaintively as he sat down next to me with a heavy sigh, as he had clearly heard my irate ranting a time and time again. "You keep going and putting yourself in danger but you don't need to prove yourself to anyone."

"I'm not trying to prove anything. I just want to even things out." Then he took my hand. The ugly one. I didn't wear bandages on it anymore, it had healed completely. I didn't like looking at it, it was gnarled and gruesome. But Carl held it in his own gently, running his thumb over the melted skin where it had to be cauterized.

"Nothing is ever going to even out. Look, don't think I don't know what your plan is but you won't be doing me any favors if you go and get yourself killed trying to be a hero. I need you." I felt awkward saying the next part but I knew it was what would help my case. "We need you."

Jesus Christ. The baby and I. We? What absolute cheesy bullshit. Fortunately it did the job.

I hated myself for bringing it up.

Because then his hand was covering my lower stomach again, it almost never left the spot. I guess Carl found it comforting. I'm not sure. "The world is gonna be a helluva better place when you get out." He did that sometimes. Talked to the baby. I never did. When I asked him about it he said it was something he had done when his mother was first pregnant with Judith. He'd put his hands on her belly, sing or talk about his day. Kid stuff. He told me he stopped doing it after a while, once things got rough on the road. No more kid stuff. He then looked up, his eye almost light. "I think you're starting to show a bit."

I felt my eyes nearly bulge. "Maggie's over a month further along that I am and she wasn't showing." I hopped up from the bed, quickly making my way over to the standing mirror stationed unused in the corner of the room. I twisted back and forth, examining my appearance. Lifting my shirt and dropping it. Sure, I looked a little bloated, but definitely not pregnant. I turned to him and scowled. "You're a dumbass."

"I never realized how much you cared about your looks." He was teasing now, a good sign.

I took one of the pillows and smacked him upside the head with it. "Shut the hell up, I know I look like shit."

"Quit bitching. No, you don't." He said, laughing, hair all astray from the pillow attack. "Look at you, you're practically glowing."

We both knew I was definitely not glowing, so I rolled my eyes at his remark. "I just don't want people making assumptions."

"Won't really be assumptions if they're true." He could still be such a boy, like the one I met at the prison who bantered with me. While I did enjoy our caustic conversations, I did feel an inkling of fear over it the truth behind it.

I plopped back down and pulled my feet up, crisscrossing my legs. "If people start to notice, especially your dad..."

"We can just tell them it was immaculate conception." Carl offered.

I couldn't help the exasperated smile from crossing my face, Carl always had a way of doing that, even in my most irritated of moods. "Oh, so you were listening all those times you came to Father Gabriel's sermons with me?"

"You think so lowly of me that I'd zone out in church? In the Lord's house?" He clutched his chest, sighing heavily, really laying on thick how deeply I'd offended his honor. "El, you wound me."