ALL THE LOVELY BAD ONES | CARL GRIMES

ten. pretty white lies

Because Carl Grimes was crying.

Another tear made its way down his cheek, leaving a wet, red streak.

For a moment, he let me watch him weep. I'm not sure which one of us was more shocked at his incredibly vulnerable expression of emotion, this boy, usually so void, had broken first. I wonder if he, too, had made a silent vow to keep such an emotion in check.

I hated seeing anyone distressed, in tears, any of it. And here I was: being the cause of it. I had made him cry. Something that took a split second for us to both realize and then recoil in disturbance at the gloom-ridden fact of it all. Neither of us moved for a moment, the weight of it heavy in the air. I wondered what had afflicted Carl to express such sorrow so candidly, so readily that he almost hadn't realized he had been doing it.

That small inkling; the one I pushed down whenever I felt it rise up my spine. Memories of whispers in the dark under a canopy of stars, incandescent eyes seeking my gaze out across the courtyard, the soft brush of shy lips meeting mine for the first and only time. The little things that reminded me that there was something deeper here, between he and I. That while we taunted each other playing cat and mouse all this time, that something was building beneath the surface. And I wished that I could deny it all, pretend I felt nothing at all, but Carl was crying over me. Me. I could not just act like that just simply meant nothing.

Then his surprise at his own display of emotion subsided and he quickly moved to recover, dropping my arm, wiping furiously at his eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked again, softer this time.

"I couldn't. I-I didn't want to believe it." I croaked out, almost too weak to speak completely coherent. I think about Patrick, how around noon he and Carl were passing the soccer ball back and forth but by the evening he couldn't even leave his cell for dinner. Then in the middle of the night, he got up and dropped dead. I had royally screwed up by trying to ignore the decline of my own health. "I'm sorry."

His breathing was measured, each inhalation drawn out as though attempting to tether his fraying emotions to some semblance of composure. Was it the strain of restraining his temper, I wondered, or the weight of further unshed tears pressing against the dam of his resolve? And as I watched him navigate the delicate balance between restraint and vulnerability, I couldn't help but wonder at the depths of his inner turmoil, concealed beneath a veneer of composure.

"I guess I should go to Beth-"

"No."

"But I promised."

Carl shook his head. "No." He repeated, firmer this time. "They'll kill you. Like they did Karen and David."

"They won't."

"What makes you think that?" His voice, though steady, carried a subtle undertone of concern, a faint trace of apprehension threading through the words. Leaning against the wall beside me, he shifted his weight, angling his body slightly to meet my gaze. His chin dipped downward, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that belied his outward composure. Despite his best efforts to mask his emotions, a hint of vulnerability lingered in the rosy flush of his cheeks, a silent testament to the small amount of crying he had done.

"Well, it was only them. Nothing like that has happened to any of the other sick people-"

"They'll kill you. Burn you alive." Panic evident in his voice. "Eleanor don't go to A Block. Don't."

"You made Lizzie go—"

"—That's because I don't give a shit about Lizzie." It was a cruel thing for him to say, but expecting a polite response from Carl in almost an scenario was like expecting snow in July. However, his wording implied that he did give a shit about me.