thirty three
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MY HEART WAS STILL BEATING UNEVENLY as Carl and I quietly sat at the kitchen bar, plates of food in front of us. He had practically shoved his whole sandwich into his mouth within three bites to avoid any chance of awkward conversation. On the other hand, I had barely touched mine. My previous hunger had completely vanished after the — whatever that was. I thought that if I were to put anything more on my stomach currently, It would come right back up. In fact, the mere look of the sandwich was now making me feel ill. I took my finger, moving it back from my sight. My eyes stayed on the ground, watching my swaying legs hover over the wood.
Carl pushed himself off the counter stool, grabbing his plate.
"You done?" He asked, his gaze heavy on me.
I nodded, handing him my plate he hesitantly reached for. "Thanks."
"Mhm." He hummed out.
Instead of just simply throwing the bitten sandwich into the trash can, he wolfed it down, too. Then, he put our plates into the empty sink Carol had obviously cleared from our pancake attempt. Running the water over them, I catched him glancing at me. Instead of looking in the opposite direction, he only furrowed his brows delicately while placing his hands on the counter. My finger was twisting the ring on my middle finger. My thumb ran across the smooth plasticy-metal.
"Can I ask you something?" The boy spoke. His eyes were still hooked on me from across the kitchen island.
"Yeah," I cleared my throat. "Of course."
"Are we gonna forget about this kiss, too?" He asked, in a rather serious tone.
My eyes widened slightly at his bluntness. Although, I knew why he asked this. I'd told him to 'forget it', the first time we had kissed. Tried to convince myself that we had to stay friends to stay safe, because god forbid I care for another like I now knew I cared for him. I think the two of us were used to horrible things happening to people we cherished. I, however, was just more cowardly in admitting to what this was. I was scared of the outcome. At one point, that softness resonating under my tough skin had ruined me. I never wanted to let it take control again, but we couldn't control who the softness reached out for. In this case, it was Carl. All, and only him.
It was my nature to push away and retract. But this? Something in me wouldn't allow it. Him and I were magnetized somehow. That kind of force didn't just vanish on command.
"No." I said, almost overlapping his voice. "—Not unless you think we should."
He shook his head suddenly. "I don't. I just — I needed to know if this was real or not, this time."
"It is." I told him apprehensively. "I want it to be, if you do."
He smiled, whilst a thin layer of pink brushed against sculpted cheekbones, and the upturn of his softly arched nose. "I do, too."
I returned the smile. Carefully grabbing the marbled table stone, I let myself down without harshly hitting my feet against the ground. I used the island to support my steps as I brought our trash to the small garbage-can near the stove and attempted to stuff it past it's already overload of waste.
"Hey, Cyn?" He spoke.
I twisted my head to look at him. A hum of question was let out of my throat.
He continued carefully. "What does this make us?"
The corners of my mouth slid upwards again. "Cyn and Carl. Like always."
His eyes sparkled, but his tone was steady and calm. "Cool. I like that."
"Yeah." I replied. "Me too."
Turning back, I saw the piece of paper that had fallen from the trash while I'd been previously pushing it down. It was a thin sheet of white, with words turned on the backside. I was going to bend down for it, but Carl had already noticed it and began picking it up for me, to save me the trouble of straining my side. He stood up beside me, flipping it over to read. 'Just Survive Somehow'. It was the note we had tossed in the bin, to try and forget she was out there. The people we cared about too.
My words did not come, but instead a sigh outwards. I took it from him and began to find space in the trash for the girl's letter before Carl's hand stopped me, grabbing the other end of the note so that we each held a side.
"She has to be okay. She's tough." He said.
I nodded, looking back up to him. "It just sucks not knowing for sure."
"She's gotta' be close; she never goes far. Maybe. . . we can find her." Carl told me with a bit of question attached toward the end of his sentence.
"I might know a place. A neighborhood, a couple miles back. We went there together a couple times. She could be holed up there." I admitted.
He listened to this, processing the information. "But, you can't even walk on your own right now. How would we get past the herd?"
An idea surfaced. It might not have been an ideal option, but it was the best I could come up with.
"I don't like the thought of you going alone, so what if Ron came with you?"
Carl scoffed. "No way. He's been upset with me since the attack. Enid stayed here with us, instead of going with him. I think he's butthurt about it or something."
"What if we just get him to help you over the wall? He could make a gap, or even find a blindspot." I said.
I could tell Carl was considering this, so I went on. "We could go talk to him, but only if you're sure you're up for this."
The boy shook his head in agreement. "Enids' our friend. Even if we don't know where the others are, we still have an idea of where she might be. We can't let her die out there."
My heart took a deepening beat. Carl was the most caring person I would ever meet. Even if it was a weakness in some ways, it made him exactly who he needed to be. I saw that quality within him to be purest of all.
I placed my hand on his arm, gripping it tenderly. "Okay."
He smiled at me while pulling me closer, wrapping his sturdy arms around my smaller figure.
"You're so good, Carl Grimes." I whispered into his warm chest.
▬ ▬ ▬
With my hand entwined in Carl's, we eventually —but extremely leisurely — found Ron sitting on a patch of grass behind his home near the street's turn. We were close to the walls; so much so that the clanging of walkers against the gate was louder than our own footsteps as we approached the dirty blonde haired boy. He was occupied with what looked like a steak cutting knife. Repeatedly, he dulled the blade's edge by sending it into the packed soil below him.
Carl slowly let go of my hand and instead supported me up by holding onto my arm.
"Hey." He said to the other boy.
Ron didn't really bother to look up. He seemed more interested in the knife. At this moment, I realized Carl must have been right about him being upset with us. He probably held it against us two that we had not been able to get Enid to stay before the herd had bundled up between the gates, and closed off any chance of her return. Like, it was our fault that she was gone.
"You okay?" I asked Ron wearily, who had just finally acknowledged us.
Ron continued stabbing the blade into the ground. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Have you seen Enid?" Carl moved straight to the point.
Ron shook his head. "Not since I saw her with you."
"We think she went over the wall right before the herd got here. Now, she's trapped out there." I explained.
"What makes you think she isn't dead?" He said, glaring at us.
"Come on, man." Carl replied. He seemed dismayed at Ron's inability to believe she was still out there.
Ron scoffed at this, smiling. Not wanting to talk with us anymore, he picked up the knife and came to a stand.
I stopped him. "Look, he'll go find her. We just need your help."
"If you maybe climb up—" Carl started.
"I'm not helping you guys." Ron interrupted.
I tilted my head back in annoyance. "This isn't for us. It's for Enid, your friend."
"My girlfriend!" Ron corrected. "Or, I mean, 'cause she was anyway, right?"
He was speaking of a live person, as if they were already dead.
Carl leaned forward, agitated by now. "So you want to just leave her out there?"
Ron took a step forward towards us, his hands in the air. "I told her to stop going over the wall, I told her there's bad people out there and that it's stupid and dangerous."
"Not if you know what you're doing." Carl retorted.
I looked at him. He was doing this on purpose now, trying to get a reaction out of Ron. I shook my head at him to stop whatever he was beginning to initiate.
"Well, I'm not gonna' let you go." Ron said.
Carl put his hand in mine again, beginning to walk us away. He didn't want to fuel it anymore than he already had, but by now, it was too late. Ron was walking forward after us.
"Hey." He spoke lowly. "You're not going out there."
Ron attempted to grab my arm, but Carl had already spun around. He brought me out of the way, then shoving Ron backwards.
"Back off, man." He warned.
Ron ignored this, and instead decided to violently shove Carl back in return.
Carl tilted his head. "Alright."
He started walking forward at the boy. I took it upon myself to step between them. There wasn't any other way they would stop the argument at this point.
With my arms pushing them apart, I looked back and forth between the two. "Stop, alright? We have enough problems as it is, and we really don't need another."
Ron tried to push my arm away, but failed. I turned in front of him, placing my hand on his chest to separate him.
"Hey," I began, "I get it. I do. You don't want to help, and that's fine."
Ron seemed to have thought about this for a moment, but ended up shaking his head. "Cyn. . . fucking move — before you get hurt."
Carl pressed into my back in an attempt to get closer to Ron. "Try it and see what happens, asshole." He threatened.
Ron's eyes flickered down. They were not filled with threat, but something completely different.
"Are you really making me out to be the bad guy here? Fine." He now brought his blade out.
"Dammit!" I cursed, pushing myself further into Carl. "Ron, calm down!"
Carl pulled me to the side now, putting himself in front of this. Without saying anything else, he had grabbed Ron's wrist, crushing it between his hand until he dropped the weapon. After kicking it back towards me, he brought his fist up to the boy's face, swinging through harshly and forcing Ron to the ground. I knelt down carefully, grabbing the weapon and sliding it underneath the waistband of my jeans as Carl came back to my side.
Ron sat up with a pained groan and wiped the steady stream of deep red blood traveling down his nose, moving to his lips.
Carl and I began walking away together.
"I'll tell Rick." Ron said. "He'll go out there to find you, then other people will, too. Then somebody's gonna' die."
We spared a glance back at the injured boy.
"Huh? You saved my life, and now I'm saving yours."
I looked at Carl. We both knew we had no chance at finding Enid now. Ron would get others involved, and he was right; people would die because of us. All because he simply did not believe Enid was still out there.
"Just keep walking." Carl told me.
But, I couldn't. I was just as upset as the two. Angered. I made my way back to Ron, and knelt beside him. When I was close to his face, I let out a quiet laugh. "Grief turned you shitty."
I stood back up. "Tell Sam I said hi."
▬ ▬ ▬
Once Carl and I arrived back home, I made him sit down after seeing a few bloodied knuckles, cracked on the impact of punching Ron. We were against the back of the couch, my knees pressing into the ground as his extended hand fell home to mine. I carefully studied how many band aids he would need, then sent him to go get them from the cupboard. When he sat back down, I cleaned the dried blood off lazily with a kitchen towel.
"You got him good, huh?" I said, spreading a layer of neosporin on his skin.
He tensed his hand slightly, eyes rolling. "I can't believe him. How could he act like that, when it's his own friend."
"Girlfriend." I jokingly mocked, tilting my head.
He grinned at me. "Oh, right."
I opened the bandage pack with the knife I hadn't given back to Ron. Unraveling the first one, I delicately placed the white padding on the first knuckle, wrapping the sticky ends around his finger.
"He's a coward." I explained. "Hasn't understood the real world for a while now, and suddenly it's hit him all at once."
Carl nodded. "Now, we can't go out there. He'll send others."
"I know." I said, placing another bandaid on his hand.
"It's out of our hands. We can't do anything." He pushed on.
I smiled sympathetically. "We just have to trust she'll get back here on her own."
"Yeah." He responded. "She will. So will all the others."
Within a couple hours, Rick had visited home. We knew exactly what it was about, because he never really came back during the day anymore. He was usually busy containing the scared crowd who regularly gathered at the noisy wall, or standing watch at either of the four towers to make sure they hadn't been breached in any way. So, when he stood himself in the main doorway with his thumbs around his pants belt loop, I knew Ron had sent him. This proved to be true when he began lecturing us two about our previous plan.
He said something along the lines of, "I know you miss your friend. I know you do, because I haven't been able to stop looking for signs of the rest, either. But we cant be dumb. We do this the right way, and there is no right way, right now."
After we had been forced to verbally promise him we wouldn't do anything reckless, he revealed that Ron asked to be taught how to use a gun yesterday, and that they were planning to meet up in a little near the North side of the wall. I grimaced at this. Ron had just threatened us with a knife only hours ago. Having him learn to use a gun was probably the worst idea imaginable. Though, Carl and I kept quiet until Rick had gone to check on a napping Judith.
"A gun." I said quietly, my eyes glued on the floor.
"Guess so." Carl replied in a whisper.
"Do we tell Rick about the knife? He won't teach Ron if he knows what he did." I asked.
Carl sighed. "Ron will find a way to learn, even if we don't help. At least this way, we can teach him about gun safety and stuff."
"So we don't tell your Dad?" I said.
"No. We can't." Carl told me.
Suddenly, we became very aware of the steps behind us. Boots, on wood.
"Tell me what?" Rick questioned with an eyebrow raised. He held Judith in his arms.
Oh, hell. Carl cleared his throat and spun around towards his dad. I stayed standing with my back against the wall, swallowing harshly. Rick suddenly smiled cheesily. Not expecting this, I chewed on my bottom lip anxiously.
"Listen, we all knew. Even made a bet back at the barn, on how long it would take you two to be a thing. Looks like I owe Daryl and Maggie a can of those good baked beans." He then went back into Judith's nursery.
Both Carl and I were blankly staring in the direction Rick had walked.
I furrowed my brows. "What just —?"
"No idea. . ." The boy responded, turning. "Didn't know it was that obvious."
Rick apparently heard this from the other room as he laid Judith down in her crib. "Oh, it was."
I awkwardly smiled at Carl. On any other occasion, this conversation between us and his own father would be a whole lot worse. Though, somehow I was almost glad it wasn't the contrary; and that he hadn't found out about the Ron incident. Carl was right, Ron needed to learn about gun safety. Otherwise, I feared things would become much worse. A boy with no knowledge and a gun was quite a bit more dangerous than a boy with knowledge, and a gun. At least, he would quickly be lectured into knowing weapons were no toy, like he had previously treated his knife. This could be good for him, and us.
As Rick entered back into the living room, he stopped in front of Carl. "You coming?"
His son nodded. Shortly after, Rick opened the door, letting Carl out first. Once I began to follow, he stopped me.
"I talked to Denise on the way here. She said you hadn't been in for a checkup, the last couple days. I'd have you come with Carl and I, but this is more important. Come meet up with us afterwards."
I looked past him to Carl. I wanted to make sure he was okay going alone. The boy nodded at me.
"Okay." I said, now walking past him onto the porch.
"Bye." Carl voiced as he watched me descend down the steps. "You gonna' be alright walking yourself down there?"
"It's not far." I grinned to myself. "See you in a little."
▬ ▬ ▬
When arriving at the infirmary, I instantly noticed that something was different. The air felt chilled and stiff. Denise, who was usually waiting for me near the empty stool, had sat herself in the patient seat. She looked a few shades lighter than her naturally pale complexion. When I approached her, she looked up from the floor.
"Hey, Denise." I greeted.
"How's the wound doing?" She asked.
"Good." I replied. "I walked myself here. No help."
She gave me a half-assed smile, but it quickly dropped. "Glad to hear it. That's a lot of progress."
It was quiet for a few moments. I felt really confused. Usually, she took a look at the injury. Today, she didn't seem interested in it. She had asked me here, but something else was on her mind right now -- that much was extremely obvious to me.
"Can I ask you something?" She questioned. When I said yes, she took a deep breath. "I hope this doesn't bother you, but I heard that at one point, you were working in a hospital with that one boy, Noah?"
"Yeah, a while back." I told. "Why?"
"Did you ever learn sutures while you were there? Textbooks make them look so easy, but you know, I cant get it right. And, when you got hurt, Pete closed you up. Now he's dead, and I'm not really sure what I'm doing anymore."
I thought back to the hospital, when Dawn had taught me stitching. The steps were burned into my brain. Being squeamish, and having to close a wound like that was something that couldn't really just slip my mind.
"I learned basic stitching. Nothing fancy." My arms crossed over my chest.
"You think you could still do it?" She asked me.
I shrugged. "Depends."
"I need your help with something, Cyn. But this needs to be kept a secret." Her tone was dry and completely serious.
I was curious, now. "You can tell me."
She shook her head. "No I can't, but I could show you."
She got off her stool and ushered me to follow her out of the building. Taking me up the crackled sidewalk and to the front of the small gathering of tall brick-red apartment complexes, she stopped to look at me.
"I need you to keep an open mind." She reminded me.
She then led me down the garage steps of apartment number twelve. She fumbled with a shiny golden key in her pocket, then shakily stuck it in the lock. Twisting it with a small push, the black metal door shrieked open. She let me inside first, and after entering herself, she locked the door again. I crinkled my nose at the distasteful smell, but all together continued through the dark room until reaching a connecting room filled with window radiance. Dust bunnies danced in front of me, and particles floated through the filtered light.
I wouldn't have noticed what Denise was speaking of, if she hadn't pointed at the man in the corner. His wrists and ankles were bound with thick white rope. A bed pan was near the edge of the small white mattress he was placed on. At first, I began to think that she was keeping a man hostage. That was, until I was able to get a clear view of the scar which grazed the man's forehead. A 'W'. He was one of the others.
Denise stepped forward. "Morgan's keeping him down here, because he doesn't want to kill him. I only know about it because this man has an infected cut. Morgan thought I could help by cleaning the wound and stitching him. So, I just need your help--"
I stepped back. "This is insane."
Denise's shoulders dropped. "He is going to die. My one job here is to make sure that doesn't happen, no matter how horrible the person."
The new member, Morgan, who I'd barely spoken with came from behind us. "Can you help, or not?"
My focus was back on the 'W' man. "Why are you keeping him here? Him and his group killed."
"Everyone deserves a second chance. At one point, we were all given one, and now it's time to start giving him one, too." Morgan explained. "I won't let him go 'til I'm certain he won't ever kill again."
Denise pleaded with her eyes as Morgan left us alone in the room, going back towards the stairs. Before I could begin to think of a response, a deathly hallowed crash sounded from above the street. I quickly followed the woman back through the dark room, and to the recently unlocked metal door. After it was open, I ran my hands along the rail, hoisting myself onto each step up to the paved road. From this vantage point, I could see it. A billowing storm of dust and debris covered the ground near what was left of the high metal walls. The church steeple had fallen past it, bringing a panel down along with it. As the air cleared out, I could spot them. They crawled past the fragmented wall, groups of tens entering at a time.
The herd was here, and it was coming inside. Merciless souls, drifting through our safe haven, reclaiming this place as their own. They were coming for us. For what we had built. All of it.
It was in this moment that the tirelessly worn thread keeping what was left of the world stitched together, simply stretched too far. It had snapped before we were even truly aware of what lied ahead.
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4,015 words • 8:09pm
so, after all this time. . . it's happening between them?! i've been teasing u guys for so long LMAO. u probably didn't expect this 'slow burn' to be drawn out this long, but it felt right to me. I've just kind of always seen cyn and carl's dynamic to be that they were more stern and reserved on the road because survival was really all they knew, to which they find a place they can finally hang the hat for a while and just live AHH.:)).
hey, welcome back to another chapter! thank you for just being here <3
sincerely yours,
nika.