It's been a week since what happened at the school. A week since that close call where I had been shot and Luz did what she did to the ones who'd caused it. Now Luz had started acting distant. For the past week, she chose to barely speak to me. All we ever got done doing is traveling and resting only to start traveling again. It was all rinse and repeat. It hurt that she had been acting this way and she avoided speaking to me every chance she got. It was as if we had gone back to the beginning of everything.
I grew tired of trying so I just gave in to her avoidance and started to do the same in return. Because of this, we had been walking in silence for a few hours now. I no longer attempted to speak to her and she remained silent the same way she had been all week. This act I had grown numb to. I'd find my mind wandering in this time; sometimes toward thoughts of her, other times toward something else.
Either way, it didn't matter because it was in silence all the same. A few times I wondered why she'd been acting this way. Though none of my attempts to get that information out of her seemed to work out for me. It all made me sad yet I was helpless to make it better otherwise. If she can choose to act this way, then I can choose to act how I please as well. So I'd stay silent and everything would remain as it was now.
Something shifted in my gut and I paused any further movements while letting my eyes look around. I was searching for something I couldn't find, but that hadn't meant it wasn't there. It was because of this that I decided to speak up for the first time since the day had started. "Luz, something is wrong," I mumbled, my voice scratchy from its lack of use so I cleared it before looking at her.
She froze and turned to look me in the eyes for the first time since we set off on our journey this morning. I watched her look off to the side before closing her eyes. She seemed to be struggling to focus yet I remained quiet to not distract her from whatever it was she did when she got like this. Shaking her head she looked back at me. "You're imagining things Blight. Let's get moving."
The way she said it so bluntly, with no emotion in her tone, hurt me. She had been acting so brutally towards me, leaving me each time more broken than the last. What hurt was how she knew she had been doing this to me and she didn't care. I have had enough of it. "Okay Luz, that is it!" I screamed, walking towards her angrily.
I gripped her shoulder and turned her around. Purposely disregarding her personal space because of how she'd been disregarding my feelings and she looked angry. "I am so sick of how you've been acting lately! Can't you see how you're hurting me?" I shoved her back and watched as she grit her teeth. "And now you won't even take me seriously when my gut is telling me that something is wrong?" I shoved her again and she rushed forward, gripping my wrists a bit too tight.
"Well, maybe you should have listened to me when I said that traveling with me never goes well! Maybe, if you stopped thinking about yourself for one second, we wouldn't be in half the messes we're in! Did you ever think of that?" She shouted in my face and I flinched backward to give myself space again.
"Are you kidding me right now?" I ripped my wrists from her strong grasp, rubbing at them. "If you weren't being hunted down all the time maybe we wouldn't be in half the messes we're in. Did you ever think that maybe you're the reason we keep almost getting killed?" I shouted as tears welled up in my eyes but I wouldn't let them fall. I wouldn't let her see how her actions had been affecting me.
"Of course, I see that! I'm the reason you almost died Amity!" She was breathing heavily while forcing her fingers through her hair. "At the building when we first met, in the woods, in The Sanctuary, just a week ago in the school, and so many more! You keep almost dying because of me! Because of my actions! Because of my decisions almost costing you your life!" She took a few steps back from me and my face fell at her words.
"You have a family that you're trying to get to. You can't keep following me and almost getting hurt, or worse, killed because I can't protect you! You have something to lose Amity. I already lost everything. I shouldn't keep putting you at risk like that because I'm too selfish to let go of you and lose you too!" She looked to the sky sighing heavily and looked back at me.
"You are the first real friend I have had since all of this started. The first person who has stayed and accepted me regardless of how I can be so cruel sometimes and hard to deal with. You bring out that good side of me but I won't let you go on like this with me. I think we should part ways now." I found myself stepping toward her and reaching a hand out letting it hang in the air in the space between us.
"No, no that's not what I want! Don't you get it, Luz! You saved my life more than once. I wouldn't be here without you and I wouldn't want to. I need you, Luz, you're my best friend." I explained stepping closer only for her to take another step back. "Even after everything you've done; lying about that group and hurting my feelings by ignoring me as you have been this past week. I still need you!" I felt my insides turn as the force I put behind my words hurt my throat.
This had to of been what the feeling in my gut was. She was going to leave me alone again to myself. I already lost my brother, my family! I couldn't lose her too! "It's not fair, Luz! You can't just decide what I need or what's best for me." I let a tear fall but held the rest in. This wasn't goodbye. Luz wouldn't do that to me.
"Dang it, Amity! I am trying so hard not to care about you but you make it so difficult not to do so!" She screamed before looking down at her shoes. "Maybe it's not what you need, but it's what I need." She spoke and her words led me to feel frantic, desperate.
"No, Luz, please don't leave me! I'll stop talking I promise! I won't say another word the entire trip." I went to stand before her, not wanting her to leave. "Please, just don't leave me alone," I begged desperately before taking her hands in mine. Her entire posture stiffened and she grasped my wrists, breaking me from my hold on her.
"No Amity! I'm not good for you! I don't want to travel with you so just respect that!" She said this viciously and I flinched back, my arms falling to my side from her hold. I felt my heart shatter and plummet as I stood there crying. "So just go away!" She yelled.
I stood there staring at her completely broken by her words. "Go!" She screamed angrily and I recoiled from seeing this side of her. I let more tears fall only to wipe them away as seething anger grew within me. If she was going to be like this, hurt me like this, then she didn't deserve my tears. With that final thought, I turned away from Luz Noeceda hoping to never see her again.
... ... ... ...
The further I walked from where I left Luz behind the more I felt my gut twist. What she said had hurt more than anything she had spoken to me in the past. Even though I felt pure anger at what she had done, and what she had said; I had already been feeling her absence from my side. Even during that awful week where she was brooding and keeping herself from me, at least she was there. I couldn't depend on her, talk to her, or just simply be there with her anymore now.
There was this turning of my gut and this pulling at the back of my mind that made me look around myself. There had been a few small groups of monsters during my walk as well as some stragglers. Either way, their numbers were down significantly which helped me out a lot. I found my eyes drown toward the sky up above me and, somehow, I knew. By the looks of it, I knew what was to come next.
Rain; was heavy and dark as it slammed against rooftops and pavement and people. I remember the storm as if it happened yesterday. The one that changed everything into what it was now. There was no way to prove that any rain afterward wouldn't have the same effects as the first. So, because of that, I had always avoided the rain. It was easier now that it barely stormed out, but that didn't mean it could be avoided entirely.
Looking at the sky now; the dark clouds, the hint of heavy dampness in the air, and the wind suddenly starting to pick up, I knew it was going to rain sooner rather than later. I had to get inside hastily. There was the sound of an approaching vehicle in the distance. My eyes grew wide as I started to make a break for the nearest building.
My legs were burning as I ran full speed towards a department store. I shoved the glass doors open. They slammed against the walls and my head snapped around looking for any occupants as the doors shut closed behind me. I heard a growling coming from the back of the store and readied my pocket knife. The monster came from around the corner though it looked bigger than most and it reeked of an awful, pungent stench. It didn't look like one I could take down easily alone.
Turning around I rushed towards the front of the store and jumped over and behind a counter. The monster ran into the counter and tried to reach out to me. It growled out, parts of its skin slowly peeling off leading me to hold back a gag that bubbled up in the back of my throat. I swallowed back this disgust hard before bringing my knife up over my head. My eyes watered from the stench as I slammed my hands down hard, bringing the knife down into its skull.
Blood burst from it, some of it getting on me as I backed up from the monster. Somehow it was still moving while I gripped my knife by my side as it dripped the monster's blood onto the floor below. I brought it back up as flashes came to my mind and my anger grew. Thoughts of my family, my brother, the world, and Luz all came to me at once. Tears began to fall from my eyes as I brought the knife down upon the monster multiple times.
The hot, angry tears fell as my chest grew less heavy the more I let my emotions out, taking them upon the monster before me. After one last strike, I brought the knife back, dropping it to my side as I backed up. My back hit the wall behind me as I slid to the floor and I let my tears escape me further. Everything coming and leaving me all at once. I brought my knees to my chest and hugged them as I watched the monster lay over the counter lifeless. Blood on my hands, on my knife I'd let fall to the floor, on almost every surface of the area surrounding me; and I watched it all, crying until there were no tears left to cry.
And I stayed there feeling empty and numb. I stayed there as I heard the rain start to hit the glass window behind me. Even as the rain grew heavier and I heard vehicles rushing past behind me. That's when I realized that I had been bleeding from my shoulder. The wound stitches that Luz had painfully put in as I had bit down hard on her spare shirt had come loose somehow. She had only done it with a needle and thin sewing thread. So, even after a week of careful travel it still hadn't been any better. A wound like this needed real medical treatment so all we could do was keep it clean and hope for the best.
There was no 'we' anymore though. Luz made sure of that. But I didn't need anyone, not anymore. All I had was myself and that was enough. It had to be.
"Amity," I sighed, turning my head to see Edric staring at me with concern.
"You're back? In my head again?" I asked and he smiled at me softly.
"It looks like you needed me, but you don't anymore do you?" He question me and I felt a smile slip passed my lips despite myself.
"No, not the fictional version of you that gets stuck in my head at least." I was quiet for a moment as I let my head fall back and I closed my eyes. "I always thought I needed you here with me in some form, but I think I've grown enough to do things independently." I sighed, letting out a long breath. "I needed Luz though, or I thought I did, but she didn't need me. She said so herself." I opened my eyes to see Edric giving me sad eyes.
"Maybe she didn't mean it. Maybe she was just scared." Even though he said it, I knew he was only a projection of my subconscious. What he was saying was what I wanted to believe was true. And maybe it was, but that doesn't change anything does it? Luz isn't here and I have to learn to be on my own.
I can't keep depending on people to be there. I have to learn to be there for myself. "I love you Edric, but I think it's time I do this myself." I watched his face give me a soft smile and I tried to hold back tears. If I was going to be strong for myself I had to start now.
"Okay. I love you, baby sister." I closed my eyes at this. Trying to pull myself together.
"Goodbye, Edric." I let a single tear fall before my eyes opened and I saw Edric was gone. And finally, I was by myself for real this time.
With newfound determination, I picked myself up and searched the front counter for a first aid kit. Taking whatever I could find, I patched myself up before wiping the tears from my eyes. I walked back to where my pocket knife had fallen and picked it up before wiping the blood off onto my pants. I was going to continue on my journey with or without Luz and find my family as I had meant to this whole time. No more distractions. As soon as the rain let up, I would continue my journey, on my own this time.