The sound of a invisible clock ticking echos through the airy room. There is no awkwardness nor stiffness.
I stare at the woman, Deanna, as she fiddles with a camera on a weird stand that I don't know the name of.
There's a click from the camera and she finally looks down at me. When she does, I switch my eyes to run over her.
I make sure to readjust myself so my gun won't be poking my hip bone too much, making it look like I was anxious to cover it up.
Then I make sure I'm not pressing to hard into my bow, eventually setting it down nicely on my lap.
I notice first how the wrinkles around her face seem older than ricks, telling me she had to be in her early 60's, perhaps already in her 70's.
Her hands have finger bones that poke out of her skin and lines cover them like makeup. But her cheeks flesh color stands out as a pomegranate pink.
This tells me she doesn't know the word starvation.
Her copper hair styled in a short bob. Her right side of her hair tucked behind her ear showing off her diamond studs.
So she still thinks jewelry is important.
"Lanna." She states my name with a stern but soft tone. So she already knows my name, who told?
"There's been a few mentions throughout other interviews that have spoken ... thoughtfully of you. Your name came across easily." She adds, crossing her right leg over her left.
She's right handed.
"What do you want to know." I make sure to keep the sharpness out of my voice, putting on my kind, fake tone.
'It's a tone, not a voice.' Carmen had told me time to time. Remembering her has come easier with the time passing...
I hate it.
"Well," she pauses, her eyes stare curiously into my eyes. I hate that I can't assume why, "why don't we start from the beginning." She leans back into her seat.
This tells me that the interview won't be short.
I nod and rest my arms on my lap, resting my back against the seat I sit in. Letting her think that I have already grown comfortable around her.
"From the beginning." I confirm, making sure the spit I swallow goes unnoticed.
"How'd you end up with the group?" Deanna ask and I am not surprised by the question.
I can tell her the truth, just snips of it though.
"A few weeks into this... world." I curse myself after the moment of hesitation. Think faster , Lanna. Don't mess this up like they know you will.
"You say world, why?" She leans her head forwards, her eyebrows not together. Is she... intrigued by me?
"I don't understand." I admit, tilting my head a little to the side
"Well, you must have been five or six when everything happened. A little girl , seeing the world change so quickly at such a young age. You'd think that you'd hate it like it was a curse from your old life."
She explains what she meant, and I feel like I want to scream.
"It is not so different. I think... I think I hadn't started life till this world came. I think- I know that my 'life before' was the true curse." I admit it out loud for the first time since I've realized it.
I'm sorry , mama. I'm so sorry.
I look up at Deanna after my itchy eyes begin to feel a little bit wet. Just a little bit.
She stares at me with a few tears running down her eyes. I hold back my shock and feel my eyes grow bigger.
She's buying this. I thought she would have lasted longer.
"Tell me more."
"No , next question." I order out, digging my back into the seat more and allowing my bow to sink into my skin inches more.
She will not get it all.
"Fine, okay." She wipes her face and clears her throat. Like that will help her.
"All that time with them who would you say you've grown closer to?" She wants me to tell her about someone in particular.
Just like whoever told her about me had.
"I'm not that close with any of them at all. See, we-I got separated from them after only a few weeks with them. I only just came across them a few weeks from now." I explain, and somehow I feel like I'm telling a lie
Weird.
"Separated? Will you be willing to tell me more?" There it is, the curiosity floods back into her eyes and she scoots to the edge of her seat.
I'm in control.
"We found this farm. That's how Maggie and-" I stop myself. No, it's just Maggie now. "That's how I met Maggie. But it didn't last forever, it never does, and walkers took it over. Long story short I got separated and fended for myself till I found them again."
I finish my explanation and swallow back the thoughts of the old Maggie that would let me finish my sentence.
It's nothing, Lanna.
"You say it like you did it all on your own." The glaze slides over her eyes again, I nod once,
"Yes."
"Did you?" She asks, like I didn't just agree to her question.
I know what the truth is. Truth is that , no, not all of it. No, because I meat a beautiful woman named Carmen that thought me things for when I had to do it alone again.
But I want the memory of Carmen for myself.
It is selfish?
If it is then I don't think I care.
"Yes,it is the truth." I lie like as if it was throw up. It came out fast and without thinking. It left a rotten taste that only I could smell and feel.
"How'd you spend all that time alone? Better question is, if you were alone like you say you were... how'd you live?" She asks the question like she caught me in a lie
I don't panic, showing my calmness as if I was the god of thrush herself.
"I didn't say I lived. I said that i simply only survived ." I rub my glisting palms over my hair before brushing it back as I let her think on my words.
I can already tell that she spends most her days thinking.
"You think surviving and living are two different ways of being?" She stands up and looks down at me , waiting for my final response of the interview.
"Yes, I do." I reply with a dry and simple response.
I truly do.
"What about people?"
"What about them?" I answer her with a question back, the tips of my fingertips incautiously finding the carving in the bow.
C.L
Carmen-Lanna
"Did you... meet any alone out there?" She asks, rubbing her fingers against a big shiny ring. She's married, or at least used to be and holding onto the ring as a reminder.
I wasn't really surprised by her question.
She sees a little girl with a big bow. She sees a pale looking, untamed hair girl and thinks ,'yes, she's wild,' crazy even.
And crazy girls must have interesting stories.
"Yes, I did."
I feel her caution for me as she walks me out of her house and out to the porch. Once outside, I can't take two steps before I feel someone pulling me to their side.
They release a big breath over me. There hand coming towards me shoulder and rubbing it. I notice the dirty, smelling stench a few seconds in.
Rick.
Why is it always rick?
—
"They are still your guns. You can check them out whenever you go outside these walls. But inside here, we store them for safety." Deanna says before walking back into her house.
I watch as Glenn and Abraham set ALL there amor on a big bin some lady with glasses and a shirt pony tail rolled over.
I remain calm. I make sure to make no movements to insure the gun doesn't slip from my pants waist band.
I watch carol with a knowing look as she 'struggles' to take her rifle off her shoulders. She knows what she's doing.
'Woman has smart cells that work fast,' that's something he would say...
"Should've brought another bin." The lady says before rolling the cart away with a chuckle. Carol going alone with her till she's gone.
I don't miss the confused look rick sends her when the lady's gone.
Neither do I miss Daryl piercing gaze that somehow was only sent to me.