Lillian tossed and turned in her sleeping bag which was laid on the hard ground of their campsite. With a sigh, she sat up rubbed her eyes, and looked over to her mother's sleeping bag to see she was not there.
It had been a couple of days since Lillian and her mom had set up at the camp with the people she soon became familiar with. For Lillian's mom, Brooklyn had gotten almost too familiar with one of the Dixon brothers, Merle.
This really confused Lillian, as she noticed that Merle was quite rude and straightforward with what he thought but she had seen her mom often be very giggly when around the man, she even saw her take some medicine but she wasn't sure what it was.
Her mom would often hang out around Merle Dixon and his tent, which he shared with his brother Daryl. Lillian had no idea what he was like though. He was a very quiet person and often kept to himself. Didn't pay mind to talk let alone look at Lillian. Daryl was aware of the woman that his brother was constantly hanging out with as they would often walk out into the woods together, leaving Daryl alone at his tent but only 10 feet away was another tent. That other tent had the small girl sitting outside of it, reading a book that she was given to occupy herself.
Merle would have the woman, giggling and holding onto his arm, walking away as she said, "Hey.. uh... DARLINA! Watch over Lillian for me!" She would often throw a wink at him afterward. As much as this annoyed him, Daryl ended up watching over the girl from the distance, keeping an eye on her to make sure she didn't get herself into any trouble.
Lillian stepped out of her tent, rubbing her eyes as she adjusted to the bright sun. She looked around and saw that many people were already at work with their chores for the day. She was jealous of them, the only chore she got was doing schoolwork with Carl and Sophia. Not that she thought they were annoying, well Carl was rather annoying, he talked a lot. But Sophia was annoying because she was so quiet. Lillian was used to being the quiet one, and Sophia also being the quiet one left an awkward silence between the two as they worked on their math work which they were supposed to be helping each other with.
"Lili!" Lillian heard Carl call her name from behind her. She turned and quickly took a couple of steps back as Carl ran quickly towards her.
"G"mornin." She mumbled, pushing her bedhead hair out of her face.
"Good morning! I have been waiting all morning for you. Look I found this really cool rock and then I was thinking that maybe we could get a bunch of rocks and have Amy take us down to the water again to skip them!" Carl rambled out, all out of breath from running.
"But your mom said we had to finish that one worksheet-" Lillian tried to explain but was cut off by Carl.
"Oh, come on. She isn't even gonna notice that we are gone, we have time!" Carl whined, throwing his arms down at his side.
"Carl!" Lori's voice called. Lillian looked behind Carl to see Lori walking over towards them and gave Carl the 'I told you so' look. Carl rolled his eyes and turned to his mom. "I told you to stay near the RV!" She sighed, looking down disappointedly at her son.
"Well, I was! And then Lili came out of her tent. Mom, I was thinking that Lili and I could get rocks and go down to skip rocks!" Carl proposed with a wide smile, proud of his idea. Lillian looked down at the ground, kicking a rock, avoiding a gaze that Lori was sending her.
"It doesn't seem like Lillian wants to. You okay honey?" Lori grabbed Carl's arm and gently moved him to the side, speaking softly to the girl.
"Where's my mama?" Lillian asked, looking at Lori while still rolling the rock under her shoe.
"Hm. I'm not quite sure... maybe she's out with Merle again. Alright, how about we get you some breakfast, brush your hair, and then finish that worksheet we started yesterday while we wait for her?" Lori proposed, giving Lillian a smile.
"But mom!" Carl began whining again.
"Ah! Carl... After school, maybe we can go down to the pond but no whining, okay?" Lori stalked sternly to her son. With that, both Carl and Lillian nodded. As Lillian followed closely behind Lori, she thought about how sweet Carl's mom was compared to her own. Carl's mom cared about where Carl was at all times, keeping an eye on him, and making sure he was safe and fed. She thought about how her mom was never like that, not really at least. She had her moments when she gave Lillian forehead kisses and told her that she was her very sweet girl. It wasn't often, her mom would be very weird when she had those moments though.
"Alright sweetie, fruit loops of cinnamon toast crunch?" Lori asked, pointing at the two boxes. Lillian sighed, neither of them sounded good to her especially because they didn't have milk.
"Fruit loops, please." She mumbled, pulling at her shirt nervously. Lori smiled at the girl, before poring her cereal in a styrofoam bowl and handing it to her. "Go sit down over at the table while I grab a brush and the worksheets. Carl, you too."
The two kids obeyed, walking over to the table and taking a seat.
"It's so hot outside!" Carl complained, aggressively wiping sweat off his face.
"Yeah." Lillian tried to mumble through her mouth full of fruit loops. She would be lying if she said the fruit loops didn't taste good, even without the milk. Truth is, her mom left early afternoon with Merle yesterday. She said she was going hunting, which was weird to Lillian because her mama had never been interested in that stuff. She had gotten back to the tent late and by that time Lillian was already settled in, almost asleep. She was hungry.
"Are you worried about your mom?" Carl questioned the girl as he messed with the rock in his hands.
"No. She done stuff like this before, disappearing sometimes. One time my daddy had to break into my house to check on me cause mama was away for so long." Lillian explained, shrugging as she answered. This earned her a strange look from Carl.
"Where's your dad now?" Carl questioned her again, this time with furrowed eyebrows and his complete attention on Lillian.
"He's gone," Lillian answered quietly this time, shrugging again. She didn't know much about where her daddy was, other than the fact that he was away. He wasn't the best dad, often getting mad at her for little things. Yelling a lot, being really mean a lot.
"Like dead or-"
"Alright, I have math work and science. Which is fun, we haven't done any science work today but I was thinking maybe skipping rocks would be a fun little experiment for science. I let Carol know about getting started on school work and she is getting Sophia. So, while we wait for Sophia, I will go ahead and do your hair, Lillian." Lori proudly interrupted Carl with her textbooks in hand.
Soon Sophia and Carol joined the group. Carl kept shooting Lillian questioning glares but Lillian chose to ignore him. She didn't care to answer his question even tho he didn't really get to ask it, she didn't actually know the answer to the question herself.
They had all made their way down to the pond with a few rocks in their hands or different shapes and sizes. Lillian had already known how to skip rocks, it was something she picked up while she was bored at a lake where her daddy used to take her to fish. She went immediately for the smooth, smaller rocks, collecting about five of them in her hands before walking over to the water.
"Hey, Lili! Look at this massive rock we found!" Carl ran up to the girl with Sophia trailing closely behind him. He held out his hand to show her the rock that was almost the size of one of his hands. "I'm gonna skip it!"
"You can't skip big rocks," Lillian states plainly, showing Carl her own rocks.
"You may not be able to, but I can!" Carl states confidently, before throwing the rock at the water and it simply sinks with a splash noise. Lillian, again, gave Carl her 'I told you so' look. Carl began pouting as he looked over at Sophia.
"Well, then you skip your small, baby rocks." Carl turned back to Lillian, challenging her. Lillian nodded and turned to the water, with ease she flicked her wrist, sending a rock skipping two times through the water.
"See, I told you." Lillian turned back to Carl who had a massive scowl on his face.
"Give me one of your rocks, let me try." Carl insisted, sticking his hand out to Lillian. Lillian shook her head.
"Get your own rocks." Lillian closed the rocks in her hand before putting them in her shorts pocket.
"Fine!" Carl dropped whatever big rocks he had in his hand and stomped around, looking for smaller rocks. Lillian looked over to Sophia who basically looked at Lillian and shrugged.
"Did you want to try?" Lillian asked Sophia.
"Sure." Sophia accepted the invitation quietly, walking closer towards Lillian. Lillian took a rock out of her and showed it to Sophia as an example of what to look for.
"The smaller, smoother rocks are the best ones," Lillian explained max Sophia nodded and began looking at the ground until she picked up a fairly small, smooth rock. "Perfect. So you are just gonna stand like this-" Lillian stood turned slightly to the side, holding her hand with one of her rocks out. "And then you just kinda flick it." She threw her rock, making it skip three times this time, and turned to Sophia, suppressing a proud smile.
"That was awesome!" Sophia smiled, moving in the same way Lillian showed her, making it skip once. "I did it!" She smiled widely. "Mom, did you see that!" She called out to her mom, grabbing the attention of both the adults. Both of the adults smiled and congratulated the girl.
"Alright, now watch me!" Carl finally walked back over to the girls, holding a rock that was too round to be skipable. Lillian noticed it, but let Carl try to skip it anyway. Not to her surprise, the rock once again sunk and Carl turned to look at her angrily. "Lillian, just give me one of your rocks!"
"No." Lillian stood her ground. She took a step back from Carl. "I can show you how to skip rocks if you want." She offered.
"I know how to skip rocks! You just took all the good rocks! Share them!" Carl lunged at Lillian, reaching for her pockets. Lillian quickly reacted by pushing Carl away from her. This caused him to fall onto the ground, face first. Lillian looked at Carl with wide eyes after she had noticed what she had done. Oh boy was she going to be in trouble.
"Mom!" Sophia called out for her mom as Carl began crying, hard. Shane had ended up talking to Lori while the kids were arguing, distracting both of the adults. Once Sophia got their attention, all three of them rushed over.
"Carl! Are you okay? What happened?" Lori rushed to her kid, kneeling on the ground and examining him. Lillian let her head drop but not behind she got a glance at the cut that was on his cheekbone.
"Lillian pushed me!" Carl cried out. Lori shot Shane a look before pulling Carl off the ground and comforting him. Lillian watched as boots came into her view of the rocks on the ground. She chewed on the inside of her cheeks anxiously as she bawled her fist at her sides.
"Alright, now, Lillian let's go find your mom." Shane set a firm hand on the girl's shoulder, pushing her to walk back up towards camp.
Once they got to Lillian's tent, Shane called out to her mom who may or may not be inside of the tent. "Hey, uh- Brooklyn."
"What?" Lillian's mom responded but not from where they thought she would. Lillian turned to the rest to see her poking her head out of the Dixon's tent. Once she saw the state that Lillian was in, she knew her child got herself in trouble. Lillian's heart bested loud in her ears as Shane walked her over to the Dixon's camp.
"Lillian got herself in a little argument with Carl, ended up pushing him and he got a cut on his face." Lillian felt Shane's hand leave her shoulder. She glanced up at her mom would was giving her a hard stare.
"Is that right?" Her mom questioned her.
"I'm real sorry mama, I didn't mean to," Lillian spoke desperately. She watched as her mom began making her way towards her.
"Alright. Thank you, Shane. I will have a talk with my daughter." Lillian's mom smiled at Shane, which Shane took as a dismissal, and walked away. Lillian tried to keep her breathing even as her mom shoved her back toward their tent.
"Mama, I really didn't mean to hurt him. He was just-" Lillian tried to reason as her mom zipped back up their tent.
"I don't need your excuses. You can't just behave yourself out there? You gotta make a damn fool out of yourself and me? You know what kind of thing this puts on me?" Lillian's mom began scolding her quietly, getting in the small girls face. Lillian shrunk back, her eyes watering, and keeping her head down.
"Is that really the view that you want people to see? That i'm a bad mom...? You want people to think i'm a bad mama, Lillian? You want these people to take me away from you?" Lillian's mom began questioning.
"No!" Lillian looked at her mom, who had a soft look but seconds after she had said no, her mom's expression went hard again, angry.
"Then you know you have to be punished." Lillian's mom stated, very forward. Lillian knew. She knew she had done something wrong and there would always be consequences. She nodded at her mom.
^^^. .^^^
stop it
my poor girl just wants to keep her own rocks
ANYWAYS STOPPING THIS CHAPTER HERE BEFORE IT GETS TOO LONG
there will be the true start to Daryl and Lillian interactions very soon
i am already loving writing this
ANYWHO
don't be a silent reader!!! I appreciate comments on my work, gives me motivation
make sure you are staying hydrated!