Daryl's Flashback #2

We had just found Sophia, but it was the exact opposite of what he’d hoped for. She was in a barn full of the undead as one of them. Carol couldn’t stop crying, Rick was pretty stunned, Lori and Carl only spoke to each other and Rick, but Daryl… Daryl was plain pissed.

The night after we’d discovered Sophia, I was in the guest room with Maggie and Patricia discussing Beth’s condition and what had happened. Everything was as calm as it could be until we heard cursing and yelling outside.

We looked out of the windows and saw Daryl screaming at Carol near our campsite. We watched as she turned on her heel and stomped away leaving Daryl behind. He kicked a rock as hard as he could at a tree before going back to his campsite.

I quickly left the house and followed him to where ever he was staying at. It took me a while, but as I walked across the field I saw a small light coming from in between the trees. When I approached it I found Daryl leaning up against a tree carving a thick branch into a spear with a knife.

I cleared my throat to let him know I was there. He looked up from his weapon making and sneered.

“If you’ve come here to tell me to apologize, you can forget it.” He growled and went back to carving.

“No, I… I just wanted to see if you were okay.” I sat down next to him.

Daryl sighed heavily before answering, “I’m fine, okay? Why do you people have to get into my business? I moved over to this place for a goddamn reason!” he went to stand up, but I grabbed his arm.

“Hey, calm down. You need to realize that it’s okay to be appreciated and cared about.”

But that just pissed him off more, “Carol treats me like Sophia was my daughter, like I was suppose to take care of her and it was my fault for letting her run off like that!”

“What you did was more than the right thing. It was the best thing; to not give up until you found her. And we did find her. And ya know what? I care about you Daryl! A lot, okay?”

His eyes, that had been looking everywhere else but at me, were now looking directly at me. I smiled to give him reassurance. But my smile had slowly faded the more he continued to stare. My heart fluttered as he leaned in to kiss me. His lips were cold and rough, but it felt nice.

When he leaned back I smiled again, but wiped it away quickly. He went to lean in again, but I moved back.

“Well, I’ll… I’ll see you in the morning.” I stumbled on the words as I stood up.

His look of confusion made me wince and he stood up as well, “Wait—don’t you wanna stay with me?”

“It’s okay,” I forced myself to say, “but thanks.”

His eyes begged me, but I just couldn’t. What was going on with Shane was too much to add Daryl into the mess. It was true I obviously liked Daryl a lot, but with Shane around I was too attached to him to play games with someone else. I left Daryl’s personal campsite with guilt in my chest. I had told him I cared about him and tried to make him feel like he was appreciated, but unfortunately I’d gone too far. What was going to happen to us now? What had I just done?

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