Chapter Thirty-Nine - River
I TOOK ONE last look around my childhood bedroom, sitting on my twin bed as I soaked it all in. I didn’t know when the next time I’d be seeing it was, if ever. Micah said he was putting the house on the market as soon as the probate lawyer finalized the paperwork and transferred everything into his name. I had no say over what happened to the house I’d spent the first sixteen years of my life living in. I didn’t even have a say on whether I wanted to be shipped off to boarding school.
I didn’t, for the record. No matter what I said or did, though, it was written in stone. Ever since my grandmother passed away, everything took a turn from bad to absolutely abysmal. I always knew this was a possibility, but I always hoped my worst nightmare would never come true. Part of me hoped that her mother passing away would rattle my own out of the woodwork, but the funeral came and passed with not a single word from her. The other part knew it was no use, and it wasn’t like it would suddenly spark her absent motherly instinct to life and suddenly want me.
So that left me in the care and custody of my older brother, Micah. Who just so happened to have no interest in raising me at all. We didn’t exactly have your average brotherly bond. We were two very different people and had a hard time understanding one another. He couldn’t understand my empathy and I his lack thereof. I chalked it up to the fact that he’d experienced more of our mother. She’d dropped us off at our grandma’s for the weekend when I was five and just never came back to get us.
He never got over the abandonment. He didn’t even want to go in the first place and now he was trapped there. He’d put up a big stink about being fifteen, not needing a babysitter and wanting to stay home. I think she knew before she took us there that she was never coming back. Our dad took off when she was pregnant with me, so that left only my grandma to raise us. I loved her deeply and held so much respect for her, but Micah was a different story.
They’d constantly butt heads, and he went through a rebellious phase that made living in that house a war zone. It got so bad she’d threaten him with military school until one day he decided that sounded a whole hell of a lot better than living with us. He came back ‘reformed’, enrolled in the police academy and then rose through the ranks of our local department. He was now being moved to a small town named Efferville to fill a lead detective position, and I was being shipped off to the same boarding school he went to.
“I don’t understand why I can’t just come to Efferville with you,” I complained in the car on the ride to the bus station. “Just cause you liked it there and wanted to go doesn’t mean I do.”
“It’ll be good for you,” he replied as he gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, the whites of his knuckles appearing. “Besides, I have a life, you know. I’m an adult. There are things I like to do that a kid really shouldn’t be around for. I never really signed up for raising a teenager. It’s only two years, man up.”
“Yeah, well, I never signed up for this either, in case you were wondering.” I responded angrily.
“Well, why don’t you call mom and dad and tell them all about it,” he fired back and the sting from what he’d said was enough to shut me up for the rest of the ride.
Message received, loud and clear.
The alarm going off next to my head would usually be an unwelcome intruder to my not-so-peaceful slumber, but this morning, I was thankful for the grating chirp. I haven’t felt comfortable taking my sleeping meds ever since shit hit the fan, so I’ve been subjected to living out the worst years of my life in my sleep once again. I thought this was behind me, but here I was, thrust right back into the bullshit. Micah’s gonna take one look at me and know I slept like shit. As if he didn’t question my efficacy as an officer enough.
You’d think because he’s my brother I’d be able to explain and he’d be concerned for my mental health, but no. I’m better off keeping it to myself unless I want to be stuck on lunch guard duty. I have to be able to keep escorting supply run teams, otherwise I won’t be able to keep sneaking off during said runs to supply myself with alcohol. While it still helps me sleep, I don’t have to worry about sleeping right through a horde breaking down the walls. I know self medicating is bad, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
It holds off the nightmares for the most part, toning them down from the paralyzing night terrors they’d be else wise. They can still be a bit of a problem in the morning, but what can you do? At least I’m getting some reprieve. I like to think that Micah got it way worse than me, but it’s hard to deny that I’m just as fucked up from my mother’s abandonment as he is. I’m just grateful it didn’t leave me with the desire to treat women the same way he did.
I made it through the morning debrief without Micah noticing the heavy bags under my eyes or smelling the alcohol on my breath from the night before. Today was my day to be on courtyard duty, not my favorite task but I didn’t want anyone to get suspicious if I appeared too eager to keep going out of the QZ. I’d considered offering to go out with the new team going to look for survivors but that was already taken. Micah assigned Duncan to do it because he didn’t trust Julia and wanted to keep a close eye on her.
I was standing on the edge of the large grassy area, making sure at least someone was keeping an eye on things cause the rest of my ‘coworkers’ were chit chatting with their backs to the crowd. I was thinking about how many biters could climb over the fence before the lazy fucks would even notice when I heard high-pitched screeching coming from close to the patio area. There was a small brunette with her back to me yelling at a girl that looked eerily similar to her.
I could just barely make out what she was saying, and it was awfully colorful. There was a tall, tattooed guy standing in between them, scowling at the one making all the noise. I thought about intervening, but it didn’t yet appear to be heading in a violent direction, so I decided to let it play out. Sometimes things went better when I let people attempt to work things out amongst themselves first, without my presence to escalate the tension.
The one who was standing there, silent while being berated, caught my attention. Her face was calm, but I could see a turbulent rage carefully contained behind her eyes. There was a back-and-forth exchange between the male and the female aggressor before she stormed off in the opposite direction after spewing pure venom.
Still, the girl who had caught my attention remained standing there with her head held high. It took some serious restraint to stand there and have someone speak to you the way that tiny terror just had. Being a police officer for a few years now, I’d seen absolute brawls break out over a whole lot less, so she had my respect. If I was assuming the situation correctly and the girl that was yelling was this guy’s ex, I could see why she was raging. The other girl was absolutely beautiful and had an untouchable air of confidence to her.
Just when I thought the tall tattooed one was with her, though, another tall guy with dark wavy black hair and a little girl walked up to her. He placed an affectionate hand on the small of her back as they walked off. Was she with both of these guys? Was the little girl her child with one of them? Even though it appeared as though she had plenty of options, I couldn’t help myself from being interested in being one of them. I’d never had someone catch my attention after seeing such a small glimpse of who they were as a person.
I was so used to a world full of people who were quick to pop off and let the uglier sides of themselves prevail. The normal human being, non-officer part of me would have totally understood if she’d broken the girl’s nose after half the things that came out of her mouth, but she hadn’t. It made me curious of what other adversaries she’d faced head on, chose to remain the bigger person and come out on the other side stronger of. A person like her wasn’t crafted overnight. No, they were shaped by a life where they were no stranger to a fight. They didn’t fear it, but knew when to pick their battles.
Before she walked away, she caught me staring at her. Her eyes held mine and I didn’t look away as she held my gaze for a moment. She finally broke eye contact, dismissing me before taking one final glance at all the other people staring at her, then turning on her heel. Exiting with her men, the little girl and a blonde woman in tow.
She’d probably chalked me up to another nosy onlooker, but my interest in her was much more than that. We were in a small community contained in by four tall brick walls. It was only a matter of time before forced proximity inevitably gave me an opportunity to interact with her. From a two-minute observation, I was fascinated by her.
Luckily for me I’d just made it my mission to get to know her.