that's the problem, isn't it? you tell a few lies. get comfortable with the lies. find out it isn't so hard to disguise the truth. and then it's only your head swimming above them, mouth gasping for air, with the truth buried so fuckin' deep nobody has any chance of finding it anymore. she's been there. a time or two. it's been a long time since she let herself get so off track that she forgets what the hell she's doing or who she can trust to give it to her straight. thinks it's better to not really rely on anybody but yourself unless you're damn sure the person whose lips are moving has ample enough reason not to throw bullshit your way. she's gotten it easy though. lucky, even. for the better part of this outbreak all she's had to do is look to her side and know there's only one person she needs to trust. jackson's picture perfect as far as post-outbreak goes. except now she isn't desperately trying to drink the air into her lungs in between waves of lies— she's all neck extended, bulging veins and a heaving chest trying to find her own truth here in this town.
❝ lemme tell ya somethin'. sometimes the truth is shit. ❞ she says bluntly, but not without reason. she won't pretend like she understands what growing up in an infected world is like. thinks it'd be fucking brutal. the truth she had to worry about growing up holds nothing on the truth they gotta be worried about. ellie, well, she's turned out okay.. but she can see it in her eyes, the cost. one night in the middle of who-fucking-knows where she thought about how it would've been to watch nolan's eyes change over the course of the years. chewed the thought up and spit it out real quick. ❝ sometimes if you can go to sleep at night on a real good half-lie— ❞ her head lolls side to side as if the action itself could finish the sentence for her. sometimes it was worth it. better than not sleeping that's for sure.
¹ @earthsync (jesse) / ² even as we breathe .. i never feel like people are telling me the whole truth.
