@emergencyprotocols:
Lis shakes her head and opens her mouth to speak but pauses. “no, I didn’t mean it like–I just…” she trails off, trying to gather her thoughts; it’s cold outside, the air all dark and grey and heavy with the promise of rain, but the thought of going back to her cabin, all alone with nothing to do but wallow in her thoughts– is worse than anything else. “it’s okay to cry…you know.” she says finally. “It’s gotta come out some way. Cryin’ doesn’t hurt anything.” She sits cross-legged against the fence and nudges a few pea-sized pebbles around on the ground in front of her. She feels it when Roxy looks over at her, her question making her stomach drop– because, fuck– she doesn’t want to talk about it; she hasn’t talked about it in months– if ever– because somehow, she believes that not talking about it, will make it hurt less– so she buries herself in her daily duties at the camp and buries all that pain and grief that threaten to choke her up every time the thought of her mother or brother cross her mind; because pretending to be okay makes it, somehow, easier– like it’s not real– like her mother’s still out there, alive; and not dead and rotting on a farm half a hundred miles away from here. She feels herself tremble a little with the force to keep it together and exhales through her nose, half frustrated, half numb, throat wet and tight as she swallows around the little lump that’s formed in the back of her throat; when she speaks, her voice, too, is a little more breathless, thinner than before; she’s choking up for how bad it hurts, trying to talk about it; but there’s something about the vulnerability of the moment that urges her to talk– to get it off her chest. “I don’t know…” she whispers, her voice a little choked, “I guess…. everything that…I was, you know….” she shrugs softly,
“before…”
but it’s more than just that, and she knows it; god- she does–it’s so much more than just missing the part of herself that she’s lost: it’s that, and the unfairness of it all, that empty, hollow space inside of her– aching for everything that she has lost and not knowing what to do with it; with all that pain and grief and misery that eat her from the inside out.
hearing the subtle choke in liz's voice, roxy gives a subtle nod. her head drops, taking an interest in the displaced pebbles near the other woman's feet. in the cold, roxy's face was awash in a porcelain white, her skin chapped and dry from the chill that had settled over the east coast. roxy felt the ache in liz's voice--it reverberated through the air and settled into roxy's chest as well.
within the walls of the camp, it's easy to forget that everyone had something --or someone-- that they had lost. and some of those people were lost forever. liz was often quiet, but her words were always chosen carefully. but this time, roxy was taken aback at the other woman's inability to articulate her thoughts. the two of them had started down a slipperly slope together.
"HOW DO YOU CARRY ON?" roxy asks softly, just above a whisper. it was rhetorical, the answer was easy. you just do, she chanted in her head. you pick up your guns, your knives, your books, and you just fuckin' do it. you ration your bullets and your food and your cigarettes and you just do it.
a sniffle. roxy's nose is dripping, and she realizes that she, too, has found herself on the brink of tears. stepping out so her back loses contact with the fence, roxy takes a seat next to liz, far enough that they don't touch, but close enough that she can feel the other survivor's heat radiating off her petite body. roxy is silent for a moment, and then, without thinking, her lips form words and her throat utters a memory. "SHE HATED CHRISTMAS," roxy says through a nostalgic chuckle. closing her eyes, she could remember the christmas mornings with paul and gina.