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On a warm, summer afternoon, Louis and Clementine set out for the river by the school. Seeing how the cold weather had finally gone away, they were taking this as a chance to clean some of their heavier winter clothes. Sure, a washing machine would be preferable, but soaking their coats in water and scrubbing them was better than nothing. Usually, Clementine would get someone else to do this for her; she hadn’t gone out to the river in a long time, not since her leg had been amputated. It was simply too dangerous and too difficult for her to do so. But today, she insisted. She was going a little stir-crazy from being stuck inside all the time and there hadn’t been many walkers around the school in recent weeks so she figured it’d be okay. Besides, she made sure Louis came with her. He was one of the only kids who could pick her up and run without much trouble, so as long as she had him with her, things would be okay if something happened.
When they reached the riverbank, Louis helped Clementine down so she was sitting just by the water and set her crutches to the side.
“Thanks Lou.” She said.
“Yeah, no prob bob.” He replied, sitting down beside her. He took off his heavy trench coat with a sigh. “God, it’s hot this year.”
“You think this is bad?” She asked smugly. “I’m from Georgia.”
“So?”
“So? Have you ever been to Georgia? Imagine this plus like ninety percent humidity. Made the summers feel like you were boiling alive and constantly covered in sweat. This is nothing.”
“…Can’t argue with that. I went to Florida once on summer break when I was like, six, and that heat was awful. I can’t imagine living in it.”
“Eh… as long as there was air conditioning it was tolerable. Plus, I had a pool at my house.”
“You did?” He smiled. “Hey, I did too! Guess I’m not the only rich kid at Ericson’s.”
“I guess.” When she took off her one sock, she decided to dip her foot into the water and sighed. “I miss swimming.”
“Yeah… me too.”
He looked rather pensive so on that rather somber note, Clementine decided to drop the subject. She took off her denim jacket, her hoodie and her button up until she was in just her jeans and a camisole. It felt nice; she was so used to having to stack on layers of shirts and jackets and wearing them throughout the heat; needing to save space in her backpack for more important things. It was nice to be able to cool off for once, and even have the chance to wash her clothes. As she got to work placing her hoodie under the water and scrubbing it as best as she could with a sponge Ruby had provided her with, she noticed that Louis was being awfully quiet. When she glanced up, she noticed he was staring at her.
“What is it?” She asked.
“O-oh, it’s nothing.” He quickly put his attention back on his work.
“Come on, Lou.”
“It’s just… you have a lot of scars.”
“Oh.” She had been preparing to hear a flirtatious comment so his response left her silent. Now that she thought about it, she did have a lot of scars. It had just been a long while since she had thought about them. And with how often she got injured with the world being the way it was… she didn’t think anyone would think anything of them anymore.
But of course Louis, over-thoughtful, concerned, curious Louis would be the one to comment on it.
“Sorry if I upset you. I just… uh, noticed it.” He finally said. “If it makes you feel any better, I have my fair share of them, too.” He took off his green, long-sleeved shirt. Lo and behold he also had a fair share of scars running across his otherwise clear skin.
“I don’t really mind,” she said with a shrug, “with the way the world is it’s kind of inevitable we’d have a gross scar or two.”
“I don’t think they’re gross.”
“Maybe not now, but they definitely used to be.” She raised her arm up so he could get a look at her dog bite a bit better. “You should have seen how disgusting this was the night I got it.”
“…If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get that?”
“I don’t mind, but…” She smirked. “How about a game? I tell you about one of mine, you have to tell me about one of yours.”
“Deal.”
He held out his hand and they shook on it.
“But you better not skimp out on the gross details.”
“For you? I wouldn’t dream of it, Clem.”
“Glad to hear it. Anyways,” she glanced at the mangled, disgusting scar on her right arm. While it had healed and it didn’t hurt to touch anymore, it was still an ugly sight. When Carlos had said it wouldn’t heal right, he had meant it. She bitterly thought about the fact that he could have prevented or at least helped with that, but made her do it on her own instead. “When I was eleven, just about a week or so before AJ was born, I met a dog in the woods. I think his name was Sam.”
“Please tell me the dog doesn’t die.”
She just gave him a look in response.
“Oh god. Okay, go on.”
“Anyways, Sam and I were both really, really hungry. We decided to look for food together and managed to find a can of beans. I opened it up and shared some with him, but he wanted the whole thing. When I didn’t let him, he attacked me and bit my arm; he almost sank his teeth all the way through.”
“Yeesh. Rosie bit me once but it wasn’t anything that bad. No wonder you were so afraid of dogs when you first got here.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not finished with this story yet.”
“…Yikes. Okay, keep going.”
“So, after I got away from the dog, I bumped into other survivors in the woods. I asked them for help, but instead they chose to lock me in a shed for the night. They claimed they couldn’t tell if the bite was from a dog like I had said or a walker, so they chose to lock me up until morning to see if I’d turn or not.”
“They couldn’t tell the difference? That’s stupid.”
“You’re telling me. The guy who made the decision was a doctor, too.”
“Wow.”
“Needless to say I broke out of that shed to find supplies to stitch my arm back up. I didn’t find proper medical tools and wound up making do with fishing wire and a sewing needle. And that’s why it looks so weird to this day.”
When she looked up she noticed Louis was cringing, looking at her arm with a newfound horror.
“I thought you could handle the gross details?”
“I-I can just… wow. You were eleven and had to stab a needle through your arm? I dunno if I could do that. I would’ve thrown up or passed out. Maybe both.”
“God, I almost passed out. Didn’t help I bumped the table and knocked a whole bottle of rubbing alcohol on it.”
“Ugh.” Louis grimaced. “Yup. Yeah. Definitely would’ve passed out.”
“All right then, tough guy: let me ask about one of yours.”
“Ask away.”
She thought for a moment before finally pointing at a big scar on his left arm, just below his shoulder.
“That one.”
“That one? Are you serious? Clem, you were here for that one!”
“I was?”
“Yeah. Remember when you and AJ bumped into Lily and Abel in the woods? When you told Vi to shoot, they fired back and it hit me in the shoulder.”
“Oh.” Her heart sank. “I was kinda far away and I ran as soon as Violet shot. I saw the stain on your coat later but… I was so worried about AJ I guess I never put two and two together. I’m really sorry Louis, that must’ve hurt.”
“Eh, it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t a direct hit or anything. But it did scare the shit out of me. I’ve… never been shot before. But you wanna hear the most gruesome part of this?”
“What?”
“It was Violet’s reaction to it all. God, she was so upset. I don’t think I had seen her that distraught since Marlon told her the twins had died. She thought I had been shot someplace worse and was gonna die. Honestly, I think she almost cried.”
“This is Violet we’re talking about, right?”
“Yeah, it is. I was shocked. Seeing her freaked out like that hurt more than the bullet. After how cruel I had been that day, arguing with her, kicking you and AJ out… I figured she hated my guts. That she wouldn’t give a shit if I got shot and died. Honestly… I couldn’t believe she cared about me that much. I still can’t.”
“Louis…” Even now, months after they had met, Louis still seemed to struggle with self worth. The kids at the school loved him to pieces. AJ absolutely adored him. And of course Clementine had told him again and again how much he meant to her. She just had to hope he’d believe it one of these days. “People care about you, y’know.”
“Yeah? Yeah…” He shrugged. “Anyways, speaking of shoulders, what happened to yours?”
“Oh… right.” She idly stroked the healed-over wound on her left shoulder. “Guess we’re twins. I got shot, just like you. Except mine actually went all the way through. Guess I’m not as much of a ninja as you; didn’t have the reflexes to dodge it.”
“Nah, it just takes time. Seems you got the hang of it now.”
“Maybe.” She moved her stump of a leg up. “But maybe not.”
“Well…” He tapped her shoulder, trying to get her mind off the missing leg. “What happened? Who in the world would wanna shoot you?”
“Ugh, well… this was like, two days after AJ was born. We were part of a group that was slowly falling apart at the seams. Everyone kept fighting, and oftentimes things got violent. Two nights after AJ was born, three members of the group tried to abandon the rest of us with all the supplies while we were sleeping. I heard them and tried to confront them. But before I could convince them to stay one of them, this guy named Arvo, shot me right in the shoulder.”
“He shot you? When he was the one abandoning a kid and a newborn? What an asshole.”
“I mean he was really scared and he had just lost his family, but… yeah. What an asshole.”
“What ever happened to him?”
“No idea. I blacked out after that. When I woke up the next day, he and the other two that tried to leave had gone and I don’t know what happened to them.”
“Not to wish bad on others, but… I hope he got shot in the shoulder, too. I don’t care what happened; there’s no way you could do that to an innocent eleven year old.”
“I guess.” She was going to retort that at that point maybe she wasn’t so innocent anymore, but… she had tried her best and had never been purposely cruel. She wanted to believe she was still doing good, even if only a little. “Okay, my turn?”
“You’re up.”
“Hmm…” She thought for a moment, her eyes pouring over him. Finally they landed on his stomach, where a misshapen, bumpy scar ran across it just above his navel. “That one.”
“That one.” He repeated. “Man, I forget I even have this one sometimes. This was from near the beginning… I think only about a year after all this started? Anyways, it was really late at night and I was on lookout duty. I saw this girl… one of the older kids; I think her name was Katelyn, trying to leave the gates. I went down from my post and asked her what she was doing, and she told me she was leaving. She figured she was a good enough fighter to make it on her own out there, and wanted to see if her family was okay. She was one of the few of us who actually figured her parents might miss her, and wanted to find them. I told her not to go. She was one of our best fighters and we needed to stick together if we were all gonna survive. I told her at the very least she should wait until morning so she could talk it out with some of the other kids. She wouldn’t have it and told me to fuck off. I knew I couldn’t beat her in an argument or a fight, so I was going to call for one of the other kids to help. Just as I opened my mouth to yell, she pulled out her knife and just…” He made a slashing motion with his hand. “I was so shocked I didn’t even scream. I just pressed my hand against my stomach and blacked out. Apparently Rosie found me and barked like crazy and if it weren’t for that, I would’ve bled out by the front gates. I woke up the next morning with stitches in my stomach, thanks to Ms. Martin.”
“Wait so… Katelyn didn’t even try to help you? She just left you there to die?”
“Yeah, apparently. She was long gone the next morning and no one’s heard from her since. We don’t even know if she’s dead or not. But we’ve never seen her around as a walker so… who knows?”
“That’s awful! Wasn’t she one of the older kids? She should’ve at least made sure you were okay!”
“Yeah, well… she didn’t. I honestly wasn’t that shocked by it. She wasn't that nice and had always scared the shit out of me, even before the apocalypse began. She was sent to Ericsons’s for stabbing a kid in her middle school with sewing scissors so… looks like I just joined her list of victims.”
“God, that’s horrible. That must’ve hurt.”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “Like you said, it’s inevitable we’d get a scar or two with the world like this. At least I didn’t die. And at least I didn’t have to do the stitches myself.”
“Yeah, you said it. If I had to do stitches on my stomach instead of my arm I would’ve definitely passed out.”
“Or thrown up. …Actually, if you were stabbed in the stomach would you even be able to barf? I mean, would it just like gush out of the stab wound, or – ”
“Anyways, Louis,” Clementine cut in, trying not to gag, “it’s your turn.”
“Fine, fine… So I’ve been meaning to ask, but… what the hell is that thing on your arm?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She ran her fingers over the New Frontier insignia. “Considering what you’re like, I thought this was gonna be the first thing you asked about.”
“Hey. I wanted to save the best for last.”
“So… unlike the stitches or the bullet wound, this was intentional. It’s not a scar so much as it is a brand.”
“Someone branded you? You mean like what they do to cows?! Jesus christ! What sick fuck would do that to a kid?!”
“A group of sick fucks called the New Frontier. They were a group I ran into a couple years back when AJ was just a baby. I was desperate to find a good home for him, and at first they seemed like a good deal. They had water and had a ton of food and above all else they had doctors. And medicine. It honestly felt like a dream come true.”
“But…?”
“But… The leaders of that group were very paranoid and were obsessed with loyalty. To prove you were loyal to the group, you had to get their insignia branded on your skin. I was so desperate to find a safe home for AJ that I let them.”
“Oh… god, Clem. Did AJ…?”
“No, they didn’t brand him. They didn’t do it to really young children. But I guess thirteen was old enough to count.”
“Jeez. They sound awful. It’s a pretty cool symbol, though. But it’d look better as a tattoo or something other than… that.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Thankfully, when I left there, a new guy was put in charge; my friend, Javier. He was really nice. And I bet he’s running things better than they were. At the very least, I doubt he’s making people brand themselves.”
“Well that’s good to hear.”
“Yeah. Man, I often wonder how Javi’s doing. Abel told me his group was at war with others so… I hope he’s okay.”
“Well, he was a friend of yours, right? If even a tiny bit of your greatness rubbed off on him, I’m sure he’s doing just fine.”
“Oh, shut up.” She laughed at that.
“What? I’m just being honest.”
“Whatever.” She glanced over at him, and as he lifted his coat’s sleeve from the water and wrung in out, attempting to get rid of some of the bloodstains around the bullet hole, Clementine noticed a long, thin scar running from just below his wrist to his elbow. “What happened to your arm?”
“Oh… mm.” He looked a little anxious. “This one’s not very fun.”
“Less fun than being stabbed?”
“Actually, yeah. Because at least when I got stabbed, no one… uh…” He sighed.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s fine. Besides, I promised I wouldn’t spare any of the gross details.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, so this was like, five years back, I think. I was out by the river with one of the other kids here, Jasper. We were fishing together. It was right in the middle of spring, so the tide was kind of high from all the melting snow. I remember a particularly fat fish swam by and Jasper was dead set on getting it. When he missed it he followed it down stream a ways. He then leaned in real close to spear it and he missed again, and in the process he slipped on a rock and fell in. I immediately dropped everything and ran after him. But he was older and bigger than me so when I reached out for him, he wound up pulling me in with him. God, the tide was so fast and strong. I kept trying to grab ahold of something – a piece of driftwood, a rock on the bank – anything to get out of there. While trying to do so, my arm slid across a sharp rock and was sliced open.”
“How did you get out of there?”
“I eventually passed out and washed up on a riverbank about a mile down. Almost a whole day had passed when I came to. Thankfully, Marlon had sent out a couple search parties for Jasper and me. Minnie and Vi found me and helped me back to the school. Thankfully my arm didn’t get too badly infected and I was okay in a day or two.” He sighed. “But Jasper, he… Brody and Mitch told me they found him as a walker a few days later. He drowned, apparently. Since then I was never given fishing duty and was usually sent to hunt or set up traps with Aasim or Sophie instead.”
“Sounds like a pretty shitty fishing trip.”
“Yeah. The shittiest.”
“…It wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”
“You weren’t there.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t. But I know what it’s like. One of my friends drowned in a lake a few years back. I tried to save him but like you said: he was bigger than me and I wound up just falling in, too. It took me a long time to get over the fact that I couldn’t have saved him, no matter what I did. I’m sure your other friends were just happy that you got out alive instead of losing both of you that day.”
“I guess so… thanks, Clem. And I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about yours too. And it’s okay. It… was a long time ago.”
“Mm-hmm…” He paused for a moment, then finally asked: “so… let’s get back to gross things.”
“Of course.”
“So I gotta know… which one hurt the most?”
“Hmmm… That’s a hard one.” She brought her hand to her chin in thought. Honestly, her first instinct was to say the dog bite. That had hurt like hell, and the fact that she had spent so much time with it raw and open, then had to stitch it together herself and also she poured rubbing alcohol in it made it the winner. But the New Frontier insignia had been a nightmare, too. Sure it hadn’t hurt for as long, but the added pain of having to realize what she was going to allow to happen to her as well as go through with it made her remember it with a grimace. She remembered AJ had been in the room when she had it done to her, too, and while she doubted he remembered, she’d never forget his cries when she had screamed out in agony. And she hated seeing AJ cry. But then the bullet wound was pretty bad too. Getting shot had been a burning, awful pain, and it didn’t help that she never really got the chance to recover from it. She woke up in that car to Kenny and Jane’s bickering and they had wound up fighting and putting her through hell before she had the chance to focus on herself. She remembered it had been days before she reached a point where she had gotten to focus on it. And having to carry AJ in the months that followed only extended the pain.
But… Clementine figured Louis had heard enough gruesome details for the day. Besides, she got a different idea when she pulled her hand away and glanced at the old, long forgotten scar on the side of her finger.
“This one.” She said. She held her right hand out to him. He took it and got a better look at it, confused.
“What exactly am I looking for here?”
“On my index finger. You see the scar? It’s right on the side.”
Louis turned her hand to the side and after squinting he finally saw it.
“That?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What… is this exactly? It looks like a paper cut.”
“Close, but it was actually a cut I got from a piece of wood.”
“Okay… how exactly does a wood cut hurt more than stitching your own arm up?”
“So this happened to me when I was eight, literally just a couple days after all this began. My friend Lee and I took refuge with a couple of other survivors in his family’s drugstore. We went to the backroom to look for some supplies, and we had to push a desk to the side. While doing so I cut my finger. That’s where I got this.”
“…No offense, but how did that hurt worse than the other scars?”
“Well physically? No. It didn’t hurt as much as stitching my arm back together. It does make me sadder than those other scars, though. I mean… I got this at the beginning. Back then it was a huge deal for me. I was eight and hardly had any injuries in my life. If I got a cut like this now I probably wouldn’t give a shit.” She gazed at her finger and sighed. “So I guess it just… hurts, to remember that things were so simple once. Back then we thought this whole thing was just a nightmare that would pass sooner or later. We couldn’t have known that our normal lives were already gone. I mean… back then, I honestly thought my parents had made it and that I would get to see them again and go back home and get to go to school again and that everything would… be okay eventually. I guess it hurts to think that was it, y’know? That was one of the last days I got to be naïve and just… look at things like a kid would. I know it’s dumb to dwell but… I kind of miss it. I miss not knowing how bad things were going to get and just… being allowed to be a kid.”
“You’re not dumb.” Louis asserted, looking for once in his life serious. “I get like that sometimes, too. I mean – I don’t have a scar to commemorate it or anything – but I miss the old days too sometimes.”
“But weren’t you the one who told AJ the old world wasn’t that great?”
“Yeah, I did. But mostly because I didn’t want him to dwell on what he’ll never get to have. I know most of us here have a bit of a pessimistic view on the way things were; we can’t help it. It was just the way we were raised. Honestly, I think a lot of us thought the world was better once it went to shit. We were in charge now. We could do whatever we wanted. There were no more teachers around to yell at us and hit us with yardsticks for acting up and our parents weren’t around to tell us how much they hated us. In a way it was nice. But we never got completely over it. I doubt that’s even possible. You can’t just forget about going to the pool during the summer and getting to dress up for Halloween and getting cake on your birthday. That stuff just… doesn’t go away, even if there’s no point in thinking about it. So… you’re not dumb, Clem. I mean that.”
“Well… thanks, Lou. Honestly didn’t expect you to take that seriously.”
“What? Come on. I take everything seriously!”
“You keep telling yourself that.” She laughed. “Anyways, you’re up.”
“Huh?”
“It’s your turn to tell me yours: which one hurt the most?”
“Oh.” He thought for a moment. “Like, physically? Or do you mean in a deep way like yours?”
“Whichever you want to work with.”
“Hmm. Okay, well if you mean physically, then definitely being stabbed. It hurt like hell and it was in such a shitty spot. I couldn’t sit up right for almost a week without it hurting and it hurt to do almost everything, even breathe. But if you mean something deep and poetic, then I guess I’d have to say…” He trailed off before finally pulling his lip to the side, revealing a missing tooth on the right side of his mouth.
“That one?”
“Yup. This one hurt more than the others. In a deep way, I mean.”
“Huh. You know I have been wondering how you lost that. I figured you got it from getting into a fistfight with Marlon, or maybe from eating too much sugar.”
“God, I wish. To the sugar part I mean, not Marlon. Believe it or not, he and I rarely got into fights. I’m just not much of a fighter. And even if we did, he wouldn’t hit me. I know that.”
“Okay, what happened, then?”
“So… this was actually before all this. In fact, it was right before I was sent to Ericson’s. You remember how I said it wasn’t until a week or so after I came clean about the divorce that I was sent here? Yeah, there’s a reason for that. I don’t think sending me here was their initial plan. I mean, what good would it do? Yeah, I stole a lot of money, but it wasn’t even for stealing’s sake. I doubt they were worried about me becoming a kleptomaniac. My revenge was done so originally, I think they didn’t know what to do with me. I remember in the settlement my dad got custody of me five days a week, my mom two. I think that was his attempt at one final dig at my mom. If she was gonna accuse him of an affair that he wasn't having, then he was gonna take her son away. Something like that, I think. Anyways, during that week after I told them what had happened, I remember my dad growing more and more… irritable. He started drinking more. He wouldn’t really talk to me. I don’t think he wanted me around. And I can’t really blame him. I mean I did… kind of set out to ruin his life. It probably didn’t help that I was kind of smug about it, too. I didn’t make fun of him to his face or anything, but… I didn’t really apologize or anything, either. I was still waiting for him to say yes to my stupid singing lessons, as if I’d actually get them after what I did.”
He laughed, though there was very little joy to it.
“Anyways, after a couple days of tense silence between my dad and me something… changed. One morning I got up and got ready for school like I usually did. But just as I was about to head down the stairs… I felt a hard shove against my back and I fell. It happened so fast I couldn’t even scream. I didn’t even realize what happened until I hit the bottom. My dad was at the top of the stairs, glaring down at me. I think he was disappointed that the fall didn’t hurt me more. Um…”
He took a deep breath.
“He, uh… he came down the stairs and told me to apologize. For everything I had done. I was too scared to speak and when I didn’t say anything, he punched me. And he kept doing it, over and over again. Telling me I needed to apologize for ruining his life and taking everything away from him. But he was hitting me too much for me to even get a word in. I think that just made him angrier. And soon enough, I noticed my mouth was filling up with blood. At some point, he had knocked my tooth out. I think it was when he punched me with his left hand. After all, he still wore his wedding ring.”
He paused for a moment, running his hand through his hair anxiously.
“He stopped, eventually. I honestly don’t know if it was because he was tiring himself out or if he was realizing he was late for work. He was still mad as hell though; after all, I never wound up apologizing… I was crying too much. He told me to go back to my room and not leave the house while he was gone. He wasn’t going to take me to school and he told me he’d just call me out sick. He said if my face didn’t heal soon I wouldn’t be going to school tomorrow, either. And he told me, for fucks sake, to stop crying; I was just doing that to try and make him feel bad when I was the one who started it. When I kept whimpering I remember he told me, earnestly, that he wished he could kill me.”
Clementine noticed his hand began to tremble a little. She put her hand on his in support, gently stroking it with her thumb.
“So after that, I did as told and went to my room. And that was the last time I ever saw him. I sat in my room and waited and waited until I heard him leave the house for work. I waited for another couple minutes until I figured the coast was clear and I ran. I ran and ran and ran and just kept going until I finally made it to my mom’s new house, halfway across town. By then, it was late enough that she was coming home from work. I begged her to let me in. She was hesitant to do so; she could get in a lot of trouble for having me on a day she wasn’t supposed to. That… and I don’t think she really wanted me around after what I had done. I ruined her trust, and she wasn’t about to forgive me. But when she saw how fucked up my face was, she finally let me in. I told her what happened, and begged her to let me stay with her from now on. She… didn’t seem to want that. She didn’t say it but I could tell by her face that she really didn’t want me around, either. But… unlike my dad, she didn’t think I deserved to die. So she chose a compromise: Ericson’s. She figured that this was proof that we all needed some time apart. I needed to go away so I could learn to become a better person, that way when I came back, maybe she could trust me again. And maybe my dad could forgive me enough to not want to kill me anymore. I was sent to Ericson’s the morning after that. All this happened in just a week after the divorce was finalized.”
Louis was staring blankly ahead of him at the rushing water his face, for once, unreadable. Clementine, on the other hand, was horrified. She didn’t know what to say, so she remained silent.
“That… isn’t even close to the most painful injury I’ve ever had. But like your finger, it hurts the most to think about. When my dad was beating me, I wasn’t even thinking about how much it hurt. I was too busy looking at his face. All the anger and the hatred that was there… all I could think about was how mad he was and how I had done that to him. I broke my dad entirely. I took everything away from him. I made my mom hate him; I split him from the love of his life and pushed him to a point where he wanted to kill me. I did that! And it hurts to think that I was such a stupid fucking selfish brat that I pushed him to do something so awful. I couldn’t even argue with my mom when she chose to send me away rather than take me in. It was my fault I was in that situation in the first place. If the world didn’t end, I honestly don’t think my parents would’ve ever let me come home. That’s how much I ruined everything. And… I dunno, Clem. It just hurts. Because despite everything, I loved my parents at the end, I think. And knowing that I made them hate me so much and I only have myself to blame for it and I never even fucking apologized… It just hurts.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Louis looked completely and utterly ashamed and wouldn’t look in Clementine’s direction. She, on the other hand, couldn’t believe that something like that had happened to him. He always seemed so carefree and cheerful… it made sense that his reason for being here had been something like petty theft rather than blatant violence or something of the like. What he had done was awful, but to think that there was more to it, that someone like him – someone so kind and loving – had been hurt in such a way over it made her heart ache.
“Louis, I’m so – ”
“No, don’t say you’re sorry.” He interrupted. “Please, don’t say you’re sorry. I had it coming. My dad was right; I really did bring it on myself. I left this part out at the party on purpose. In fact most of the other kids don’t know it. You’re only the second person I’ve told and there’s a reason for that. I didn’t want people to know it. I didn’t want people to hear it and feel sorry for me. I didn’t want people to think ‘oh poor Louis, his dad beat him’. I don’t deserve that sympathy. I wasn’t sent here because I was a victim. I was sent here because I was bad. I brought it upon myself! It was my fault! I was just being punished for something bad I did. And all parents do that.”
“No, they don’t. Parents aren’t supposed to hit you ever, not even for doing something bad.”
“Depends on what that you think bad is. Yeah, it’d be fucked up if your dad hit you over spilling a glass of milk, but it was different. I only ever got hit for bad things, like failing tests or acting out or something. That was the first time I had really been knocked around and it makes sense. I ruined my dad’s life. It’s no surprise he’d want to take mine away.”
“Louis…” She trailed off, horrified. She didn’t know what to say. But hearing this… it made so much about him make sense now. She understood why he thought so little of himself; he was probably raised to believe his life was worthless. And now she understood why that night, when they had gone to rescue their friends from the boat, he had asked her to hit him when he was beginning to panic. At the time, she hadn’t wanted to think about it. There couldn’t have been a good reason as to why he was asking his literal girlfriend to strike him. But now she understood. That was how he was used to dealing with calming his behavior, wasn’t it? If he got out of hand, he needed to be hit to stop. He had never been told it was okay to feel that way, that it was okay to be scared or stressed or worried. He had only ever been told to stop and struck if he didn’t. But it seemed telling him he was wrong about this wasn’t going to get her anywhere. It was so ingrained him in that he deserved it that she doubted just telling him it was fucked up would help. Besides, did he really need another person telling him he was fucked up? “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“That night when Marlon died, when you realized what AJ had done… what was your first thought?”
“My first thought? I-I don’t know. I was scared, I guess. And mad. I mean, my best and longest friend I had ever had was gone in an instant. I was distraught!”
“Okay, and how did you feel about AJ?”
“I… I don’t know. I was mad at him, too. Honestly, I didn’t even want to look at him. The whole situation… it was so fucked.”
“Okay. Let’s say that Violet hadn’t intervened and told everyone to stay away from him. Let’s say everyone was on team get him the hell out of here. If given the chance, would you have killed him that night?”
“What?!” He looked at her, horrified. “God no! What the fuck? Why would I ever think that? He’s a kid! It was fucked up and wrong but I’d never even dream of hurting him.”
“You see what you’re saying? AJ killing Marlon is one of the worst things he’s done. As mad as I was at Marlon for what he did, I wasn’t planning on killing him unless I absolutely had to. And I don’t think it was going to reach that point. Yet AJ did it anyways, just when things had cooled down. I was horrified. That was an awful thing for him to do, and he needed to make up for it. But despite that, I would’ve never hurt him. Just the thought makes me sick. He’s just a little kid and he had no idea that what he was doing was so bad. He needed to learn, not be tortured. And you’re the same as me. Sure, you were mad, you wanted us gone… but you still didn’t want anything bad to happen to us. After all, the moment you saw AJ’s injuries a few days later, you immediately let him back in with open arms. You knew he didn’t deserve something like that, no matter what he did. So why would it be any different for you?”
“W-well, that’s different. AJ’s only what, five?”
“Yeah, and? You’re younger than your parents and already have the maturity to know that doing something like that to a kid is wrong. Besides how old were you when you were sent to Ericson’s?”
“Uh… nine, I think. I was there for a year and a half before Violet showed up and all this started.”
“That’s still so young! No one deserves that, Louis. I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“Still…” Louis muttered. “It’s not as bad as being locked in a shed all night with an open wound and having to sew it shut yourself.”
“I’d say it is. What happened to me was done by a bunch of strangers who didn’t know me and didn’t trust me. As mad as I was I get why they did it; I was a total stranger with what looked like a walker bite. Most people wouldn’t trust that. Besides, it had happened like two years into this shit and by then I was used to violence. But yours happened before the apocalypse. Your parents should’ve known better than to do that to their kid. You didn't deserve that, Louis.”
He didn’t respond to that. She reached out to him slowly and placed her hand on his cheek. She noticed he flinched just a little bit when she made contact, but he allowed her to touch him anyways. He sighed gently and leaned into her touch.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” he finally said, “but you really do remind me of Marlon sometimes.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. He was the only other person who I’ve told all this to and his response was pretty similar to yours.”
“Really? Huh. This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Marlon would take well. …No offense.”
“No, I get it. A lot of people don’t really get how we became friends. We just seemed… really different. He was always so serious and got mad really easily and I was always so laid back and goofy. But… once you get past all that, he really was a nice guy. This fucked up world just… fucked him up, too. And before it happened, we had a lot more in common than people think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… when I first got here, honestly, I was kind of afraid of him. I was afraid of a lot of the kids, actually. Shouldn’t be surprising that a lot of us were sent here for violence. Me and Vi… and uh, Willy I guess, are kind of odd ones out in that sense. Marlon was no different. He was sent here for picking one too many fights at his old school. And while he was apparently getting better, he had a bit of a reputation here. Got mad at teachers easily and had been known to throw a punch or two. Needless to say when I found out I was gonna share a room with him, I was terrified. I definitely thought I’d be getting another missing tooth soon enough. But… he never did anything. Said hello, was nice enough… we didn’t talk much, that kind of thing. Probably hard to imagine, huh? Me not talking all the time.”
“Honestly, yeah. It is a little hard to imagine.”
“Anyways, it changed a couple weeks later. I remember there was this one teacher, Mr. Sawyer, who just fucking hated me. I have no idea why. Maybe it was because I was kinda chatty with some of the other kids and I liked to pass notes in class. That, and he was a math teacher, and I was god awful at math and didn't really try. One day, I had really set him off. I don’t even remember what I did, but he was furious at me. I think I had been making fun of his balding head or something and he heard it, I forget. But anyways he called me to the front of the room and told me to apologize to him for acting out. ...That, uh, scared me. It made me think of my dad. And just like back then, I couldn’t say anything. I totally froze up. That just pissed him off even more. He raised his hand to hit me, and, uh… and Marlon rushed out of nowhere and punched him in the stomach. Then he took my hand and we just… ran.”
“Holy shit. He did that to a teacher? And he was… nine?”
“Yeah. I was so shocked that I just… didn’t let go and followed him. I let him take me wherever he went. We ran and ran and kept running until we reached the clock tower. Marlon said it was where a lot of the kids would go when they were hiding from teachers. Even if they knew we were there, most teachers wouldn’t bother to climb up all that to get us. Of course we’d have to come back down eventually, but for the time being it was a place to hopefully cool off, on both ends. I followed Marlon up to the tower in silence and when we got to the top he asked me if I was okay. I said I was fine but I was so confused by it all that I had to ask him just why in the world he would do that. He didn’t even know me, so… why would he risk getting in trouble like that, for me? He told me it was because… well, when he saw me so scared, it reminded him of himself.”
He shut his eyes, growing lost in the memory.
“We started talking after that. The first real conversation I had with him since I got there. He told me that he could always tell there was something… up with me. Usually the new kids were angry and irritable, tried to lash out when they could to show they wouldn’t be controlled, but I just seemed defeated. That and he uh… noticed my missing tooth. And my bruises when I first got there. He said he got the feeling there was more to me being here than just being a brat and stealing some money. When I refused to budge, he changed the subject. He asked if I knew why he was sent there. I told him what I knew: it was for violence. He got in trouble for picking fights with other students back at his old school. He said that while that was basically true, that there was more to it than that, like there always is with these kinds of things.”
He glanced up at Clementine for a moment.
“I know you hated his guts. I’m betting you still do. And like… I get it, but I mean it when I say there was more to him than just… being an angry, violent kid. He told me that for as long as he could remember, he was always surrounded by violence. His dad used to hit him and his mom a lot. And she’d take things out on him, too. It got so bad he was sent to the hospital a couple times. He told me he had his arm broken more than once.”
“Jesus…” Clementine muttered.
“Yeah, you said it. However, most people didn’t react like you did. Since he was so used to violence at home, that’s how he acted at school, too. Whenever he got fed up or frustrated, he’d deal with it with his fists. Because of that, he had a reputation as a ‘bad kid’. So when he got beaten real bad and broke his arm, no one thought to report it. Teachers and other kids’ parents just figured he had started shit and brought it upon himself. He was sent here for giving too many kids a bloody nose and his parents were told to do something about him. Not wanting to deal with him, they sent him here. It wasn’t until he got here that he started to change, a little. But it wasn’t the teachers that helped him out, it was the other kids. He said that being surrounded by other kids like him, kids whose parents hated them, kids that no one ever listened to and were labeled as bad and ignored for it… it helped him out. It made him realize that he wasn’t the only one going through hell, and it made him feel less alone. And he told me that I wasn’t alone either.”
Louis smiled, though there was a tremendous amount of sadness to it; his mouth was shut, his eyes downcast in thought, and he wasn’t flashing a big, toothy grin like he usually did.
“He didn’t sugar coat things. He told me bluntly that things here sucked; the staff was often awful to the students. I had just witnessed that myself with Mr. Sawyer trying to hit me. Teachers would often hit the kids and they pretty much always got away with it. The headmaster didn’t give a shit and it wasn’t like anyone would believe us if we spoke out. We were bad kids; they’d just assume we were making it up to try and get out. What happened today would probably happen again. But that didn’t mean I’d have to deal with it by myself. He stuck up for me because he knew what it was like to be singled out and scared like that. He figured it’d help knowing that the other kids had my back and they were with me. …After that, he asked me again what was up with me. The teachers had told him, like all the other kids, the story that would paint the worst picture of me: that I was a spoiled brat that stole a lot of money and caused my parents so much stress they divorced. He wanted to know what else happened, and how a kid with a story like that wound up as banged up as I did. So I told him. And until like right now, he was the only one who knew the full story.”
“How come you didn’t tell the other kids? I mean… they all seem like good people. I think they’d all want to help you if they knew. Especially Violet. I bet she’d find your dad and cut him to pieces. Whether or not he was a walker.”
“Yeah, I don’t doubt that. But I just… I dunno. It felt weird to mention. There’s not really a good time to bring it up. Didn’t want to just barrel in there with ‘hey what’s up guys, did you know I’m a Leo and also my dad beat me so bad I lost a tooth?’ It’d just be weird. That and… I guess I always figured there’s a chance they wouldn’t believe me. I mean… I don’t really come off as an abused kid. I pushed my dad to that point. It wasn’t that bad until then. Besides, I don’t really look or act like a victim. Before all this I ate well, I had nice clothes and all the fancy new toys and video games. I wasn’t the type of person who you’d expect to be like that. I feel like everyone would think I’m lying. And even if they did believe me, it’d probably just come off as whining. My life was so good except for getting hit a few times, so why should they care? Besides, does it really matter anymore? It’s been years, and my parents are probably gone. And if they’re not, they probably don’t even remember me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“If you’re still dwelling on it, then it matters. What happened to you was horrible. And like you said to me, it’s okay to be sad about it.”
Louis just glanced at her for a moment and chuckled.
“What is it?” She asked.
“Nothing. Just... despite everything Marlon told me I remember being… almost jealous of him. Not because of what he had been through; god, no one deserves that. I guess I was just envious of his ability to take initiative on things. He used his pain and turned it to anger and turned that anger into something. Back then, it was for something good. He stood up for other students and fought back against teachers that were being awful. And when the apocalypse started, he quickly became a leader. I wasn’t like that. I’ve never been like that. I’m passive and stupid and I tend to freeze up and get scared and just… let things happen, I guess. I know it bothers people. It bothered Marlon, and it sure as hell bothers Aasim and Violet. And I’m trying to get better about it, but I just… can’t help it sometimes. I dunno. I guess it’s nice to know you don’t think I’m stupid for it.”
“You’re not stupid for it. I like you the way you are. With the way the world is now, I’ve met way too many people who get mad easily and blow up at the tiniest things. I guess… I’m kinda one of them now, huh? So someone like you, someone who’s cheerful and funny and sweet… honestly, it’s like a breath of fresh air.”
“Really?” Louis looked shocked by that. But then, as always, he smiled; his beautiful, big toothy grin that never failed to make Clementine smile, too. “Well… I'm glad to be of service.”
Clementine picked up her denim jacket, the last of the clothes she had been washing, and squeezed it out over the river before putting it in a basket Louis had carried here. They’d hang them up to dry once they got back to the school, which they probably should do soon, lest AJ begin to worry.
“I think it’s about time we should head back.” She said finally.
“I’m ready if you are.” He followed suit and put his laundry in the basket too. However, before he went to grab Clementine’s crutches, he hesitated. “Say, Clem? Can I tell you something?”
“Go for it.”
“I know it’s… dumb of me to be like, happy about getting my ass beat and the downfall of humanity or whatever but… I’m almost glad all that happened. It meant I got to meet you. And I wouldn’t change that for anything.” He looked away, focusing his attention onto her crutches. “Yeah. Anyways, let’s go.”
He held the crutches out towards her. However, rather than take them, she pushed them to the side and chose to envelope him in a tight hug instead.
“I’m happy I got to meet you too, Louis.” She said, stroking his back gently. “And thank you for trusting me with all this. It couldn’t have been easy so… thank you. And I just want you to know you’re safe now. No one’s ever gonna hurt you again. At least, not if I have anything to say about it.”
Louis didn’t say anything for a moment. He just slowly wrapped his trembling arms around her waist, and rested his head against her shoulder. Finally, he said,
“...Thank you. And you’re right. I do feel safe around you. Safer than I have in years, honestly. But…”
“What is it?”
“What about walkers?”
“What about them?”
“You said no one’s gonna hurt me again and that I’m safe. Are we really safe when they’re always around?”
“Oh my god Louis, you know what I meant.”
“I know, I know. I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Well, fine. If any walker comes near you I’ll chop them in half. If they so much as look at you I’ll get them before they can even lift a finger.”
“…A finger, huh? That reminds me.” He pulled away from their embrace and gently grabbed ahold of her right hand. He brought it to his mouth and gave the faded scar on her index finger a small kiss, before returning it to her lap. “You said this one hurt the most. So here’s hoping that helped a little.”
“Thanks, Lou.” She said, smiling idly at her hand. “Here's hoping I can help yours, too.”
Without another word, she reached out and cupped his face in her hands again. This time, he didn’t flinch away when she touched him. He looked much more relaxed than earlier, and trusted her touch. However, just as she was about to give him a kiss, he grinned and said,
“So how are we doing this? You’re not going to kiss my gums, right?”
“Louis.”
He laughed and she just rolled her eyes at him before finally kissing the corner of his mouth, where just behind his lips was that missing tooth.
“I hope it feels better soon.” She said gently when she finally pulled away.
“It already does, Clem.” He smiled and pressed his forehead against hers. “I mean that.”
The two of them headed back to the school soon after that, both wishing they could hold hands on the way back but due to the harsh nature of the world, they had to make do with simply walking beside one another; two scarred children in a cruel world - one that had, to some, always been cruel - hopefully already heading down the long path of healing.