Chapter 3
Ellie laid in bed, staring at her fingers in the dim light from the windows. It was very late at night, but she couldn’t go back to sleep. A nightmare had shaken her awake, leaving her trembling in a cold sweat, though now most of the fear and tension had gone away. It used to be that she would have to take an hour or more to calm herself down, but now it only took ten minutes. Usually.
When the fear went away it left her with an almost unbearably heavy feeling in the center of her chest. It was like there was a weight stuck inside of her and pinning her to the bed; she couldn’t get up no matter how hard she tried, not that she tried much at all. She just laid in her spot and thought about the nightmare over and over again.
She didn’t remember much except for a feeling of suffocating. What from, she wasn’t always sure. Sometimes she thought it had been hands around her throat, other times the hands were on her shoulders, pushing her down, down, down. No matter how hard she bit or kicked or scratched or screamed, she could never get the hands off of her. As she struggled, she’d looked up and seen something or someone through her dark muddled vision, and then she was awake, grasping at her throat where she swore she could feel the old bruises again.
Over and over and over she remembered the feeling of dying in her nightmare, how terrifying it was to be trapped with no way out no matter how hard she tried, how her stomach sank as she realized that this could be it. It was a feeling she was all too familiar with given how many times she’d almost died, and it never stopped being terrifying. In fact, it just got worse. Every single time.
She turned onto her side, unsticking her face from the tear-stained pillow, and stared at the wall. She tried to think of anything else, but everything came back to death and blood on her hands, the blood in her mouth.
Sometimes she wanted to die, just to get it over with.
Time passed. Slowly, the room began to brighten as the sun came up. She turned onto her back to watch what she could of the sunrise through the windows, but that was all. She should have gotten up, should have started getting ready for the day. She was supposed to work at the general store today, but she…couldn’t get up. Couldn’t even make herself care enough to want to. Her body was too heavy, and she didn’t feel like fighting with it or pretending she wanted to force herself to go out and pretend to be okay. Not today.
A small part of her felt guilty and pathetic and angry. The rest felt empty, almost. Numb. So what if she didn’t show up? Someone else would take her place, and they’d be much more useful than she was right now.
The day went by, and she only got up from the bed once and that was to use the bathroom. Her stomach growled a few times, but she didn’t actually feel hungry. Eating felt like too much energy, not to mention having to get up and find something in the first place, and even the thought of food made her feel a little sick. The most she had was a sip of water every so often.
It wasn’t the first time she’d ever felt like this, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last, no matter how badly she wanted it to be. Actually, she was pretty sure she’d been this way all her life, but it didn’t used to be so bad. Sometimes when she was a kid she’d just have a bad day, just didn’t want to be around anyone, but she never stayed glued to her bed. Plus, she’d had Riley to make sure she had no reason to. Then Riley left, and from there it got worse and worse. Riley left, Riley died, Marlene left, Tess died, Sam died, Henry died, Joel tried to leave, Joel almost died, she almost died, she didn’t die, Joel lied, Joel did die, she tortured Nora, she killed that pregnant woman, Jesse died, Tommy almost died, Dina almost died, she didn’t die, she didn’t die.
On and on, worse and worse. After Seattle, she’d just wanted to curl up into a ball and rot, and there were plenty of times where she almost had, but she had Dina, and Dina wouldn’t let her. More than that, she didn’t want to let Dina down, not after the shit Dina had gone through because of her (and look at where they were now). She’d been close to letting herself rot again in Santa Barbara, but her body was trained to survive. Santa Barbara was not safe, whether from the Vipers or infected, so she couldn’t shut down. Survival was what kept her body pushing through from California to Wyoming, even if her mind had mostly shut down. Now she was back in Jackson, built so no one had to fight for food rations or wonder where they could find a safe place to sleep away from infected or bandits (or self-important psychopaths) or be too scared to even breath incase some Clicker or Stalker was waiting around the corner. Jackson was built for living. Well, here she was, living in this fucking bed.
The sky had started to turn purple when there was a knock at her door. Immediately she turned over so her back was to it and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. Another knock.
“Ellie?” Maria called. When Ellie didn’t respond, she knocked again. “Ellie, I know you’re in there. Kara told me you didn’t come in today, she wanted me to see what’s going on.”
Ellie just put her pillow over her head and held it tight. She didn’t need Maria trying to help today.
Of course, Maria didn’t give up easily. She stayed for a long time, knocking and calling out for Ellie and trying to convince her to come out, and Ellie was very glad that the lock on her door worked. She didn’t want anyone bothering her or trying to pull her out of whatever the hell it was that she was feeling – they’d just make it worse. Sure, Maria meant well, but she wasn’t going to actually help, she was just going to tell Ellie that she couldn’t stay in here like this and she needed to eat something and get outside and what the fuck ever. Ellie had heard the same spiel enough times, and obviously Maria’s advice wasn’t helping. She just wanted to be left alone.
At some point she realized that Maria had gone quiet. She waited, waited, then pulled the pillow away and listened closely. Nothing. Seemed like Maria had decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble this time. With a sigh, Ellie finally relaxed. Maria could get mad at her tomorrow and go on and on about how Ellie needed to take better care of herself, whatever, but tonight was not the night for it.
The light faded until the room was dark again. Her irritation slowly gave way to guilt, but she didn’t want to think about it. Her eyelids were getting heavy, and that’s what mattered now. She closed her eyes and fell asleep within seconds, thank God, and only hoped that tomorrow wouldn’t be the same as today. Maybe she’d change it up and wallow on the couch for once.
Ellie woke up in the middle of the night again, but this time she didn’t remember the dream at all. For the best, she thought.
Today, guilt hit her in full force, both for how she’d treated Maria and for not even trying to tell Kara she wasn’t feeling up to work. The very least she could do now was go and make up for it, and trying to be useful was the least she could do for herself. She got cleaned and dressed, and by that alone was already off to a better start than yesterday.
It was just past sunrise when headed for the door. It was still a little early so the store might not have opened yet, but she could get something quick to eat beforehand, at least. Still wasn’t very hungry, but she knew she should anyway. She pulled her coat on, opened the door, and stopped an inch short of running right into Tommy.
“Shit!” she hissed under her breath, jumping back. Her hand flew back to where the switchblade was kept in her pocket, but upon realizing who was in front of her she quickly tried to play it off by instead wiping her hand on the side of her pants.
Tommy stepped back, one hand still in the air mid-knock, and a second later let out an apologetic chuckle. “Ah, shit, I didn’t mean to scare you. Wasn’t even sure you’d still be here, but…” He trailed off and shook his head, then gave her a warm smile. “Mornin’, Ellie.”
“Hi,” she muttered. Her eyes avoided him on instinct, but she forced herself to pull them up and focus on a spot between his eyebrows. Another heavy feeling was starting to form in her chest, but it wasn’t like the one that had kept her pinned down yesterday. “Did you need something?”
He blinked, apparently not expecting that kind of response. “Er, not exactly. I just…wanted to check up on you, make sure you’re alright. I heard you didn’t show up for work yesterday and no one had seen you anywhere else.”
“Oh, I’m fine. Wasn’t feeling well. Cramps, y’know,” she added. Right on cue, Tommy shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. It was a reliable lie; he and Joel had never been all that comfortable with period stuff. Not that she’d ever been comfortable bringing it up around them, either, but it was always a handy lie.
“Oh. Do you need anything…?”
“No, no. I’m fine now. I was actually on my way to go and make it up to Kara, so –”
“Hey, Ellie,” Tommy said, stopping her before she could try to slip by him. “Can I ask you something?’
She did her best to look as casual as possible. “Sure.”
“Have you been avoiding me?” he asked, looking closely at her, and it was getting harder to keep her eyes on him. “Ever since you got back it feels like I’ve barely seen you at all, let alone talked to you.”
Shit. Of course he’d noticed. “No. I mean, I’m not really talking to anyone anyway, so it’s not a you thing.”
“Ellie, I’m not completely stupid. If something’s wrong, you can tell me.”
“Nothing’s wrong, Tommy. Seriously,” she said, and despite how much she’d tried to keep it down, the hard edge in her voice came out clear as day. She bit the inside of her cheek, then took in a deep breath and stepped forward, closing the door. “Look, I have to go.”
“Ellie –”
“I’m gonna be late. We can talk later.” With that she pushed past him, leaving another lie hanging in the air behind her. Tommy didn’t follow.
Like with Dina, Ellie had been avoiding Tommy, maybe more than she had Dina. At least with Dina they’d both been skirting around each other, giving each other the space they needed and waiting until Dina was ready to break that space, but with Tommy it was harder. He wanted to talk to her and to try spending time with her like they used to, and she didn’t. Couldn’t. She’d always find some excuse to leave conversations early or manage to disappear the moment she saw him enter a room or coming up the street.
The truth was that she was in a way afraid of him. She was afraid that he’d somehow finding out that she’d lied about Abby and blow up at her, and scared that whatever he said would be right, or that it would make her regret everything and want to go running right back to find Abby, and she couldn’t do that again. She’d let Abby go for a reason that she didn’t fully understand, she couldn’t go back on that. She didn’t want to, but Tommy had already shown her that he wouldn’t accept that. He would want her to make things right, but she didn’t think she would be able to take it, not after everything that had happened and what she had done, who she’d started to turn into. She would rather curl up and rot.