Chapter 56
The walls of the house felt too close.
Julianna couldn't breathe, not in the way she needed to. She had to get out, away from the incessant whispers that threaded through her mind, weaving together threads of self-doubt, guilt, and panic. So, she stepped out onto the small, disfigured balcony, the frigid gusts raking at her skin, but it did nothing to quell the fervour swelling inside her. Nothing could extinguish the conflagration of her thoughts.
She tugged her shredded sleeves down a little more, as if she were safeguarding herself from the illusory burden that was slowly pulverising her from within. Her breath came shallow, her heart hammering against her ribcage. Her hands were shaking.
Her mind was a storm of images: the man's face as it contorted in rage, his body writhing like a warped simulacrum ensnared in the clutches of crumbling ligaments, each movement a grotesque dance of despair. She had killed him.
She couldn't even say it out loud, couldn't admit it to herself fully, but it stuck, ponderous and baleful, hovering at the fringes of her awareness like a specter she could never evade.
Jackie's voice kept coming back to her, sharp and accusatory, 'You didn't have to kill him.' It reverberated in her mind, thrumming like a persistent dirge that refused to abate. Every word felt as if it were ensconced deep within her thorax, writhing, excavating into her soul, like putrid maggots voraciously devouring the festering remnants of anguish.
She could still see the man's eyes. Still hear the sickening crunch of metal against bone, his form sprawled and insensate at her feet.
Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into the soft palms of her hands. Why didn't she stop after the first hit? Should she have stopped?
She choked on a breath, her eyes blurring as the thoughts spun faster, tighter, like a noose tightening around her throat. What if she wasn't right? What if she was wrong? What if she made it worse?
It wasn't supposed to be like this. She wasn't supposed to be here, standing solitary on a balcony in the dark, reeling from the consequences of something she couldn't take back. She had never meant to be this person. The girl who had killed someone.
She leaned forward, bracing herself against the railing, feeling the cold metal bite into her palms. The sky was a deep bruise above her, swollen with clouds, and the ground below felt as though it was a million miles away. She wasn't sure if she was even standing anymore, or if her feet were still connected to the earth at all.
Her eyes stung, the tears building in her throat, but she swallowed them down.
But it didn't stop the insidious clasp squeezing her chest, the sensation of a myriad of hands constricting her rib cage. She was suffocating in an increasingly viscous miasma, the sensation like a garrotting deluge. Each inhalation was a skirmish fight against the stifling clutches of despondency, and she didn't know how to stop it. She hadn't been able to stop anything.
She had always believed that the hardest part would be the physical exhaustion, the aching of muscles, the hunger in her belly. But it was the noise in her head that was tearing her apart. The constant, relentless replay of the dead man's eyes, the way his breath came in ragged gasps, the tremor in his hands.
The blood that had encrusted both him and her weapon, forming a sinister patina, each crimson stain a haunting testament to the savagery that transpired.
The words circled inside her like vultures, wings cutting through the haze of her thoughts. She saved Lottie. But then, immediately after: But did she have to kill him? Did she really? She had swung the blade. She had watched him collapse to the ground, a once-animated silhouette reduced to a mass of forgotten flesh. The way he fell, like a discarded effigy, unshackled from its tether, spiraling into an unceremonious descent.
There had been no more movement, no more sound from him. Just the soft, eerie silence that followed. Her pulse had slowed, her breath evened out, but the guilt didn't dissipate.
She closed her eyes, trying to push the images away, to clear her mind. Her hand reached up, fingers tangled in her hair, as if she could tie away the disorder inside her if she could pull it tight enough, trying to gather the strands into something resembling a bun or a ponytail. It was something automatic, something she could do when her brain needed a distraction, when the perturbation in her body demanded release. Something she had started doing since the beginning of the apocalypse.
But when she tried to gather it, to pull it back and fasten it in place, she couldn't, every loop of hair slipping, each strand refusing to cooperate. Her hands shook too much, like her whole body was vibrating from the inside out. The strands fell through her fingers as her mind kept racing, tangling around the same thoughts, the same images, the same horrible sound.
She stopped trying to fix her hair. The loose strands waning around her face, brushing against her flushed skin, discomfort in their clutter. She ran her hands through it again, but this time, there was no real purpose. It was just an attempt to ground herself, to focus on something other than the panic and confusion.
But then she heard it, the sound of footsteps behind her, slow and careful, as though the person approaching understood the fragility of the moment.
"Julianna?"
The voice was a whisper, but it cut through the fog in her mind, gentle but insistent.
She didn't look back, didn't even need to. She could feel Natalie there, could feel her as she stood at the threshold of the balcony, her shadow stretching across the floor like an invitation.
"Are you okay?" Natalie asked, her voice quiet, but filled with something Julianna couldn't quite place. Concern? Care?
Julianna opened her mouth to say something, but the words stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wasn't fine. She wasn't even close. But what was there to say? That she was a killer? That the moment had passed, and now she had to deal with the repercussion of something that never should've happened?
"I don't know," she murmured, more to herself than to Natalie. Her voice cracked as if the words were too heavy to bear.
Natalie was suddenly closer, a reassuring warmth at her back. She could feel the other girl standing behind her, still silent for a moment. Then, there was a shift. The subtle sound of shoes on the floor, the modicum of movement. A soft hand brushed her shoulder—so soft, so delicate, but enough to make her stiffen slightly.
"Do you need help with that?" Natalie spoke, gesturing to her hair, and there was a note of certainty in her voice that made Julianna want to lean into it, to let go of the tension that had been locked in her chest since—well, since she couldn't remember.
Julianna hesitated for a moment. She didn't want to be touched. She didn't want anyone so close, not with everything that was circulating inside her. But there was something about Natalie's company, something consoling and secure, that made it hard to push her away.
"Uh yeah—i guess," Julianna whispered, her voice barely audible. She felt a strange sense of relief when Natalie's hands gently cupped the back of her head, guiding her hair into place. The movement was light, unhurried, as though Natalie was allowing Julianna to take her time, to find her own cadency.
Natalie's fingers worked through her hair with a practiced ease, and as they did, Julianna could feel the pull of something unvoiced. It was subtle—nothing overt, nothing anyone could point to and say, 'there'. But it was there, in the way Natalie's fingers grazed her skin with every pass, the way she hovered just a fraction too long on the back of her neck, where the scar from the surgery marred the curve of her skin.
Julianna felt the scar before she could even think about it. She had spent so long pretending it didn't exist, pushing it away, burying it beneath layers of time, curls of hair, and distance. But there it was—still there, still a part of her. It felt so strange, so cordial to have someone else notice it, to have someone else touch it, to have someone else see it for the first time in years. The scar had become a part of her story, one she had never told anyone—not the full story, anyway.
But Natalie didn't look away. She didn't flinch.
Her fingers brushed against the scar, just faintly, just enough to make Julianna freeze. The sensation was foreign, almost painful in its rawness, but it didn't feel bad. It was emplacing. Real. Natalie's hand paused for a heartbeat, as if waiting for Julianna to say something, but Julianna couldn't bring herself to speak. Her mouth was dry, her thoughts scattered.
"Where did you get it?" Natalie asked, her voice barely above a murmur, like she was afraid to break whatever frangible space they had fabricated between them.
Julianna closed her eyes. She had been asked this before—'How'd you get that scar?'—but the answer had always been a little too telling to share. She had always disparaged it before, hidden behind lies and half-truths. But in this moment, she felt no urge to.
"It's from—when I was six," Julianna began, her voice quiet, but the words tumbled out now, unbidden. "My father, he had this disease. It was called multiple system atrophy. It's a neurodegenerative disease, and it slowly—it kills you, bit by bit." Her fingers tightened around the railing as she tried to steady herself. "He was dying. And the medical community offered no viable treatments, they said there was nothing they could do. He had no chance. But my mother..." Her voice faltered, and she swallowed hard, "She didn't want to lose him. She...she wanted to save him, so they found this hospital. This place. And they thought maybe, they could try something."
Julianna shook her head slowly, the memory of it still fresh, still bristly. "They wanted me to be the donor. My cells were compatible. It was risky. But they thought they could make it work." She let out a dry laugh, though it didn't feel like laughter at all. "I was six. I didn't even understand what they were doing. But my mom agreed. And I agreed, because she asked me to."
Natalie didn't say anything. She just continued tying Julianna's hair, her hands tender, but intentional.
"They took my cells. Tried to use them to save my dad," Julianna continued, her words like poison on her tongue. "But his body couldn't handle it. He was too sick, too far gone. And my body—" she paused, letting out a shaky breath. "My body couldn't handle it either. I was too young. I was too underdeveloped, and they knew that. They—" She stopped herself. She could still feel the sharp sting of needles, the burning sensation as they injected things into her body that she couldn't even comprehend.
"The surgery didn't work," she whispered. "It never had a chance. He died anyway. And I—" Her voice cracked. "I almost died too. My body shut down. I was—they thought I was gone."
The silence between them was incommodious, airless. It strung longer than it should have, until Julianna finally exhaled, her shoulders slumping. "They kept me alive with things I can't even... things I didn't understand. And when I woke up, my dad was gone, and I—" Her throat closed up. She couldn't finish. Couldn't speak it out loud. The guilt was too strenuous to shoulder.
Natalie's hands were still there, steady and calm. "It wasn't your fault," she coaxed, almost matter-of-factly. "You were just a kid. You didn't know what was going to happen. It was never going to work with a child."
Julianna nodded apprehensively. "I know. But it doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel like it was anyone else's fault."
They were silent for a while, the only sound the gentle swish of Julianna's hair, each movement a kind of ritual. A kind of healing.
"Thank you," Julianna whispered after a long pause, her voice barely above a breath.
Natalie's fingers loitered, her hands pausing before she spoke, her voice low and dulcet. "You don't have to thank me."
Her hands remained unwavering as she finished the last of Julianna's cropped locks into place, each strand settling into place. But as her fingers tarried just a moment too long, Julianna felt the air sufflate, a faint yet undeniable shift.
It was as though the unsaid words had crystallized into a web of sugar glass, stretched thin between them—delicate, gleaming, and perilously close to splintering. Yet, in that same quiet, they inhaled the ghost of its sweetness, knowing that the first crack would leave nothing but shards on their tongues.
Natalie's hands withdrew, and Julianna's gaze flickered, the action so small, but it made her heart stutter in its rhythm. She could feel the warmth between them, pulling them closer, pulling her closer.
It was then that Julianna turned her head, just enough to catch Natalie's eyes.
It wasn't the first time their eyes had met, but this time, it was different. There was no pretense, no half-hidden judgments, no walls between them. Just the rawness of their gazes meeting, unguarded, vulnerable. Julianna found herself lost in those eyes, like a thought that bloomed in a language no one spoke, unaccustomed to, untranslatable, and yet undeniably familiar in its tug, drawing her toward a meaning that slipped through her fingers the moment she tried to understand it.
Her heart beat faster, but it wasn't from fear. No, it was the sudden rush of something, something outlandish, something safe.
Natalie's face softened just a fraction, and the way she held her espy seemed to ask her if she was allowed to care, to allow herself feel—for her. But it wasn't the question itself that settled over Julianna; it was the way Natalie moved around her, filling up the spaces Julianna hadn't realized were so empty. There was no need for words, not really. Everything that needed to be said hung between them, intertwined into the subtle brush of Natalie's fingers on her neck, into the warmth of her breath, the slight tremor in her own voice when she finally spoke.
"I didn't think I'd ever feel this way," Natalie whispered, her words hesitant at first, but there was a kind of quiet confidence in them once they were free. "I didn't think I'd care." She swallowed, a faint flicker of something crossing her face. It was fleeting, but Julianna caught it, she saw the susceptibility before it was hidden behind Natalie's usual barrier. "My dad was... he was shitty, you know?" Natalie's voice faltered for a moment, as if choosing the right words was harder than she expected. "He left us, and when he came back, he never really came back, he was always worse than before he’d left. He never really saw me. He just..."
Julianna nodded, though the knot in her throat distended. She knew that feeling. That feeling of being unseen, of being left behind. Of having someone who was supposed to protect you and love you, only to find out they never could, or worse—never even tried. She didn't speak, though. She let Natalie continue, let her take the words where they needed to go.
"But it still... it still hurts," Natalie continued, her voice steadying. "Even though he was a shitty Dad, even though he wasn't there when I needed him, even though he never cared—" Her eyes, wide and intense, met Julianna's, and there was a defencelessness to them now that made Julianna's heart ache. "It still hurts. It hurts like hell. And I feel like I'm supposed to be... over it by now. I should've... I should've let go of the idea of him being anything other than what he was. But it doesn't work like that. And now, I can't—he's gone, and I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with that. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel."
Julianna didn't know how to respond, didn't know if words were enough. So instead, she did what she had been doing all along, she just listened, letting Natalie's confession sink into the space between them, wrapping around them like a string they could both hold onto. It wasn't pity. It wasn't sympathy. It was something more, something closer—understanding.
Julianna knew, she knew, that in this moment, there was no one else. There was no one else who would understand the way Natalie did, no one else who could see her for what she was. Not her family, not the other girls, just Natalie.
Julianna could feel it, the way the space between their bodies seemed to shrink, bringing them closer without either of them saying a word. She couldn't tear her eyes away from Natalie now. It was as if everything in the world had been removed, and all that remained was the girl standing before her, eyes flickering with request to stay, to be.
"You're not alone either," Julianna whispered finally, her voice hoarse as she repeated what Natalie had told her too many times before—words she hadn’t fully understood then, but now seemed to come from somewhere deep inside, a place she hadn’t known existed. "You're not alone, Natalie."
Natalie didn't answer right away. She didn't have to. The look in her eyes spoke volumes, a sensitivity laid bare, open and fervent, far more than she’d ever shown anyone else. And just as Julianna was beginning to wonder if the moment would break, Natalie stepped closer, just a few inches, but it felt like miles.
The air around them seemed to hum with something—tension, connection, whatever it was, it was real, undeniable. And then, the world had tilted yet again, in a new direction, and Natalie smiled. It was small, but it was there, gentle, like the first light that kisses the earth after an age of waiting.
And it was all for her.
No one else, just Julianna.
Julianna's heart skipped again, just a small stammer in her chest, as if something inside her had finally, finally shifted into place. And she didn't know how long they stood there, the air between them quivering like the fleeting pause between heartbeats in a clock that had forgotten how to tick.
In that moment, it wasn't just the words, the touch, or the silence that mattered. It was the way Natalie was looking at her—like she wasn't just another person in the room, another face to forget about. No, in that moment, Natalie saw her. She saw her in a way no one else bothered to see. She felt it, a comfort that was almost too much.
It wasn't forced. It wasn't a second glance or an afterthought. It was more. And in spite of everything, everything horrible and damaged, that connection, was the only thing that made sense.
Julianna let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and she felt herself lean just slightly closer, the space between them so thin, so impossibly close. The world outside, the endless woods, swarming cities, and the rain, seemed so far away now, as if the moment between them had panelled, protecting them from anything additional.
And in that inaugural glimmer of self, Julianna didn't feel cleaved in two. She felt whole. Like the salt and sea.
It was the kind of moment that wasn't supposed to exist there—not in that place, not in that life where everything else had been stripped bare and ugly. But somehow, against all odds, it did.
Natalie's eyes flickered down, just briefly, like she hadn't meant to, like she hadn't realized what she was doing. And that small glance sent something sharp and dizzying through Julianna's ribs, like she'd been struck in the chest with the force of it.
The space between them was so thin now. A breath, a whisper. If she just leaned in a little more—
Natalie shifted, her knuckles brushing against Julianna's wrist, featherlight, barely there. But it was enough to send a shiver racing through her spine, hot and cold all at once.
Julianna felt the pull like gravity, an inevitable thing, she couldn't fight it even if she wanted to.
Natalie exhaled, her breath warm against Julianna's cheek.
The world outside didn't exist.
There was no contagion lurking to sour their hearts, no hunger gnawing at their insides, no ghosts of the people they used to be or the ones they’d lost. It was just them, just this, and Julianna didn't feel like she was standing on the edge of something terrible, and her stomach wasn't filled with dread.
Natalie's breath hitched, barely audible, like she wasn't sure if she should take that final step forward. Her lashes fluttered, and her tongue darted out, wetting her lips, just for a second, so quick Julianna might've imagined it. And then, slowly, carefully, she tilted her chin, her gaze dipping to Julianna's mouth before flickering back up, uncertain but resolute. The space between them was vanishing.
And Julianna's throat went tight.
She stepped back, merely a hair's breadth, and in that subtle retreat, the moment fractured like a gossamer thread torn by a single breath. "I—" Her voice came out wrong, too unprepared, too shaky. She swallowed, then forced a small, breathless laugh. "We should get some sleep."
The words felt like stones in her mouth.
Natalie blinked, as if surfacing from somewhere far away, and for a split second, something unreadable, oscillating across her face.
Then she nodded, avoiding eye contact, stuffing her hands into her jacket pockets like the almost-touch had never happened. Like any of that had never happened.
"Yeah." Her voice was quieter now, unsure. "Long day tomorrow."
Julianna nodded, the bitter tang of regrets lingering on her taste buds. With a slow, measured turn, she drifted towards her spot near the window, and lay down without another word.
But even with exhaustion dragging at her bones, she knew that she wouldn't be sleeping tonight.