A/N: Something very strange and unlike me that I wrote a few nights ago. It's a very different voice than what I normally write in (just look at Day Zero or The Other Woman, hehe) but I had fun exploring this type of voice and a more stream-of-consciousness narration. Do PLEASE review and let me know what you think! I would really appreciate some feedback or your response to the story! -A

TRIGGER WARNING: Mental illness. It's not very heavy but I feel like a warning is necessary.

It's Sunday night again. And again, just like the last time, I'm sitting in the back corner of that room by myself. I'm curled up in a chair like that damn scared cat Lori took in a few years ago. My knees are up to my chin and I'm chewing on my thumb nail like the doctors in this place told me not to do because it's a habit I need to break, like all the other habits I have.

My brother doesn't come to see me today. He didn't last sunday or any of the ones before that so I don't know why it even matters anymore and sometimes I wonder if Rick even told him I'm here. That I'm in the bad place. The "upstairs", I hear some people call it. It's the part of the hospital people don't leave when they got done talking about their feelings and get their meds refilled and shit like that. The upstairs is where people live and stay around for a while.

Most leave of course. All the ones in the first group I was in are out. 'Cept for me. Still, I'm not the one that's been here the longest. I can't think of who's been here longer just now, but I know there's someone.

"Hey Daryl."

I look up and I remember now. I remember who's been in the upstairs longer than me.

"What d'ya want, Girl?" I mumble at her because I'm not in the mood to talk or hear her talk. Not today. Not on sundays where Merle, or even Rick, don't show up.

"Are you..." she fiddles with her hair a little and I notice it's got kinda long but then I don't think you can get haircuts here. Mine's probably way too long too. "...are you gonna be at group session today?"

I squint up at her. "Don't got much of a choice, do I?"

She nods quickly and hurries away, like a scared little animal. She reminds me of the stuff I used to hunt back home. Or more like, the stuff I couldn't bring myself to hunt. Too little and scared, wide eyes and shakes all over. That was her. That was Beth.

I see her hurry to the other side of the room and sit just like I was, knees tucked in. Except she's looking out the window like she does every Sunday with those big blue eyes like a tiny little doe and I just know she's expecting her daddy or that sister of hers to walk in. They never do. I've been here so damn long I can barely remember anything else and in all that time, not one person comes to visit Beth.

If it weren't for the presents she gets at christmas I would wonder if she was lying about having a family at all. But last year I snuck into the common room where we kept the tree to peek at her presents and, plain as day, they were from her daddy, and some people named Maggie and Glenn. I'll never figure out why they got time to mail presents but not time to get their asses over to see her.

She says her daddy's busy with the farm and her sister's busy with her new baby and husband. Sometimes I nod and tell her Merle's pretty busy too and that's why he can't come. I don't tell her what he's busy with though. I don't think telling her about Merle being locked up or on drugs half of the time would make her feel better about those people that left her here and then forgot about her.

Normally I wouldn't care. I'd just let her sit there and look out that window until everyone left and she saw each car drive out of the parking lot 'till it got so dark she could only see her own face in the window instead.

But Rick called today and told me how Carl was sick with the flu and he couldn't make it. He promised they'd come over next sunday and Lori would even make some lemon cake for me, but I had to listen to everything to Dr. Mack said and do good this week. No fights, no arguments, no sneaking cigarettes and no flushing the pills down the toilet like I've secretly been doing. The pills make me feel like a zombie though and I don't like that, so I don't promise Rick I'll take my pills. Instead I promise I'll listen to everything else Dr. Mack says and so today, looking at Beth, I remember how Dr. Mack is always going on about knowing when someone needs a friend and I shrug my shoulders because what the hell, it's only Beth.

I stomp over to her and she jumps when she first sees me. She's always scared, I swear. Scared or sad. I only ever see her smile when she's invading my space.

"Hey Daryl." She says again.

"Hey."

"Wh-what is it?"

I shrug again. "You ok?"

Again, she looks at me with those big blue eyes and she reminds me a little of a rabbit.

"I guess."

I would of walked away if I weren't practicing being a friend so instead I say,

"I'm sorry they're not here. Your Pa and sister."

She looks down and pulls her sweater tighter around her.

"It's ok. I don't cry anymore, Daryl." She says and I frown because that makes me think that she used to cry and then it makes me think there were times when I would see her there, looking sad, and then she'd go to her room and cry and no one would know. Someone should'a known though. This place is supposed to make you better and that just seems like the type of thing people working here oughta know. To help and all that.

"You wanna do something?" I ask before I can change my mind. I'm going to be a good friend. Then I can tell Dr. Mack all about it and I can go home again. Maybe call Merle.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Go take a walk or something?"

She smiles just a little and then jumps up, stepping into that little bubble of space Dr. Mack and I talked about and how I don't like it getting invaded.

She takes me to her room. I'm not supposed to be there but no one even notices we're gone, I don't think, so we just walk up the hallway and into the white room with the too bright lights.

"My sister sent me these for christmas. Want one?" She says when she reaches under her bed and pulls out a box. It's chocolates.

"I ain't Forest Gump." I grumble and she just giggles but doesn't say nothing and then I wonder if she's seen that movie. I saw it once at Rick's house; way before I came to the upstairs, when Rick made me go to dinner with some woman from work and him and Lori. Rick thought she liked me and after dinner Lori invited her to their house for drinks and a movie on tv. I didn't care much for the movie or that woman. Don't even remember her name, to be honest. Carla? Carol? I shake my head because it doesn't really matter anymore. There's lots of things I can't remember from the time before the upstairs.

I still think about the movie. I wonder if Beth would like it or what kind of movies she likes to watch. We have "movie nights" here but Beth never goes.

Beth's sitting on her bed with a chocolate in her mouth and I take one too just because she offered it to me and it seemed rude not to take it; Dr. Mack says I need to be more polite too.

I don't like chocolate much, and it has little chunks of nuts in it which I also don't like, but I chew it really fast and pretend I do, because it's the polite thing to do and now I'm practicing that too. Whatever it takes to get out of the upstairs.

"You sad cuz Zach left or something?" I ask her after a whole minute passes and Beth doesn't say anything. She looks up from her box of chocolates and shrugs.

"I don't know. I don't know if he's been gone long enough for me to miss him yet."

Zach's Beth's old boyfriend. Or whatever you have when you're locked up in here.

He came here because he almost died from all the drugs he was doing in college or something and it didn't take long for the nurses to find Beth and Zach making out all over the place. He left about a week ago. Something about his rich daddy taking him to a nicer place but I gotta feeling he got caught sneaking more drugs in with Bob, who's also shady as hell, and got kicked out. I used to get my cigarettes from him (now I just get them from Bob).

I nod at Beth and she gets up to look at her window again.

"I have this aunt up in Maine. Name's Patricia." She starts and I feel kinda stupid sitting there facing the wall instead of her so I get up and stand in front of her, the window of her room between us. "I used to pretend my mom just went up to visit her. Like there was some really good hospital in Maine that could cure her and that's why she wasn't home anymore."

It looks like she's talking to the parking lot below her instead of me but I listen anyway because I'm being a good friend like Dr. Mack and Rick wanted me to.

"It kind of felt easier to think that she was out there somewhere but I just couldn't see her. I think my daddy did the same thing. I think he's still doing the same thing. With me."

I shuffle my feet awkwardly because I don't know what to say. I know Beth's been here since her mamma died; I know that's what got her here.

"Maybe he pretends I'm with Aunt Patricia in Maine." She gets quiet for a few seconds. "Maybe he pretends he didn't have to send me away. If he came to see me, he couldn't pretend anymore."

I nod but I don't think she sees me because she's still looking out the window and I get this urge to stomp to whatever farm she came from and drag her daddy up here.

"My brother don't come to see me either." I say to her again, even though I've said it before, but just to remind her she wasn't the only one that was alone today.

"Your brother doesn't even know you're here though."

I shrug and smile a little.

"Hell, he probably wouldn't come anyway; even if he knew."

She smiles at me when she sees me do the same and after a few seconds we're both laughing a little bit and I don't even know why until she steps in and puts her arms around my waist. I flinch and jump but there's nowhere for me to move since she's hugging me.

"I just miss it out there sometimes." She mumbles and I lean down a little because her hair is tickling my nose and it kind of smells like strawberries and I kind of like that smell.

"Me too." I tell her.

"Thanks Daryl." She whispers and then pulls back to look up at me with her huge eyes. Everything feels different all of a sudden; her eyes look different and there's something there that looks familiar. It's from that night in Rick's living room with that woman from work I can't remember. It's a look girls give, and even I can tell what it means. And maybe I think that Beth is a little bit lonely with her daddy and sister ignoring her and her boyfriend gone and just because she hugged me and gave me chocolates now she wants to be more than just friends and I haven't had a girlfriend in a long, long time and I can hear Rick's voice in my head telling me why having one might be a really bad idea.

"I'm not gonna be your boyfriend." I blurt out, because I think Dr. Mack would say it's important to draw these lines; if I'm gonna be friends with Beth, and all that. Beth just looks at me like I hadn't said anything.

"Ok."

"Ok?"

"Ok." She says again and then steps back from me and the room gets a little colder for some reason. Maybe the window's not closed right.

"It's not that I don't want to or something." I start; I feel like I need to explain myself. "You're just too young and I'm kinda old and-"

"I'm 19, Daryl. And you're not that old." She just shrugs and sits back down on her bed, rubbing her arms and I'm pretty sure it did get cold in here or else why is she doing that?

"Still. You're attractive and all but..." I sorta trail off then because I just see her smile that I called her attractive. Like she's really pleased with herself for being pretty. I mean, she is pretty. Big doe eyes and pretty blonde hair. Her face looks like a porcelain doll and she just looks like a doll, really. All of her. Like an angel or a doll that someone dreamt up instead of being a real person with flaws and stuff. I know she has flaws. She's scared and sad all the damn time but you couldn't see that unless you've known her as long as I have.

"So you think I'm attractive." I nod even though I can tell it wasn't a question but I'm just a little scared where she's going with this. "And I think you're attractive."

"No you don't." Lies. What the hell would a girl like her like in a redneck on god knows how many pills?

"I do!" She says firmly.

"Why?" I ask, actually confused.

She shrugs. "Because you're tall. And you're nice and you don't tell on me when I stay up past 'lights out' to read or write a letter. Or when I'd sneak into Zach's room."

"That don't count. It's just things I do. Anyone could do them."

Beth huffs and it blows some strands of hair out of her face and she crosses her arms like she doesn't want to tell me more and turns around a little to talk to the wall next to her instead of me.

"Fine! You're attractive because your arms are strong and you have a sexy voice and I like your tattoos and your eyes are pretty."

She looks up at me when she's done, like she just confessed some deep, dark secret and I can feel my ears getting hot and red because no one has ever said shit like that. Merle would always go on about how I would never get a woman because I was just a stupid redneck; same as him. I don't believe Beth for a second and I tell her that.

I narrow my eyes at her and walk a little closer, to see if she's lying or not because I can usually tell when people are lying to me.

"Fine, if you don't believe me." She says and out of nowhere she grabs a handful of my shirt and pulls me forward and before I know what's happening, she's kissing me. I didn't expect it, and at first my nose crashes into hers but pretty soon I find the hang of it, even though I haven't kissed anyone in a while.

I find out that Beth's lips are soft and pretty like the rest of her and she tastes like strawberries like her hair smells. She lets me go though; shoves me back after just a few seconds and I make a sound a little like a really stupid goldfish that just got taken out of the water.

She doesn't say anything, but she smiles at me. I can tell it's a real, happy smile and not the fake ones we've all learned to give the doctors when they ask us how we've been doing with the pills we haven't taken. She doesn't look sad or lonely for once and I smile at her because if I helped make her happy, that means I did a pretty good job at being a friend. Dr. Mack would wanna hear about this, for sure. Beth leaves the room though, looking back just once at me and when she's gone, I'm not sure I want to tell any doctors, or even Rick, about Beth. It just doesn't feel right to tell.

I don't know where Beth went or if she'd come back but I decide to wait in case she does. I sit there for a while all by myself; just me and the box of chocolates.