Love and other Nightmares

Damnit, he did.

That was why the break-up had been so brutal.

He'd gone from perfect to the worst of the worst in a blink, not even having the balls to give me a face-to-face break-up.

"Look, I don't want to do this now," I said, shaking my head. "Just go."

"No. We're going to be in this together now."

"Watts, get out of the car."

"Try to make me," he said, shrugging. "You are wasting gas sitting here. Fueling up is never a good time anymore."

He wasn't wrong. With the grid down, getting the stored gas out of the ground was a chore at best. That was why I'd driven around and snatched everyone's red gas cans out of their sheds and garages to get me by.

"Just take me to your place for now. If after a couple nights, you still want me gone, I'll go."

A strange, buried, needy part of me wanted me to say yes, to have someone to talk to, to get answers from him.

I found I didn't have enough strength to fight that part of me.

So I put the car back in drive, and I made my way toward my place.

"June, this is genius," Watts said. And in an old, familiar way, his praise made a warmth spread through my chest.

"I know," I agreed, climbing out of the SUV, going around to the back, popping the trunk.

"You take a boat across?" he asked.

"Yes."

"How many trips to get all this shit back over there?"

"A dozen maybe. The boat is small."

"Well, I can cut half those trips out for you," he offered, grabbing a couple bags of dried lentils.

"We should keep it light for this trip," I said, putting some dried beans under my seat. "I've never done the trip with two people."

With that, we loaded a few more light things, climbed in, and paddled over toward the remaining few feet of the dock where Watts insisted he climb off first to tether the boat, then reached down to help me out.

Chivalry, during the apocalypse.

Would wonders never cease?

"This is amazing," Watts said as I showed him around my place.

I'd gotten inventive a few times to get bigger items across the water, including a mattress I'd brought over on top of pool floats, pulling it behind the boat.

I'd set the bed up in the back in the old walk-in fridge that I had rigged to lock from the inside and not the out, giving me a fortress for the unsafe sleeping hours.

I'd dragged out the couch and the chairs from the owner's office in the back, moving all the tables and chairs into that room, making the main space into a massive living room with lots of floor space to do my indoor workouts.

I'd created a composting toilet system in the bathroom.

It wasn't perfect. But it was pretty damn good.

"It was a stroke of genius," I agreed, seeing no reason to play down what had been a smart decision.

"They never hang out on shore?"

"Maybe they would have in the earlier days," I said, shrugging. "But they're getting slower and dumber now. They don't seem willing to wait out a meal, choosing instead to travel to try to find an easier target."

"Makes sense," Watts agreed, leaning down to pet Buffy's head as she weaved in and out between his legs.

"Where have you been crashing?"

"The lighthouse," he supplied. "Similar idea, but not as smart. Though it is fun as shit to knock the zombies down the stairs and watch them slowly break into pieces as they go."

"Gotta find joy in the little things," I agreed, smiling.

"It would be really fucking depressing if you don't," he agreed, gaze lowering to the floor.

"Hey, Watts?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry for your loss," I told him, watching as his gaze lifted, raw grief in his eyes.

"Thank you. I'm sorry for yours too. You were closer with a lot more people than I was."

"It's still a loss. And not just our friends. We lost everything. It's... it's a lot."

"Yeah. But you lost more. I can see how that has hit you," he added, looking sad.

"To be fair, some of this... hardening," I said, waving toward myself, "started long before the apocalypse."

I added silently It started when you showed me how much it could hurt when someone took a knife to all of that softness.

I didn't say it.

I didn't even imply it.

But Watts always could read me like no one else.

"Christ, baby, don't make me feel even shittier than I already do."

"I didn't mean to. I mean, it was a long time ago. Anyway, let's get started on the goods. I have a storage room in the back."

I had always figured it would just be for me. In which case, with the new supply, I probably had over five year's worth of food. With someone else, I figured it came out at a cool three if neither of us overindulged. And when the food was rice and beans, the chances of that were slim.