Living Like You're Dead

Addie walked downstairs, she found it hard to conceal the tears in her eyes, but she found the strength to walk right up to Andrea and put her head down on her shoulder. Andrea held her and handed her a glass of wine.

She was with Lori and Carol in the kitchen. Lori was avoiding Shane and Rick, she was irritated when they brought back pregnancy tests. They were all drinking away the pain they felt from missing T and Glenn.

Nobody could sleep. Everyone was worried, so apparently alcohol was tonights entertainment. Addie easily downed a glass of red wine, the year was sweet, not bitter.

Lori was sad she could drink, but she managed to heal her pain by talking with fellow girls and bitching about everything they had been through.

Something about them sitting around the table talking about life made them laugh. One topic was the lack of sex toys in the post-apocalyptic world. They talked about high school lovers, their favorite jobs, their parents, and anything that had once brought them happiness.

"So you have to tell us..." Andrea paused. "Daryl. What's he like?"

Addie smiled and nodded her head - the wine made her a little more open.
"Well..." she held out her hands about eight inches apart, they easily understood her gesture. And laughing again filled the room.

"Well how many have you gotten... you know in one session." Carol asked her referring to the amount of pleasure Daryl could give her. Addie simply held up her hand extending three fingers.

"Well now we know why he's good with the hunting, he just has that animalistic embodiment." Carol said. Again, the room filling with laughter.

"Dale's not bad either." Andrea added. Everyone's jaw dropped in response, Dale was in fact much older than Andrea.

"Dear God." Addie said. "At least I'm not the only one."

"Well that just leaves me jealous." Carol said. They each spent more time talking about their sex lives, whether it was satisfying or unsatisfying, but the nature of the topic reminded them of how the used to gossip with their friends, bringing back some normalcy.
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"What'd he do to make you upset?" Lori asked, obviously being sober made her question the more prominent questions.

"I told him I loved him." she admitted shamefully.

"And he didn't say it back." Lori nodded. "That bastard."

"I didn't exactly give him a chance." she said. "He's upset about the situation, it relates a lot to his brother, and I know it bothers him - but he just set me off."

"What'd he do?"

"Just sometimes disregards us being together, he thinks its a freak accident. So it bothers me."

"Well it kinda is, Daryl by himself is pretty normal - but they must've come from an odd family - because Merle was a handful."

"So I heard. But he still misses Merle."

"I miss my family too."

"Me too."

"Me three." The atmosphere in the kitchen quickly changed again back to drab sadness.

"Take this for me." Lori said, "I don't wanna be pregnant anymore."

"Lori, they got them so we could be sure."

"Well I am pretty damn sure." Lori said. They had brought back pregnancy tests and Lori was reluctant to take one.

They all moved into the bathroom there had been bathwater there that they left to warm up. Lori poured some soap in and jumped inside.

"Look if we all took a test it wouldn't mean anything!" Andrea said,

"Well It means I could pretend one of them is mine and then Rick would stop being so happy." No one knew what that meant except for Addie - she felt guilt every second of everyday because of this baby.

"I'll do it." Addie said, "I understand, but you know eventually you'll get bigger."

"Yeah, but at least maybe I'll be able to sleep."

"I'll help too, but you should still take one." Andrea said, "Then you can say you took two to 'make sure'."

Addie didn't agree with Lori running from her problems, but if Shane wanted to do something about it, she knew it'd be safer to help Lori fake it.

After Andrea, Lori and Addie spent a short while in the bathroom, they were soon waiting the two minutes allotted for the test.

Only the plan didn't work as planned. Because two were positive.