Alone

"Esphen." She said softly. You could tell that by the way she held herself and spoke that she was done with this place. She was probably some prissy bitch before this all happened that lived in some nice house with her family. She probably had money back before shit went bad.

The drive back to the house was relatively silent. It was clear that Esphen did not want to talk because she had only nodded in response to Rick giving her directions. Never once did she look my way. I don't know why but she just kept her eyes on the road. As we pulled up to the house Glenn and Maggie came out with their guns raised. Rick stepped out and they dropped them.

"Thank God you are back." Glenn said as I stepped out. Maggie gave me a weird look as the driver door opened and Esphen stepped out.

"Who is she?" Maggie asked rudely. I scoffed and walked onto the porch with all the new stuff we had found and that Esphen had provided.

"This is Esphen. She is with us now." Rick said walking over to Esphen. "This is Glenn and his wife Maggie. I'll introduced you to the rest of the group once we get back inside the house. Can you face your car towards the road so that we can get out of here easily?"

"Sure." Esphen said softly. She turned from the house and got back in the car.

"Rick, we can't feed another person." Maggie said angrily. Rick shook his head and pointed to the bags of food and weapons that were on the porch.

"Those are hers." Rick said with a smirk. Maggie's eyes went wide and she went into the house just as Esphen joined us.

"I get the feeling that she doesn't like me being here." Esphen said biting her plump bottom lip. I wanted to reach over and carefully remove her lip from her teeth but I stopped myself because I didn't want to come off too soft.

"She'll get over it. Let's get you inside to meet the rest of the group." Rick placed his hand on her back and led her inside, they both stopped to grab two bags each to carry them inside.

"Dad, who is this?" Carl asked as I walked in.

"This is Esphen. Esphen this is my son Carl, Sasha, Tyreese, Bob, Carol, Tara, Rosita, Eugene, Abraham, Michonne and my daughter Judith." Rick pointed to each person who said hello to Esphen in their own way.

"Hi." Esphen nervously said. She stood by the door as Rick went to grab Judith from Michonne's arms. Esphen looked around nervously as eyes stayed on her.

"How are are you?" Carl asked her. She looked at him with sad eyes.

"36." Esphen smiled sweetly at Carl. "I'm going to guess that you are about 13, give or take."

"Wow. You're good." Carl smiled at her.

"Have you been alone long?" Rick asked her. She brought her left hand to her face to cover her mouth exposing a diamond ring that was on her ring finger. It was pretty big and but it was covered in grime so that it no longer shined.

"My husband worked at the hospital. He died when everything first went bad because he was right in the center of it. He went to work one day and he never came home. Same goes for my daughter. She... she never came home from school." She shook her head as she grabbed a picture from her pocket to reveal a picture of her with a man and a teenaged girl. "They had turned the high school into a kind of safe haven. But I was too late. They had sent my daughter off to a safe place in Louisiana. But Louisiana was already gone."

She looked like she was about to cry but stopped as she covered her thumb over her husband's face. She scratched her nail over his face leaving only white marks over his face. She gave a shaky laugh and shook her head before crunchy the picture in her hand.

"We were getting a divorce when everything happened. He decided that being married to some backwoods trash was the wrong decision to make. He only married me because I got pregnant at 19 and I was too stubborn to have an abortion. My Luna made me the happiest I had ever been since I had met Jack. My life was nothing but hunting trips with my dad until I met Jack." She chuckled as she realized that she had gotten off track. "I'm sorry. Y'all didn't want to know about my drab past. I've been alone for the last 17 years."

"Yer husband had a problem with badwoods?" I asked her waiting for her eyes to turn to me but they never did. She simply nodded her head.

"If you were getting a divorce then why do you still wear your ring?" Carl asked noticing the ring on her hand. She glance down at it as if she had forgotten that she was wearing it. She gave a small chuckle.

"I guess when you have something for so long you forget it is there. I've had a ring on my finger for the last 17 years." She took it off and looked down at it as if it was weighing down her hand. "I guess I don't need it anymore." She smiled to herself.

"By the leftover state of Georgia, you are now deemed divorced." Michonne said looking at Esphen. She looked relieved as her eyes finally met mine.

"Finally."