Maybe Memories

"Hello?" I answered after taking the phone from Daryl. He went back to the living room and I already knew I was going to have to apologize.

"Why in the fuck is some guy answering your phone? Where the hell are you? What's going on Evangeline?" I hated it when he used my full name, he only did it when he was angry and it in turn made me angry.

"Nothing, relax. I'm at my mom's house." Before I could explain Jesse threw more questions at me.

"Well what the fuck is some guy doing there with you? Are you fucking around?" The way he automatically assumed I was cheating upset me, he hadn't even tried to give me the benefit of the doubt. He was often this way though, as nice as he normally was, he was a jealous person and could get very belligerent when things went slightly wrong.

"Of course not. That was Daryl, he was one of my best friends before I moved." I explained, wanting to be honest with him.

"That doesn't explain why he's at the house with you and answering your damn phone." He was still angry and I knew there would be no calming him down.

Now, telling Jesse that Daryl had caught me wandering by his house and getting caught in a storm didn't sound like a good idea. He wouldn't accept it for what it was, and I knew he would continually assume I was cheating on him, so I came up with a white lie, hoping to smooth things over. "He stopped by to say 'hi' that's it. We're just catching up, you know, like I did with Maggie. Not that you'd know because we've barely spoken in days." I knew I shouldn't have been turning this around on him, but he was making me mad. And of course I was wrong for lying, but I didn't know what else to do.

"Don't pin this on me, you know I've been very busy with work." He only seemed to be busy with work when it was convenient for him to be, and it started to get me wondering why he was suddenly so busy. I thought I was thinking this way because I was paranoid, or because I'd felt guilty for letting myself have a moment with Daryl, but the real reason was because there was actually a pretty good chance something was going on.

"Sorry. You're just getting jealous over nothing. It's not a big deal." I calmed down, not being much of a fighter.

"It better not be Angela." Angela. It was a reminder of who I'd become. I could feel myself come back to being who I once was, being Ellie, although it made me cringe when Maggie had called me that. When I first arrived, I hated my old nickname, It made me remember the girl I was at 17, but I was started to not like being Angela either. Neither seemed fitting anymore and neither seemed to be me.

"It's not Jesse." I glared at the stove, as if it were him.

"Anyway, I was just checking in on you. Glad I did." He'd said it as if he'd caught me red handed in some way.

"Stop being like this, I don't like it when you're like this. I'll talk to you tomorrow." I wanted to end this whole thing and go back to my night.

"Why? So you can go be with that other guy? So you can pretend like you're not married?" M mind stopped and I realized that he was drunk. It wasn't like him to be drinking to the point of me noticing, and even though it took me a good minute or two to figure it out, it explained a lot, there was a reason he wasn't a drinker.

"I wouldn't try to make it seem like I'm not married." I was afraid to mention his sobriety, but I felt like if I didn't now then I never would. "Are you drunk?"

"No." He said, leaving it silent after that. He knew I didn't believe him. "I've only had a few."

"You're off your ass, aren't you?" I wasn't really one to use a lot of profanity, but a trigger went off in my head and I could see a whole mess coming my way.

"What do you care? I'm an adult. I can do whatever I want. I don't need your permission Angela." This set me off.

"Of course you don't, I know that!" I yelled, unable to control myself. "I don't think you need my permission you idiot! I don't want you drinking because you have a drinking problem! And when you drink, you like to start fights!" It was absolutely true. His fighting was the reason he'd almost kicked out of college, and the reason I encouraged him to stop drinking liquor. He was never violent to me, never once laid a hand on me, but boy could he yell. We really only fought when he was like this and I should have known he'd been drunk sooner.

"You started it! You have some dude over for a date night! What do you expect?" I balled up my fist and tried to calm back down but it wasn't really working.

"Are you kidding me? This isn't like that! I told you!" I took in a few deep breaths and steadied myself.

"You tell me a lot of shit. Bet your mom isn't even dead, you probably just went there to fuck that guy." I immediately saw red and blew up.

"You're fucking dick, you know that?! If you think I'm just some huge fucking slut then why did you marry me?" I could feel tears of rage bubbling up to my eyes, but I wiped them away as quickly as they came, too furious to care about anything else. "Go the hell to bed. We'll talk about this later." I hung up on him and paced for a moment, my breath unsteady and my hands shaking with anger. I let out a scream of frustration and sat on the floor. I pulled my knees to my chest and hid my face. I couldn't get out how angry I was, I couldn't calm down and I felt like there was no stopping this horrible feeling, until..

"Hey." A soft voice came from just above me. He crouched down to my level and put a hand on my shoulder. "Ellie."

"What?" I said, without lifting my head. My voice was muffled by my face being buried but he could still hear me.

"Look at me." He instructed, but I didn't want to, I didn't want him to see my face, not before I'd calmed down. I ignored him, making him repeat himself. "Evangeline.." For some reason, the moment he said my name in that soft, soothing voice, my anger started to melt away. I started to feel more relaxed, which was a shock because normally my full name meant I was about to get pissed off. This time, it was different. This time, it was a relief.

"I'm sorry." I apologized as I slowly lifted my head to meet his gaze.

"Don't, I shouldn'ta answered it. It's fine." His southern drawl seemed to be so warm and inviting sometimes, I just couldn't stop reeling over him and I had to get this figured out.

Silence took over again and I remembered I was cooking. "Those noodles are way over done." I said, not thinking much about it.

He laughed, and his smile seemed to make all of my problems go away. "Mhhm.. What ya wanna bet we can get somethin' delivered?"

"In this storm?" I chuckled, not totally understanding why a minute ago I was screaming and now he had me smiling.

"Sure. Ain't never stopped 'em before. Pizza sound good?" I could feel him warming up to me again, like the way it was years ago. He trusted me, that was also pretty evident.

"With breadsticks?" I accidentally sort of whimpered as my breath was catching up to me.

He smiled and shook his head at me, seeming amused. "All the breadsticks ya want darlin'."

I blushed at the name, though I was damning myself for it in my head. "I'll put on more coffee." He nodded and held out his hand for me. I grabbed it and he helped me to my feet. I went over to the coffee machine and started loading it while Daryl used my phone to order pizza. I was pretty surprised that anyone agreed to do delivery in the rain, especially all the way from Atlanta. It was easily a 25 minute drive from there, but apparently we got lucky.

We sat on the couch and drank coffee until the food came, which Daryl paid for and brought to me. "I can't thank you enough Daryl." I said as I opened the box of breadsticks and threw them on a plate.

"Don't, its no big deal." He shrugged. As we ate, we found another movie, though we pretty much just sat there and made fun of it like he had with the first movie. It was something I'd never gotten to do with Jesse. He wasn't one for eating in the living room, let alone having take out. We never bonded like this, we never had a real friendship first. Honestly it had felt like a courtship from the beginning and I just never found a reason to find more. Of course I felt bad about that, but I wasn't going to let it ruin my fun.

It was late by the time I started getting tired, maybe 3 or 4 in the morning. The rain hadn't let up yet but I was definitely ready for bed. "I'm so tired." I yawned.

"I should get goin' anyway, let ya get some sleep." He stood and I looked outside at the pouring sky.

"You can't walk home in this, that's the reason you even stayed, remember?" I didn't want him to go, it was honestly it wasn't like I couldn't just drive him home. It was just really nice having someone in the lonely house with me, it made it more lively, like I wasn't staying in a dead woman's home. "Stay the night, you can sleep in the guest room, it's not like anyone else going to use it." It was the same room he'd slept in back when he'd had to get away from home for a few days, he'd occasionally stay in there when things got bad and I hoped it didn't bring back sour memories for him.

"Ya sure? It ain't far, I can jus' walk." He was a little timid about it, as I figured he would be. I was quickly getting to know him again, and though he was often more shut off to the world than he was before, he had a lot of the same traits and habits.

"I'm sure, plus, it's not so awful, someone else being here with me." I hadn't meant to sound flirty, but it kind of came out that way. I damned myself again silently and wondered what on earth I was doing.

"Whatever." He said, brushing it off and sitting back on the couch again. I grabbed a pillow for him and let him keep the blanket that was on the couch.

"Let me know if you need anything, okay?" I said as he laid back on the couch.

"Thanks." He nodded and I walked back to my room, feeling somewhat comforted by someone else being in the house. I slept easy that night, and well. When I woke, I ended up feeling in a better mood and more refreshed than ever.

Upon getting up, I heard someone, probably Daryl, in the kitchen. I wasn't sure what he was doing, so I made my out there to see what was going on. He had a measuring tape and was holding it up to the counter top. "Daryl? What are you doing?" I chuckled, thinking it was kind of odd.

"Sellin' the house, aren't ya? This counter's fallin' apart." He didn't make eye contact with me as he jotted something down on a piece of paper. I stood in silence, wondering why it mattered. He looked over at me after he realized I wasn't going to respond. "I can get ya a counter cheap. Just need to know how much material."

"You don't have to do that." I said, my heart swelling with gratitude.

"I know." Was all he had to say about it. I looked out the window and the rain had stopped. It was still cloudy, but no more rain fell.

"Want some breakfast?" I asked, wanting to at least give him that for helping me.

"Nah. Headin' out. Got shit to do at the shop." I wasn't really aware of what he meant, oddly we hadn't caught up so much on what was going on in his life, he wasn't very open about it.

"Shop?" I couldn't imagine Daryl working at a store.

"Auto shop in town. Spend most days there fixin' cars for people." I was wondering how he'd made enough money to support Merle and himself. I knew Merle was likely spending most of his money in the drug game.

"Oh, that's cool." I said, and he just shrugged. "Okay, well I guess I'll see you later then?" I said as he put the paper in his pocket and left the tape measure on the counter.

"Sure." He said. His mood was a little different form the night before, he was back to his normal, quiet, closed off self. I didn't expect anything else from him though, this was common for him even when he was young.

He quietly left and started walking back to his house, and I felt bad for not offering to give him a ride, if he'd even take it was a different question. I felt myself feeling nervous at the thought of him coming back, anxiousness knotted itself inside of me and I had to find a way to relax.

I went to the bathroom upstairs and filled up the tub with hot, soapy water. I undressed and slowly sank into the tub, submersing myself in the warmth depths of the bath. I let out a long breath and closed my eyes, unable to prevent my thoughts from slipping away from my control. My mind went straight back to the night before and I didn't know why. Nothing happened, really. It just scared me, the way I'd felt after being around him for such a small amount of time, compared to what I felt around Jesse. My head was a mess and my life seemed to be getting messier, and although nothing real had happened, nothing outside of my own mind, I could tell that this was the start of something I didn't want to deal with. It was the start of something that was going to change 3 lives forever.