“Did you?”
“Good question.” Did I? Amelia loved him first, at least from a distance. I knew that. But then there was the church. The cabin. The lake. Everything changed.Ichanged. “I don’t know. Maybe I did.”
“Love isn’t a first-come, first-serve deal.” Her voice softens. “You can’t call dibs on a person. If Julien wanted her, he’d be with her. But seeing him so in love with you, she would’ve waited forever.” Her words hit deeper than she knows. “Pining from a distance while you were expected to…”
My shoulders tighten, vision blurring as I trace the knife against the grain. She moves closer, her arm wrapping around my shoulders. Her touch startles me, but I let myself lean into it.
“I’m sorry this is all fucked up,” she whispers into my hair. “But you’re allowed to choose something for yourself. Even if it’s messy.”
“Good girls clean up messes, they don’t make them.”
“Yeah, well.” Her arm tightens. “Good girls don’t survive zombie apocalypses either.”
I snort against her shoulder, tears mixing with laughter. “You’re terrible.”
“The fucking worst.” She pulls back to meet my eyes, face cracking into that wild grin of hers. “That’s why you love me.”
“I do, actually. I mean, this friendship thing. I’m really glad we… after everything that happened at the wedding.”
“That we trauma-bonded over your ex-fiancé and zombies?”
“Something like that.”
Her laugh vibrates through us both. “Me too. Apocalypse BFFs. Who fucking knew?”
The tension bleeds from my body as we sit there, shoulders pressed together, as the last light bleeds from the sky. I scan the perimeter again, searching for Julien.
Sienna waves her hand in front of my face. “Your man’s fine. Probably counting zombies or calculating optimal angles for decapitation or some shit.”
“I wasn’t?—”
She nudges my shoulder. “I’d kill for a selfie of you two with the caption ‘Found love in a hopeless place.’”
My laugh gets cut short as something rustles outside the fence. “Did you hear that?”
Sienna goes still, head tilted. “Hear what?”
“I thought… Guess it was nothing.”
We both fall silent, straining to listen. The night air carries nothing but crickets and the distant hoot of an owl.
“False alarm,” I whisper after a full minute passes.
We settle back against the porch railing. Watching. Waiting. The moon inches across the sky, casting long shadows that play tricks on our tired eyes.
“This is the worst part,” Sienna says. “The waiting. Never knowing when they’ll come.”
I nod, eyes fixed on the tree line. “Or if.”
Another hour crawls by, and our conversation dwindles to occasional whispers, then to nothing at all. The silence wrapsaround us like a blanket, my eyelids growing heavy, but I force them open.
Beside me, Sienna’s head starts to droop. She jerks upright twice before finally surrendering, her body leaning into mine.
“S’okay if I rest my eyes?” Her cheek finds my shoulder, warm breath tickling my neck. “Just… five minutes.”
“Go ahead,” I whisper. “I’ll keep watch.”
Within seconds, her breathing deepens. I sit motionless, letting her sleep.
