Shrugging slightly, Miah found himself repeating words he thought he would never speak. “Someone once told me you can’t focus on the should’ve’s in life,” That someone might have been his counselor at the rehab center, but he still thought the words were fitting – even if it wasn’t at all the same situation. Still as he spoke he offered her a half-smile of his own.
He may never voice the thought, but part of him was of the mind that Sing Sing may be making people comfortable – complacent with their situation. Some days it didn’t feel like they were all hiding out from zombies, but more like they were simply living in a strange version of a village. Is that so wrong? He often asked that question, but found he couldn’t answer it. Maybe life on the road for so long had made him unaware of what it was truly supposed to feel like to have a solid and safe place to live.
Laughing softly, Miah found himself shrugging as if to say ‘I get it’. “Wouldn’t want you to go telling a lie, my ego can handle being out adorabled by a five year old,” Taking the joke for what it was, while also recognizing the honesty behind it. “You probably shouldn’t have been, but it’s not really my place to judge that or not.” People did things for all reasons; he wasn’t going to judge her for doing something to feel independent.
“I can just about imagine,” he remarked with a half-smile, well aware that some people couldn’t tell Lilah and Leah apart. “But I’ve spent enough time around your sister to tell the difference.” And there were differences, quite clear ones if a person bothered to pay any kind of attention to the sisters at all.
Not a person prone to pity, he could honestly say he was offering out of the kindness of his heart and not because he pitied her. “Again, not my place to say whether or not you were wrong,” he began. “I have to admit I am surprised nobody offered to help.” Maybe that was just the world they lived in now, though. Everyone caught up in their own lives, unable to look beyond themselves.
Taking the offered bag, Miah had to fight down the urge to offer to take the other one as well. He didn’t want Leah to take that the wrong way, as if he assumed she couldn’t handle anything on her own. “I get that, I’m not exactly an ask for help kind of person either,” he had always been more comfortable doing things himself. “Everyone once in awhile it’s not a bad thing, though.” He added as they both began to move down the hallway in the direction of Leah and Evan’s place.