Daryl couldn’t exactly say that he agreed with her words. In fact, a part of him thought they were a load of shit, and his side glance toward her gave that away. He let out a small breath as he shook his head. “He ain’t gonna have nobody if he keeps bein’ an ass to them all,” he pointed out. “He doesn’t… He don’t get that he can’t do this shit alone anymore…” He ran his fingers through his hair, making the overly long strands run up his head before falling back into his face again, hiding his eyes behind a curtain of fringe.
When she started to speak again, he watched her through that curtain, curious to where the hell she was heading toward this. They didn’t really talk about Ed or his father. That was sort of an off limit topic for the two of them, a topic that hit way too close to home. They didn’t mention the scars, physical and emotional, that were always so apparent when they were with each other. They didn’t dare cross that line of what was okay and wasn’t; they just knew where to start. But he’d opened the floodgates here by mentioning that bastard of a man, and he couldn’t say that Carol’s insights were exactly unwanted.
Because she did understand better than he wished she did.
“I’d never give up on you,” Daryl whispered, a lot more intensely than he intended. “And those people are goddamn fools. You are a different person, a stronger person. Stronger than they’ll ever be. Stronger than I’ll ever be.”