"I mean, unless you want me to pack my shit and hit the road..."
The quirky little grin on her face said that she knew that was in fact not the case at all. Joel had expressed to her in many different ways just how much he didn't want that to become of them. She belonged to him now, and Ellie had yet to find anything in this life that felt better than the true sense of belonging that she got from that understanding.
"But, wait. If it's wet and I get a fire going with paper, how do I keep it going? I mean, the paper is only going to burn for so long, right? And eventually I'll run out if I just keep adding it."
The idea of having to figure out how to start a fire on her own started to feel a bit overwhelming. She wished that there was somehow, someway... a guarantee that she'd never be alone. It was the one fear that she couldn't seem to overcome. The one that flashed back to her mind every time she began to feel a bit of security, and that was something that she hated.
"Yeah... it could be worse." She repeated his words softly, giving a gentle nod as she sank down to sit on a nearby stump, watching the way that the flames danced in the makeshift pit. It could be worse, she repeated in her mind. She could be alone.
"You'd have to have a stash of wood. Or something to use as kindling. It's a complicated thing. We'll do a lot of camping and I'll teach you all that shit, okay?" He could see the way her mind started clouding her face. She was so much like Sarah, so expressive in the same ways. He didn't want to overwhelm her... she liked learning, and he was still learning what the cut off to that was. He'd never tried to mitigate things with Sarah because she'd had Tommy and school and her grandparents. "Come over here."




















