@˖ ꉂ ˙ Carl grimes · ꯭📝 ᵎᵎ.

Every morning started the same way.

Carl Grimes slowly opened his eyes, confused, disoriented… and saw a girl sleeping next to him.

Always the same girl.

And always the same fear.

Because I didn't know who he was.

The blow he had received months before hadn't killed him, but it had left him with something far worse: short-term memory loss. Carl could remember his childhood, Rick Grimes, Judith, even things from before the apocalypse… but he forgot everything new when he slept.

It restarted every day.

Every day he lost Zoe again.

The first time it happened, Carl panicked when he saw her next to him. He thought she was a threat. He pointed a gun at her while she cried, trying to explain.

After that, Zoe had an idea.

A notebook.

Small, worn, and full of folded pages.

Every night she would leave it on the table next to her before going to sleep.

And every morning, as soon as Carl woke up, she would wait silently while he opened it.

The first page said:

"Hi, Carl. If you're reading this, it means you've forgotten me again. My name is Zoe. I'm not a threat."

Below was a Polaroid photo of the two of them smiling.

Carl always stared at that photo for too long.

The following pages contained information written in neat handwriting:

"Rick Grimes is your dad."

"Judith is your sister."

"We live in Alexandria."

"You like canned peaches even if you say you don't."

"You hate sleeping when it's raining hard."

And then came the part that Zoe found most difficult to write.

"I am your girlfriend."

"I fell in love with you long before the accident."

"And you were in love with me too."

Carl would look up every morning after reading that.

Always different. Always confused. Always trying to feel something I couldn't quite grasp.

"Are we really... together?" he asked almost every day.

And Zoe smiled even though it hurt.

-Yeah.

Sometimes Carl would ask her the same questions over and over again.