Chapter 5

I didn't know what to answer, I was taken by surprise. Instead of saying anything I just walked out of the room. I knew how to get up to the roof, and that's where I headed.
As I reached the roof, I settled down on one of the benches that were placed up there. I looked out over the city, thinking. I knew that I loved Ryan, but I didn't understand why he was asking me to marry him. I knew that he loved me too, but I was too perplexed by his choice of asking me.
"Trudy?" someone asked. I looked around and spotted Salene.
"Yes," I said as I turned back to look out over the city.
"I saw you rush past. And I was wondering if something's wrong," Salene said as she sat down next to me. I heaved a sigh.
"Nothing's wrong. I just needed time to be alone and think," I said smiling slightly as I glanced over at the redhead.

"Oh, do you want me to leave?" she asked and I just nodded. A few seconds later I was all alone again. I pulled my knees up against my chest and put my chin on my knees and my arms around them. I was thinking back to the months I'd been hiding my pregnancy, before we'd found this safe haven. Flashback

"Trudy?" Ryan said. I was sitting in a corner in the barn we were squatting in that night. It was about four months since we had left the school and boot camp. We were close to where Zandra's old friend Glenn was from. We had gone there with him, because he had told us he knew a safe place that would be full of things. I'd been avoiding him for two whole days now, and I guessed it was getting to him. "Yes," I answered as I pulled at my shirt, which was getting a bit tight around my stomach. Luckily Ryan didn't notice it, and even if he did, he didn't comment on it. None of us had managed to scavenge any clean clothes yet, since all the places we had found had already been looted, sadly enough. The barn we were in right now was an abandoned barn that had just a small outhouse connected to it. I had found that whoever had lived there, had lived up in the loft, because there was a sweet little apartment there, and it hadn't been looted of food yet, nor clothes. I had found a brown dress to wear with a green trim. It was a lot looser than the school uniform. Zandra found some really weird clothes that she got dressed in, and the boys found shirts that they could wear. I was sitting on the bed that was in the corner of the little apartment, eating a tin of beans, cold. "What are you doing?" Ryan asked and I just rolled my eyes as I took a mouthful of the beans. It was a wonder that I got to keep them down. I'd been having trouble with keeping food down the last few months, seeing as I actually was pregnant, which little miss Z had pointed out to me. "Eating, of course—I know. But what I meant was, why have you been avoiding me?" Ryan continued.. I stayed quiet for a while, while I was pondering on my answer. "I haven't been avoiding you Ryan, it's just something Lex said," I said covering up nicely. And it was true, Lex had told me something that'd made me think. A lot. "What did he say this time?" Ryan asked as he looked me dead in the eye. I was glad that I'd learnt to lie well as a child. It helped me at times like these. "Well you know Lex, the usual," I said, not really knowing what else to say to Ryan. "You mean he called me fat and dumb for the gazillionth time?" Ryan asked as he came closer to me. I just nodded. "I need to pee," I said, and moved around Ryan in just a few seconds and avoided his touch. He was still the same shy boy he'd been before we had found out about the virus. Which meant that he seldom hit on me. Sure he kissed me from time to time, but mostly only a peck on the cheek, or on the forehead, because he was embarrassed for some reason or the other. When I was on my way out of the toilet I heard Lex and Glenn having a shouting match. Lex and Glenn fighting, as usual. I was so used to them fighting by now that I seldom noticed it. Zandra always pleaded for them to stop or asked Ryan to make them stop. Me, I just ignored them until they stopped. Most often they stopped when Lex had smacked Glenn, leaving Zandra mad at everyone but me. Which I found amusing, but only because the boys never learned.

"Trude?" I heard someone call, and I was brought out of my memories. I had left Taryn with Ryan, and Zandra had come up to check on me.
"Yeah," I said, indicating that she was welcome to stay if she wanted to.
"Taryn was crying," Zandra said and handed her to me. Apparently Ryan hadn't been able to quiet her down, or Zandra had taken her from him, I guessed that it was the latter.
"Or you wanted an excuse to come up here?" I said reaching out for my daughter.
"You know me too well," Zandra answered as she sat down next to me on the bench.
"Yes, so spit it out. What do you want?" I asked, looking at Taryn.
"I just want to know why you just rushed out of the mall. And why you came up to the roof of all places instead of heading outside," Zandra said. I glanced up at her, and she was staring at me intently. It bothered me slightly.
"Ryan asked me to marry him," was all I said. I didn't feel like telling Zandra why I'd chosen the roof.
"Aww, what did you say?" Zandra asked me happily, and I just stared at her, completely forgetting about Taryn. "What?!" Zandra asked in surprise. I just rolled my eyes.
"What do you think? I took off before he could ask me again. I need time to think," I said staring at Zandra who was starting to feel uneasy: I could see it in her face. She got up and hurried away, and at this point Taryn started crying. She was hungry, so I fed her. When I'd burped her I went back to thinking of the past, and started telling Taryn about it.
"You know Taryn, me and your father met only a few days before you were conceived. It was at a dance and it was so much fun. The only thing was, I had to keep you a secret at first. I didn't tell anyone I was pregnant, until your aunt Zandra found out by mistake," I said smiling to myself. It was starting to get cold up on the roof, so I headed back inside. But I stayed on the stairway, still wanting to be alone. I was still trying to decide if I wanted to marry Ryan or not. I loved him, and I knew he loved me, but in this crazy world I wasn't too sure if it was such a good idea. I also knew that Zandra would be ecstatic if I did marry Ryan. But I was doubting Ryan's reasons for wanting to marry me. Was it so we would be a family? Or was it because he loved me? I didn't know, and it bothered me. The feeling of not knowing brought me back to before the virus, when I'd been shipped off, not knowing if my parents were dead or alive. It had been horrible, at least I'd had comfort in the fact that everyone around me felt the same way. I wasn't alone then, not like now. Sure, I was surrounded by people, but not a single one of them could understand how I felt. Not even Taryn, who had fallen asleep in my arms. I just watched her for a while. I was determined not to go back to the mall if I didn't absolutely have to. It didn't take long before I was back in the land of memories.

Lex and Glenn fighting, as usual. We were sitting in an old van, it was warmer in the van than it was outside, seeing as all five of us were huddled up together, even though the boys weren't too fond of it. Especially Lex and Glenn, who just kept on bickering and fighting. It was driving me mental, and on top of everything, I was trying to hide my pregnancy. It was getting harder as the months passed by. But I still managed, I knew that Lex didn't pay any attention to me since the time I'd almost neutered him. It was almost five months ago now. It was before I'd realized I was even pregnant. We had been sitting in an old abandoned store that hadn't been looted. Lex had been eyeing me all night and made passes at me. "So, you sure you don't want to hook up?" he asked me when Ryan had gone out to take a leak, and Zandra had gone off to find more make-up. "Ask me one more time and you will see how much I do NOT want to hook up with you," I said frustrated and put a lot of emphasis on the word 'not'. It didn't take long for Lex to make another pass at me. "I warned you," I said and took a hold of his nut sack and held it tightly. It made Lex squeal like a pig. "Will you leave me alone?" I asked him seriously, and he just nodded and whined. I let go of him and got up from the floor and went to find Zandra. It didn't take me long. Zandra was standing where all the perfume, make-up and other beauty products were. She was stuffing most of the things she wanted into her bag. The only thing Zandra didn't put in her bag was hair dye. Or that was what I thought. "Help me dye my hair, Trude." Zandra said, and I of course said yes, but I'd given her one condition: if she fixed mine, I'd fix hers. "How do we look?" I asked the boys as me and Zandra paraded over to the section of candy, where the boys were fighting over the last bar of some weird brand of candy. They stopped when they saw us. My hair was purple, and short, and Zandra had done my make-up too, so I looked like her, with blue swirls and pink eye shadow. Zandra's hair, however, was half brown, and the other half was split in two, one half in blue and one half in pink. The boys just stared at us. I burst out into laughter because of Ryan's expression, and Zandra started laughing because I was laughing, and probably because all three boys were wearing matching expressions: looks of surprise, gawking with their mouths fully open. "You can close your mouths now," Zandra said when she had managed to stop laughing, which just made me laugh even more. I hadn't slept properly, none of us had for the last few days, since we had been sleeping outside. It was before we'd met up with Glenn. Ryan kept finding razors to shave his head with; he kept trimming his hair down to keep it short; it seemed to be the way he liked it. Lex on the other hand had let his hair grow out, and it was reaching down to his eyebrows, so it was still quite short, at that point. I thought it looked ridiculous but I didn't say anything, because I knew it'd hurt his feelings.

"Trudy?" someone asked and I was brought back to the present.
"Yes," I said and looked down the stairs. It was Ryan. I didn't know what to tell him, so I just stayed quiet.