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“Is everything okay?” He asks and I can hear the worry plain as day in his voice. Asking for him to come over like this isn’t something I would normally do. Walt’s the one who always asks, or he just shows up, or I just show up at his place. I’m not supposed to be emotionally tied to him, I’m not supposed to be attached, but I am.

I have a desire to reach out and take his hand, but that wouldn’t be a good idea. My head isn’t in a good place and with Walt being worried over me the end result would be me feeling worse than I already do. To deter myself I busy my hands with candy. I unwrap a roll of smarties that I have lying around and nibble on the pressed sugar. I shrug at his question, but even as I do that I realize that the simple action isn’t going to cut it. I had literally interrupted Walt’s work and insisted that he come over here. I need to give him some sort of answer. “It's been a bad day.” I tell him which is both an understatement and a lie.

Being able to spend time with my own species had admittedly been amazing. Even if I hadn’t let them inside my head besides sharing the one memory. It had been nice to be able to not pretend to be human. But then there had been the disappointment when I’d realized that the twins know less than I do about why soldiers have been hunting me and why they killed my parents. The truth had been dangled in front of me only to be taken away. Like a carrot on a stick and I’m the idiot being led around by it.

Walter sits on the bed beside me, but he’s careful to not touch me. I’ve berated him enough times about it that he knows not to unless I instigate first. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I let out a laugh at his choice of words. Feeling bitter I retort back, “We can’t always have what we want.” I rake my fingers through my hair and I try to change the subject, “What do you want for your birthday?” I ask him as if I didn’t already make his gift. It’s in a black case sitting 

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almost in plain view, just with a few cans of stain and some old cloths casually stacked on top off it like it isn’t anything special.

Walt snorts, “I don’t want anything.” He answers honestly. Walt really is simple enough to not want a single thing from anybody. He’s going to be very disappointed in a few days when he finds out that no one gave a single fuck about his disinterest in the special day.

“Too bad.” I tease him, before adding on, “Literally everybody got you something.” I inform him. “Gina is throwing you a huge party.” I tell him.

He scrunches up his face and slumps more into the mattress. “I don’t know why anybody bothered. My birthday isn’t anything important.”

“Of course it is.” I disagree. ‘Because you're important.’ I can’t say the words though. “Having birthdays is good.” I say instead. Even while on the road my dad had tried his hardest to celebrate my birthday. They’d been desperate, bitter gestures. Every year was a reminder that we had lost Mom and that we no longer had a home. And that it was my fault.

Dad never said it, he never even thought it, but it had still hung over me. If I had never been born Mom would still be alive. But every year there had still been some type of acknowledgment for my birthday—a gas station pastry with a candle or a small toy wrapped in old newspaper. The giving and acceptance of these things were our own attempts at some sort of apology to the other. Neither of us thought the other was to blame, we both felt guilty at our own inadequacies.

Walt stares at me innocently, “What were your birthdays like when you were a kid?” He asks with a feigned air of apathy.