Tw: Attempted suicide.

Nell and Maggie have been talking a lot recently— it made Nell happy. She likes having someone to talk to and understand her.

Although, today was the first time Nell has ever seen Maggie cry. She was hunched over the kitchen table while she sobbed into her hands.

Nell slowly entered, asking 'What's wrong, Maggie?'

'It's Beth.' She said.

Beth? Nell thought.
Nell knew that Beth was upset over her mom dying, but she didn't exactly know what was wrong with her.

'What's wrong with Beth?' Nell asked, full of concern for both Beth and Maggie now.

'I'm afraid she'll do something very bad... something that she can't take back.' Maggie said, sniffling and lifting her head off the tabletop.

Beth? Doing something bad? It couldn't be. Beth was the opposite of a bad person, Nell knew it. She has always been a very good judge of character.

'I don't expect you to understand.' Maggie started to say, not waiting for Nell's response.

Why does everyone assume she doesn't understand stuff?
Nell was sure that she knew a shit ton more about life than the average twelve year old.

'I might understand.' Nell said, staring at the short-haired girl in front of her.

Maggie took a deep breath.
'When someone gets really upset— and I mean really upset, they have these bad thoughts in their head.
These bad thoughts tell them to do bad things.'

Daddy always had bad thoughts that made him do bad things, Nell thought.

'Beth's thoughts are telling her to harm herself in a way that can't be undone.' Maggie explained.

Nell knew what she was talking about.

Suicide.

Teachers would always come into her classroom to talk about mental health, not that it made a difference.

Nell never wanted to die, but she just wanted to leave. She wanted to leave her home and go somewhere far, far away. But she cared too much for Ollie to put him through that.
Now that her dad's gone though, she hasn't had those thoughts in a while, even with walkers taking over the Earth.

So, in a way, the walkers saved her.
That's a funny thing to think about, she thought. Walkers aren't supposed to save people, they are supposed to hurt people.

After the talk she had with Maggie, Nell has been even more concerned than usual. She doesn't want Beth to kill herself, Nell really likes Beth.

Nell doesn't think Beth has enough of a reason to kill herself, anyway. Her mom died, yeah, but she has an entire farm and the rest of her family. Nell would give everything to have a life like Beth's.

Nell doesn't understand why people do what they do sometimes.
She doesn't understand why Beth is feeling this way.

She also doesn't understand why her mom was nice but her dad was mean.

Was he even mean?

Nell also doesn't understand why her dad would hurt her and then act nice after he drank some of his special drinks.

Despite the confusion, Nell knew it was normal for parents to hurt their kids. It's the only way to learn from your mistakes after all.

Nell's thoughts get interrupted by Maggie yelling and banging on a door. Her screams sound like it's coming from Beth's room.

"Beth? Beth!!" Maggie yells.

Then, she hears glass shatter from the room Maggie is yelling in. The glass shattering only causes more fear to arise in Maggie's voice.
Nell slowly makes her way down the hallway and stares at Beth's closed bedroom door.

Lori runs past Nell and frantically opens her bedroom door.
"Maggie?" Lori asks, her eyes wide with concern.

Nells face lights up in confusion and worry and she runs into Beth's room, following Lori.

"She's in there." Maggie says in her thick accent. "I heard glass."

Maggie is struggling to open Beth's bathroom door. Nell assumes Beth is in there, trying to do 'something bad.'

Maggie tries to open the door knob, but Beth must have locked it, so she continues banging on the door.

"Beth? Are you alright?!" Lori shouts, pressing the right side of her face against the wooden door.

"Don't do this Beth, don't do this. Open up, please!" Maggie yells and finally releases her grip on the doorknob to begin searching the drawers on a nearby dresser.

"Where's the key?" Lori asks as Maggie continues to opens every drawer, making a mess as things fall all over the ground.

Nell feels helpless. She wants to do something, but there isn't much she can do in a situation like this one.
Nell steps back from Maggie and Lori, giving them their space because she isn't a huge help right now.

Nell looks around the room for something, anything to help them as Maggie continues shouting at Beth, trying to get her the open the bathroom door.

Nell spots a pole in the far corner of the room. A curtain rod.
She runs over and picks up the huge rod.

"Try this!" Nell shouts as Lori snatches the curtain rod out of her hands and presses it under the doorknob, forcing the door open.

Nell used to open locked doors like this one all the time.
When her dad would drink and get mad, most of the time Nell got punished, but sometimes Ollie did too.
Nell always came to the rescue.

She would stuff anything she could find underneath the doorknob or in the slit between the door and the wall as she pushed the door open with her hip.
Her dad usually got so mad at Nell for opening the door that he let Ollie go and punished her instead.

The bathroom door slowly creaks open, revealing Beth standing with tears running down her face, holding her wrist with blood splattered all over it.

Nells eyes widen at the sight of Beth and her heart begins to beat so rapidly that she can feel it in her head.
Beth tried to kill herself.

"I'm sorry..." Beth mutters through the tears.

Maggie mouth hangs open as she slowly walks over to Beth and embraces her in a hug. The two sisters cry in each other's arms as Maggie brings her out of the bathroom.

Nell looks up at Lori for comfort, but Lori just stares at the floor until she eventually walks out of the bathroom too.