The air in Joel’s house was thick with the scent of stale coffee and sawdust from his workshop, a heavy silence that had been building for three days. Every time you passed him in the street of Jackson, he’d find a sudden interest in a fence post or a conversation with Tommy, anything to avoid the gravity of what had happened between you.

When you finally pushed through his front door, you didn't give him the chance to walk away. He was standing by the window, his broad shoulders hunched, back turned to you like a fortress.

"Joel," you said, your voice cracking the stillness. "You’ve been dodging me since Tuesday. We need to talk about it."

He didn't move. He didn't even sigh. He just tightened his grip on the edge of the table until his knuckles went white.

"There’s nothing to talk about," he grunted, his voice gravelly and dismissive.

"The hell there isn't," you stepped further into the room, the heat of frustration rising in your chest. "You don't just kiss someone like that. You don't look at me the way you did and-and then act like I’m a stranger. I felt it, Joel. I know you did too."

That was the tripwire. Joel spun around, his movement so sudden and violent it made the floorboards groan. The face looking back at you wasn't the man who had held you tenderly a few nights ago, it was the survivor. The man who had buried a daughter, a partner, and his own soul in the dirt of a dying world.

"You want to talk? Fine. Let’s talk," he barked, his voice rising into a roar that echoed off the sparse walls. "That night? It was a mistake. A momentary lapse in judgment because I was tired and I wasn't thinking straight. I shouldn't have reciprocated, and I sure as hell shouldn't have let you think it meant something!"

He took a heavy step toward you, his eyes dark with a desperate, manufactured cruelty. Inside, his chest was screaming. Every instinct he had was telling him to reach out, to pull you in, to find the peace he’d felt for those few seconds when your lips met. But the memory of Sarah’s blood on his shirt and the weight of Ellie’s life on his shoulders acted like a leash, pulling him back into the cold.

"I need you away from me," he snarled, the words tasting like ash. "And I want you nowhere near Ellie. You’re a distraction. You’re a liability."

"Joel-" you whispered, the shock of his words hitting you like nothing else had.

"You need to get it through your head, look around you! It’s the end of the world." He gestured wildly at the window, at the world beyond the walls of Jackson. "People are dying every day, fighting for a scrap of hope, and you’re standing here whining about feelings?"

He could see your expression crumbling, and it felt like a knife twisting in his own chest, but he pushed the blade deeper. He had to. If you hated him, you’d stay away. If you'd stay away, he wouldn't have to love you. And if he doesn't love you, he won't have to die when the world inevitably takes you from him.

"We don't have time for this drama. I don't want it. I don't need it. And I sure as hell don't want anything to do with you," he spits, the words tasting like ash. "I want you away from me, and I want you away from Ellie. You're a distraction we can't afford. You’re just another person I’d have to carry, and I’m done carrying people. You're nothing to me. Do you hear me? Nothing."

He watched the light go out of your eyes, watched your heart break in real time, mirroring the shattered remains of his own. He stood there, breathing hard, looking at you with a blunt, harsh indifference that was the greatest lie he’s ever told. He waited for you to leave, waited for the door to slam so he could finally collapse under the weight of the wall he just rebuilt.