The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 618

Chapter 618

Nicole looked at Poppy seriously.

“Remember this. As long as we’re strong enough, other people’s words can’t really hurt us. The trouble starts when we let them get inside our heads and control how we feel.

“Even if I had been home, so what? Who says I was obligated to save him? Who says I could have?

“If he chose to give up on his family and on his own life, why should I be responsible for saving someone who didn’t want to be saved?”

The outside world was far more complicated than anything Zeph and Nicole could teach Poppy at home. She seemed to

understand, though not completely. She turned Nicole’s words over in her mind several times before they finally began to sink

Even though they let her take patrol shifts, neither of them ever stopped worrying about her. Every so often, they would ask what had happened while she was out and how she handled it.

Poppy was only four or five when she was forced to live with her uncle’s family. Back then, she depended on them for everything and had learned early to keep her head down.

She met most things with silence or a smile. Even when she cried, she had to hide somewhere first. If her uncle’s family caught her, she would either get yelled at or go without food.

Over the years, Nicole slowly helped her come out of her shell. Now, she could tell Zeph and Nicole what she was really thinking and feeling, but around outsiders, she still rarely let anything show.

Most of the time, she either stayed quiet or smiled and let things go.

So even when people in the neighborhood were saying awful things about Nicole, Poppy didn’t go out and argued with them. She simply stood there and remembered every word.

She was afraid that acting on impulse would only make things worse. Once she got home, she could always ask Zeph and Nicole how she should’ve handled it.

Zeph warned her before that some mistakes couldn’t be made even once, because one bad decision could cost her life.

There was still a lot she had to learn, and some of it could only come from experience.

Nicole, meanwhile, didn’t care about the rumors at all. She simply went on with her life.

She stopped taking patrol shifts. Aside from training and tending to her storage space, she spent almost all her time buried in medical books.

Around the neighborhood, some families were celebrating while others were grieving. Some residents went out only to discover that the supplies they had hidden were long gone, while others came back with trucks loaded with food and goods.

Polar night had only made the gap between the fortunate and the desperate more obvious. Besides the man who had cut his wrists, another resident later overdosed on expired sleeping pills.

One family’s tragedy didn’t stop another family’s celebration. In a world like this, joy and grief was never evenly shared.

Nicole got so wrapped up in studying that a month slipped by before she knew it.

One night, she suddenly wanted to be close to Zeph. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, hoping for more, only for him to gently stop her.

She was surprised at first, but then she understood.

They hadn’t had sex once in the past month. Neither of them had talked about it, but they both knew why.

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Michelle’s death in childbirth had shaken them more than either wanted to admit. Even condoms weren’t 100% reliable.

Nicole smiled, reached over, and switched off the bedside lamp. “Let’s just sleep,”

Zeph pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead. “Goodnight.”

The next morning, after breakfast, Nicole was about to get back to her reading when the radio crackled to life. Someone was waiting for her at the neighborhood entrance.

It was Gabrielle.

Nicole did a quick mental calculation. If the baby had been doing well, he would be exactly a month old today.

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