It's not even dawn yet.
I wake up and the scars are still here. The fear is still here. The guilt is still here. My pain is still here.
But Sammy is still here, too. I have to remember that.
Days like this, when I miss Mom and Dad so much it's hard to breathe and I can't see the end of the fight, I remember that this is for Sam.
I made a promise to Dad to watch out for him, but more than that, I made a promise to myself all those years ago to always protect him.
Still, I'm scared. I can't protect him from himself, I don't know how, and that's what he needs the most.
I watch Sammy after he falls asleep and I wait. I wait for another nightmare. He dreamt about Dad last night and he called out to him. I swear I could almost see the words lift from his lips and drift like smoke into the darkness.
I'm fading into this black hole. It's Mom and its Dad and its Sam. And I feel guilty for thinking that. Mom and Dad only loved me. And Sam…Sammy brings this light into my darkness. He smiles and he talks to me. He talks me off of whatever ledge I'm on.
But he brings the darkness as much as he breaks it. Everything he dreams and everything he sees falls on me. I feel like I am carrying the weight of the world and I can't ask anyone, especially not Sam, to help bear the load.
I know what I know, and I can't change that fact. Ignorance was bliss. I used to believe that all of this was just random. Evil had come to my family and torn it apart because that's what evil does. But now I know there is a reason for that evil.
I need to get back to where we were. Where all this fucked up shit made some kind of sense. Back to finding the bad thing and killing it. Back to cranking The Stones in the car and riding with the windows down. Back to being that guy. I need to find my way out. And I know that Sam and I will find it in time.
But at this point, I just have to get through each day, one day at a time. If I can bring Sam home safe when the sun goes down and he sleeps through the night, it's all I can ask for.