A/N: This chapter is going to be a bit heavier than the other ones (if that's possible, lol) Just a warning that it's going to veer into mature themes like sex. Nothing happens but things are said. I wouldn't really recommend that anyone under 13 reads this, but it's a free country. Just don't say I didn't warn you. Without further ado, voila…

Part I

Chapter Seven

I'm Sick

Sam was perched on the edge of the cliff behind the shack, wondering how long it would take to drown. But then again if he landed he could hit the rocks and die that way. There were many ways to die from jumping off the cliff. Being impaled, breaking his neck, crushing his skull. They all sounded appealing. Everybody would prefer it that way. The sour looks from his step father and his mother confirmed the notion. No one would miss him; no one would even notice he was gone. Sam smiled ruefully and patted Guster's golden head. The dog was reclined lazily by Sam. A dog was his only friend, how incredibly pathetic.

Sam's ruminations were broken by his father's voice.

"Thinking of jumping?" George asked calmly.

Sam answered sardonically, "Pushing."

"Well don't jump until you hear the waves crash onto the cliff, the water'll take you out. Let it. The first time I did it, younger than you even, I thought I'd break my neck and just sorta float to Catalina."

Sam was surprised. His father was giving him suicide advice.

"You don't always get what you wish for Sam."

"Yeah no shit." Sam answered in his mind.

Suddenly Sam felt a breeze on his right and was shocked to find that George was falling down towards the waves. He disappeared under the water. Sam jumped up frantically. "Shit!" "Hello?" "Hello?"

George was nowhere in sight. Sam ran down the side of the cliff and into the waves. George was flopping around laughing madly. Sam was suddenly annoyed that he'd actually cared about the well being of his father. 'Are you insane?" he yelled. "I have a total wacko for a father!" he stormed off, soaked up to his knees.

Sam was on his way back inside when he saw a memory of his past crouched beside his dog. Her auburn hair was pooled on her shoulders. She was baby-talking Guster. Sam's heart was suddenly in his throat.

Alyssa noticed his presence and stood. "Hey." Her voice made him dizzy.

"Hi." He answered shyly. The pretty girl suddenly made his dark façade melt away.

"What are you doing here?" she asked walking towards him.

He backed away nervously. "Well they're trying to make me spend the summer here, but I'm leaving in the morning. He tried to avoid eye contact.

'Oh, where to?"

"I'm supposed to be in Tahoe." He answered uneasily

'Well I guess if you stay I'll see you around." She paused and looked at his face turned away ashamedly. He looked sweetly beautiful with his head bowed like that. Alyssa wanted to reach out and pull his face up, so she could look at his icy eyes. "You should stay. Where's your dad?"

Sam looked at the ocean and surprisingly into her eyes, a playful look in his piercing eyes. His lips curled slightly into a wicked little smile and Alyssa felt weak at the knees. 'He jumped into the ocean.' He answered softly.

Alyssa smiled. She had finally gotten a reaction out of the shy darkly beautiful boy she had secretly admired.

'Well tell him I said hello." But she really meant to tell Sam that she was saying hello after all those years apart, after their sore goodbyes.

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The next morning Sam lay on his back on the reclined sunbathing chair in the backyard. It was finally sunny and the warmth felt good on Sam's sore bones. The relaxation was short lived. George slapped something cold onto him and he abruptly got up. Did George secretly wish for death or was he just a dumbass? Sam concluded a mix of both and uttered a sharp "don't touch me!"

And then there she was. Alyssa seemed unfazed by Sam's episode and walked over with a curl at her raspberry lips. George threw her the sun screen bottle and resumed his construction project. She offered to rub down his back with lotion. The thought itself almost made him hard. He said no, she couldn't know how he really felt.

Sam should've remembered how stubborn Alyssa was. She walked over anyway and sat beside him.

The way her hands moved over his skin was intoxicating, better than any drug he'd ever used. He felt a rush of pleasure down in his pelvis, his breathing ragged and uneven. He had to fight not to turn around and run his hands over her body, to press his lips against hers, to know the way it would feel to be buried inside her. God he wanted to fuck her so badly.

Her hands stopped their ministrations. She had to leave. As she skipped away Sam gazed at her unabashedly. She hopped into Josh's convertible and off they went. Josh didn't deserve her. It'd be so much better without that stupid fuck in the way. But Sam realized he wouldn't have the balls to ask her out anyway, so none of it really even mattered.

"Shit!" Sam said under his breath. He had just gone through his bags and there was nothing. The little baggies were nearly empty, expect for the tiny scraps left over, but that wouldn't even fill a quarter of a joint. He could smoke another cigarette, but that was just not enough. George was whining about getting some help again. Sam took some enjoyment out of getting him angry. He went through his father's drawers and felt something cylindrical in a sock. A bottle of Vicodin stared him in the face and Sam poured out a few and downed it without water.

Sam hummed as the water of the showerhead poured over him. He heard the door open and rolled his eyes. Sam opened the shower door and Josh was sitting smugly on the counter. "I need you man."

Of everyone in this goddamn town why did Josh want to pimp Sam out as a whore?

He remembered Josh needling him about it earlier. "The closet gays kinda like that vulnerable girly man thing you got going." Sam had told him to fuck off at that point and would've kicked him in the nuts if he hadn't left.

"You got any weed?" Sam asked and then Josh asked that inevitable question.

"You got any money?"

It made Sam feel wrong, physically. The thought actually made him want to vomit. The endlessness of his existence, all the people who couldn't give a shit about him convinced him otherwise. It wasn't like they were going to have sex or anything.

He was nervous…and scared. He was scared more than anything. And somehow he was in that strange man's Lexus with his pants down. The man was on his knees in front of Sam, his hands running over Sam's thighs. This man kneeled between Sam's legs. He had cupped his knees with cold hands. Sam pressed his back into the seat so hard that it felt like he was going to tear through it. The man's hands were inside his boxers, running on his inner thigh. And then the man's entire body was on Sam's. He kissed Sam so roughly that Sam could feel a welt stinging through his lips. Sam pushed the man off him slightly and mustered a broken stop it. St-op-it.

"You're pretty." The man had said. "Now turn around."

Sam furrowed his brows, his eyes angry. "No!"

The man gripped Sam's face and his nails dug into Sam's cheeks. "Turn the fuck around, kid."

A no thundered out of Sam's chest.

The man smiled smugly. "You're aggressive. That makes me so hard."

He kissed Sam so hard it could have broken his teeth. He grabbed a tuft of hair and pulled on it. Sam cried out in pain, his eyes welling up with tears. "Turn around!" the man roared.

"The pimp said only a blowjob."

"I'm not paying you 300 dollars for just head. You're supposed to let me fuck you."

And then a police car rolled in. The man jumped off Sam. Sam tried to stand. He couldn't feel his body. He had turned it off. He stumbled out of the car. He stumbled over rocks on the beach and sobbed. He collapsed by a rotting plank. The tears poured out of him like a storm.

What the fuck had he done? What was wrong with him? When did he ever get this desperate, this low? For the first time in his life Sam realized how fucked up he really was inside. He was sick. He had always been. Sam had thought that if he covered up his symptoms with Vicodin or Weed that they didn't exist, that he was better. But he was sick. His hands were wet, the tears bled through his fingers. As his body heaved with sadness Sam wished more than anything that he would die. Please, God, just kill me. Let me die…

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After the last of rivers on Sam's face dried up he looked up. Through the fog he could see the sky. He remembered the last time he had done this. Alyssa was there, comforting him. No one was there to quell his fears about himself, about what he had done.

Sam stood up slowly, his legs wobbly and aching and brushed the dirt off his pants. It was so quiet outside. The white noise of the ocean was occasionally broken by the sound of a car's engine. As Sam walked back home he forget where he was. He was on a sort of auto- pilot.

The garage was silent too. Sam lay down and pulled the covers over himself. It was quiet all around him. Inside his mind, though he could hear the persistent sound of laughing and his own drowning. He didn't know what it felt like to drown, but it couldn't be worse than now. He already was drowning. He already couldn't breathe. All the things that had happened were seeping into his lungs and suffocating him.

He moaned into the sheets of his bed, stifling more sobs. He had taken more Vicodin and it knocked him out. Maybe for a few hours he could forget who he was.