Monster In Me

An Until Dawn Fanfiction

Synopsis: Josh is determined to make things right with the people he's wronged. Turns out, once you've terrorized your friends and almost gotten them all killed, they're not exactly too thrilled with the prospect. Good thing Sam's willing to help. Josh POV.

Genre: Dramedy

Ending: All Survive, +Josh. Mostly cannon, except Josh makes it out of the mines unharmed.

Pairing: [Josh/Sam]

Rating: T/M; Cursing, Sensuality, Sexual Innuendo

A/N: Gosh this sure is fizzling out, eh? I think next chapter will be my last, or something like that. I honestly have no idea where my stories are gonna go when I start them - I just roll with whatever pops up. I have written myself into a corner during this fic more than once. And I'll miss it!

Also… super special thanks to those of you still reading and favoriting and reviewing. Obv you know how important that is to a writer - instant feedback. But it's so hard for those of us still writing in a dying fandom. So, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for all the kind words, critiques, questions… it's been a wild ride. xoxo

Chapter 14:

Breathe Me

aka

The 5 Stages of Grief come on fast and slow and in all kinds of order and there's never an end.

So…. my dad's dead.

Yeah.

And it happened just like three or four days after our little heart to heart, too. If I am being totally honest, the days following have all been a bit of a blur so bear with me if I don't get it right - insanity and grief play tricks on a weak man's mind, ya know.

My parents flew to California for the weekend for their 25th wedding anniversary. They were in their car leaving a restaurant when they went through a busy intersection on their way to the hotel. That was about the time some drunk fucker ran a red light and T-boned the car on my dad's side.

My mom was in the passenger seat. She walked away without a scratch on her.

And yet, 'Robert Washington, famed director and writer is dead' - or, at least that's how it was told by multiple media outlets. Strange the way life works like that.

Now you see me, now you don't.

It's really weird, too. Because I never thought it would be a car accident that would get him, of all things. Chris used to say my dad was like Grizzly Adams. I can't say I disagree. I always thought he'd snap and go nuts (proving once and for all I got my craziness from dear old daddy) and he'd end up living with bears until they turned on him and mauled him to death like that documentary guy. But he would have gone out fighting. Maybe even take one or two of those bastards down with him.

Even weirder is how much time we wasted not talking when we should have made things right a long time ago - You always think you have all the time in the world to patch things up but… you just don't. Now, all we have is that one car ride home.

And once again my world is proven to be one sad, sick joke after another.

Stage One: Shock and Disbelief

So, surprisingly after my little run in with the police, my dad started being pretty lax when it came to Sam hangin' around - "you could stand to learn a few things from her," he'd said. Although I am not sure as to of what things he was referring to.

Perhaps he meant how to blackmail someone into doing whatever you wanted?

Or how to make someone fall in love with you and then ditch out?

Okay, okay. So I am still feeling a little bit bitter towards Sam.

But… not having her around feels worse than being alone, especially since my visions haven't gotten any better. And we still haven't talked more about her leaving for college, so it puts a nice, thick tension between us. Slightly awkward but with the tendency to still make out sometimes if I played my cards right- So I'd say we're in a pretty okay place at this point, as long as we continue to ignore the glaring issues coming up on us fast - like her going to college and me going insane.

Ain't no thang. We good.

I'm sitting next to Sam in the living room and before I even get the call, I get this distinct and unsettling feeling - like I am almost about to becoming horribly, violently ill. One reason why might be the shadow watching us from the hallway that I'm steadily pretending isn't there.

But there's something else.

Something worse. I can sense it.

We've spent the better half of the last 6 hours watching scary movies (why she continues to humor me, I'll never know… I can tell from each grimace and each groan how much she hates it).

Also, it's probably not the best idea for me to be watching horror movies at this time. It's like I'm just asking for my hallucinations to morph into full on nightmare-mode.

Anyways, When I see my mom's name on my 6-year-old phone screen (which, by the way, since I got it I haven't had to charge it once. Those things are no joke), I'm feeling pretty nervous because although Sam's been over a bit since the night at the police station, I am still a little hazy on the rules when it comes to having her over. I just thought maybe they began turning a blind eye because it keeps me out of trouble - little do they know the world of trouble this girl has put me through.

I know instantly that my mom's not calling to check in with me, though. I also now know why I have been sitting with that brick in my stomach for the last hour.

Her voice is shaky, like when she's beyond upset but trying her best to hold it together. I've heard that voice far too many times in my 21 years, and I am ashamed to say I've been the cause of it more times than I'd like to admit.

She tells me that there's been an accident and that it doesn't look like dad's gonna make it - I find it odd how matter-of-factly she relays this to me; aside from the frog in her throat there is almost no emotion at all.

She says I need to fly down there immediately for a chance to say goodbye - if he even holds out that long. I'm relatively certain that she needs me there for her, as well. I don't mind that part one bit. I am all she has now and I feel sorry for her, as broken and messed up as I am.

I can't help but wonder if she felt this way when she got the panicked phone call from me that Hannah and Beth were missing.

Then once again the following year when the lodge had burned down and I was missing - I guess that time it was Chris who called.

I quietly hate myself for ever making her worry.

I must not come across as very reactive during the call 'cause when I hang up Sam is just staring at me, her head cocked to the side, awaiting an explanation. I just avoid her gaze and pick up the remote, absently turning the movie back up from it's temporarily muted state.

"Josh?" Sam says, her voice low and quiet. I grunt in response. "That was your mom?"

I nod.

"She sounded upset…"

I shrug a bit, but I feel my eyes slowly trail towards hers, which are burning into me intensely. I know from the look on her face that she can tell that something's wrong. The weird part is… if I'm totally being honest… I don't really feel anything. Numb.

"Nothing," I shrug. "My dad's dying," I might as well have told her that we're due for rain or my weekend plans. A mild inconvenience.

She, understandably, freaks out. She starts throwing her arms up and around and becoming almost ridiculously concerned if I am okay, to which I reply that I am. I give her very limited information (it's honestly not like I know too many details at this point, anyway).

She asks me what I need.

"What do you need, Josh? What can I do for you?"

I realize that it would be in incredibly poor taste to suggest a BJ. I'm disgusted with myself that it even crosses my mind. Okay, not entirely disgusted. But slightly.

"A ride to the airport, I guess…"

Sam doesn't hesitate - she borrows her mom's car (hers is STILL in the shop) and takes me straight there. I notice she is driving very carefully - I'm not sure if it is because of my dad's accident or hers. Either way, I appreciate it. I already wanna puke enough as it is without her weaving in and out of traffic.

She pulls up to the curb by the American Airlines kiosk and asks me if I'm gonna be okay from here, I say yes. I'm crazy, not 7 years old, Samantha.

"I am... so sorry, Josh," she says through brimming tears, her hand on my forearm like we're in an episode of Grey's Anatomy (I had two sisters and a mom. It's a good show. Sue me… also, RIP McDreamy).

I sigh. And because I cannot seem to process this level of emotion correctly at the moment, I do what I normally do: Make a horrifically inappropriate joke.

"I'm the one who should be sorry. I got one of those emails last week that said someone close to me would die if I didn't forward it to ten people…"

Bad timing. Bad joke.

Sam gives me a bit of a disapproving look, but I know she knows this is how I cope. I had hundreds of 'dead sister jokes' during the year Hannah and Beth were missing.

She didn't find those ones funny, either.

"Thanks, Sammy," I say, a little more seriously. She leans in and kisses me, and I wonder when we ended up on a kissing-hello/kissing-goodbye basis. Not that I'm complaining… but that's definitely going to make her leaving for college even harder on me.

And so, (with special permissions from my court order) I am on the next plane out. I try with all my might not to pull a Shatner and exclaim that there's something on the wing… because even though there is, I know no one else can see it.

The old man beside me asks why I'm going to California. I tell him it's to meet Ben Affleck. He believes me. Old people believe anything.

I snap my shade shut and just try to listen my music, closing my eyes and pretending like I'm maybe not going to California to say goodbye to my father. Music is soothing. Breathe me. Sia.

Be my friend, hold me
Wrap me up, unfold me
I am small, and needy
Warm me up and breathe me

I've made this trip hundreds of times in my life: Disneyland, movie sets, studios… but stepping off the plane at John Wayne International Airport now feels… empty. I wasn't here for a family vacation with my parents and sisters.

I was there to say goodbye to my dad.

If he was even still alive at this point. I didn't know.

As I sit on the plane, which is a relatively short flight considering, I can't help but just think over and over and over again about those last five months and the fact that we never said a word - not one single word - until I got arrested. And although he said a lot of what I needed to hear, it felt so… unfinished. I didn't get to say what I wanted to say to him. A half conversation. Something we put a pin in and planned on getting back to later. At first it hurt to think about all that wasted time. Then I even found it humorous, almost.

But now… I don't know how I feel about it.

Did he know that growing up he was my fucking hero?

Did he really not blame me for what happened to Beth and Hannah?

I know he loved me. He got to tell me one more time but… did he know I love him?

Stage Two: Denial

I'm here now.

At the hospital.

It reminds me of all those other times I was at the hospital… but obviously for different reasons than this. In fact, Ocean View is in Burbank, and it's relatively close to here. It definitely feels weird to be back and not being committed - even if I am insane and all.

As I watch my mom talking to the doctor, I haven't found the courage to go into my dad's room. They had tried, unsuccessfully, to repair the trauma from the accident, but so far he is unresponsive, his organs are failing. They say stupid things that aren't even remotely helpful like, "We're surprised he even survived the crash as at all," as though him laying there like a vegetable with no morsel of dignity left was some kind of fucked up silver-lining.

The strangest part of all is that it doesn't actually feel like it's happening.

This is not real.

This is not my life.

The legendary, 'impenetrable' Washington Family of five, now whittled down to merely two. That doesn't even make sense to me. This kinda stuff happens, but it's not supposed to happen to us - not anymore. We paid our penance. We already had to mourn my sisters. And why me? Out of everyone my mom has lost - the love of her life and her two perfect, wonderful daughters - why did she get stuck with me in the end?

I lean forward, cradling my head in my hands as I wait… for what, I don't know. For death to come swiftly and painlessly? For me to wake up and realize that none of it was even real? It doesn't feel real.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see the hospital lights flicker, but when I whip my head up, no one else seems to notice it. I can see something out of my peripheral, and it gives me shivers.

At the very end of the hospital corridor, which for some reason has become dark, I can see the same creature in the shadows that I was seeing back home.

It's still following me.

Of course it's still following me.

That's what I was afraid of.

I want to call out to my mom, but as I'm sitting there in that hard, disgustingly stained waiting room chair, frozen in fear, I am horribly reminded that they can't see it. It's growling. I've moved past visions and am having full on hallucinations now. The floor is corroding. The wallpaper is peeling and rotting. It's alllll in my head.

Again.

And then, in a flash, things look normal again. I glance back down the hallway where the creature once stood, now just nurses and patients shuffling about. My heart is still thumping wildly, though. I reach into my backpack and pull out my pills. It's late and with everything going on, I'd forgotten to take them - I silenced my TMNT watch earlier when it started buzzing during a very serious moment between my mom and the doctor. Besides, I'm now 100% positive these things are useless.

Still, I down the hatch, hoping for some kind of relief.

"Josh?" I hear my mom call out, a beckoning finger out for me. She's leaving the doctor, nearing me with tear-streaked cheeks and a well-used tissue. She sits in the chair beside me when I barely respond. "Josh, they're going to turn off the machines… do you want to go in there?" I can feel my head nod slowly but my body doesn't move.

Going in there means it's real.

Going in there means goodbye.

"Do you need me to go with you?" she offers, but no. I think I need to do this one on my own. I stand up, my knees popping audibly from sitting so long. My feet squeak against the tiled floor as they take me to the room even though I really don't want to go. But I've spent months not wanting to face him. Now is the last chance I'll ever have.

The first thing I notice when I walk into my father's hospital room is the nurse, whose face is melting off. I mean, literally, her skin looks burned and it droops, like an action figure held over an open flame. She looks at me and I try not to recoil but her eyes are missing. I swallow hard, attempting not to react because I know it's not real. It's not real. It's not real.

"It was supposed to be you. It'll be you, soon," she says, her voice as sweet as it is sinister while she glides past me. It makes me do a double-take.

"Excuse me?" I manage to croak.

"I said I'll give you guys some privacy," she replies. It probably was. I can't trust myself at this point. I'm not even sure I can trust you anymore.

I give her one last glance and she looks normal now, so I offer her a tight smile.

Shake it off, Josh.

I hear the constant beeping of the heart monitor, and it suddenly feels deafening. As I near the bed, my denial grows. That's not my father - there's nothing about him that resembles Robert J. Washington anymore. His face is swollen past the point of recognition and there are so many tubes coming in and out of him he looks like he's caught in a spider's web.

There is only one part of him that lets me know it's him, and that's his hands. I glance down and study his left hand, his gold wedding band glimmering back at me. I must have seen his hands a million times, but I've never looked at them, you know? There's a really surreal feeling you get when you realize you're basically looking at someone for the last time.

I look at my own hands. They're the same as his.

I take his hand in mine. It's cold already; I read once on the affects of death on the body and how the slowing of the heart makes your circulation slow as well, which can result in cold extremities. I want to be able to feel things on an emotional level right now, but I am too busy recounting all of the logistic of it. He is going to die. My mom and I will be alone in that big house. We will get a massive insurance policy payout, as if we needed any more money.

I plop down in the waiting chair beside him, where my mom's probably been sitting for the last few miserable, gut-wrenching hours of her life.

The last miserable, gut-wrenching moments of my father's entire life.

Stage Three: Anger

"If you wanted to get away from me so badly, you coulda just kicked my ass out," I utter, and the joke makes me grin a bit, because if he could hear me, I know he'd find it funny. He's where this weird, twisted sense of humor came from in the first place. It's what gave him that creative edge when he made movies. It was my favorite thing about him and maybe the only thing I like about myself.

"If you still love me, beep twice," I mumble, and of course the heart monitor steadily beeps back at me, over and over again, slow and steady as though time isn't running out. My eyes start to sting with tears, and if I'm being honest, a part of me is relieved to be feeling anything at all. The idea of him getting reunited with Beth and Hannah does me in though, and I begin to cry. I know if there is any good to come out of this, it's that they'll all be together.

Saying goodbye is tough in any case, especially when there was so much else I needed to say to him, so much else I needed to apologize for. Like not telling him I'm still sick. Like not asking for help.

I open my mouth and let it slip out, 'I'm sorry, dad', although I am not totally sure I believe he can even hear me at this point. "I'm sorry I haven't been a good son. Fuck, I haven't even been a good person-" I stop. Something tells me I don't have to say more. He knows. And he'd be quick to tell me to watch my mouth if he could respond.

I jump a bit at the feeling of his hand tightening around mine, my face probably paperwhite as I try to decipher if I imagined it or if it really happened. I turn over my shoulder, and the nurse is back.

"H-he squeezed my hand," I choke, and my mom is walking in the room behind her. They exchange morose glances, and the nurse shakes her head.

"At this point that would just be a twitch or a reflex. He's not showing any cognitive brain act-"

"No, he squeezed my hand, I felt it," I reply sternly, and for some reason, I'm just so fucking angry at her. Who does she think she is to take something away like that? I know what the body does when it dies, but that wasn't a death-twitch. He straight up grabbed my hand.

"Josh," my mom says quietly, but her tone is warning. Not now, Josh.

"Mom, you're just gonna let them shut the monitors off? Wh-what if he just needs time?" I am raising my voice as I stand, and I feel like I might be the only one making any kind of sense. It's only been a few hours - why can't they just wait?

"I know this is hard, but I can assure you that there is no chance of recovery-" the nurse starts to try to explain to me. I kick the chair over, because of course I do. My mom and the nurse jump back, and I want to rip my fucking hair out.

"Oh, can you? You can assure me that a week from now, a month, that there is no way he's gonna pull through?" I snap, my mom is charging me now.

"Enough, Joshua!" she practically screams, she's hysterical as she shoves me in the chest. My mom has never laid her hands on me. She's angry, too. "Goddamn it, can you just stop being difficult for once?" she begs, and I feel my adrenaline beginning to subside, but even still, I can't be in here anymore. I push past her and out into the hallway. Then I keep going.

I want to punch a hole in a wall, but the last time I did that I practically broke my hand. I glance down at my still-recovering knuckles and decide that's not the best route this time.

Fiery anger still floods my veins, though, and I am not sure if I am ever going to get it to stop - it feels permanent, not like some passing emotion. And I am pissed at myself because I can't even feel what I should be feeling properly because I am so lethargic from all of my delusions. I am terrified that I am about to slip completely out of reality and it makes me sick to my stomach - how am I supposed to be there for my mom right now when I am completely lost at this point?

I'm also terrified I am gonna start seeing him now, too. I already reverted back to visions of my sisters, there's been a shadowy monster following me for the past week and a half and now I can just add my dad in there.

And I'm mad for thinking about myself at a time like this, because the thought that my dad's death couldn't have come at a worse time crosses my mind. As though any time is a convenient time to lose a parent.

Stage Four: Bargaining

I pull out my phone and call the one person I can bear to speak to at the moment - and it's surprisingly not Samantha.

Chris picks up after two rings; he sounds groggy, which doesn't surprise me. Chris is known for his afternoon siestas as soon as he gets out of class.

"Yoooo," he hums and I keep relatively calm, considering only moments ago I wanted to rip my own hair out.

"Hey, I just wanted to give you a head's up that my dad is dying," I say very plainly. I can hear a shuffling on the other end, and this his voice is ridiculously loud in my ear.

"Eh? What?"

"I said that my dad is dying." There's a pause.

"What the hell, Josh? What are you talking about?"

I sigh. I'm not making a whole lot of sense right now. I should be clearer than that but I am not entirely sure how. I proceed to tell him, almost robotically, a play-by-play of the events that have transpired over the last 12 hours. He's in shock, asks me what he can do. Of course there's nothing he can do, but my parents were like a second set of parents to him so I figure he should know.

I hear a beep in my ear and when I check the phone I see I am getting a call from Sam on the other line. I contemplate not picking up, but only for a second. She is probably worried that she hasn't heard from me since the airport. I rush Chris off the phone and feel like an ass about it; I just gave him some pretty bad news and then don't even stay on the line to offer any kind of comfort or support… but I guess I'm really not in the right mindset to offer him that, anyways.

"Sam?" I mumble into the phone, and she sounds hesitant.

"Hey… how is it going down there?"

"Fine."

"...Really?" she asks, skeptically.

"No," I choke out. "Sam, they won't listen to me."

"What do you mean?"

"I felt him squeeze my hand, I know he's still in there somewhere but they are going to pull the plug anyways." Suddenly, I get a bright idea. It actually might be the smartest idea I've ever come up with, I can literally feel my face light up and the weight on my heart lift as I think about it, "Sam!" I yell excitedly.

"What?" she snaps back, clearly startled.

"Sammmm, Samsamsammy-" I slur.

"Josh… Why are you talking like that?"

Grief is weird, guys. One minute I'm angry, the next I'm crying, then suddenly, out of nowhere, I'm deliriously ecstatic because I figured out a solution to my problem. My dying-dad problem.
"You could come here," I suggest, and I can hear the air deplete from her lungs on the other end. But before she can tell me no, I continue on. "Don't say no, Sam! Everyone listens to you. I think they think I'm crazy, because of the shadows and stuff-"

"What?" Shit. I didn't meant to say that. I keep going as though I didn't.

"-I think they don't believe me but if you came here-"

"Josh…"

"-but if you told them-"

"Josh."

"Sam, there's no way they won't believe you!" I'm pacing frantically. "My mom trusts you way more than me, if you could just tell them to wait then maybe we can figure out a way to save him." I feel hot and cold at the same time and I feel this fluttering in my heart because I want so badly for her to say yes, but I know from her tone that she's going to say-

"Josh, I can't."

"...yeah, yeah you can. Listen, if it's about the plane ticket, I can just use my credit-"

"It's not that-"

"I can send a car to pick you up at the airport, you could be down here within a few hours."

"Josh, please listen to me," she interjects, and I realize when I stop speaking that she's been trying to talk over me the whole time. I swallow the lump in my throat and wait silently for the rejection to come. "I just… don't think there's anything I can do. The doctors wouldn't tell you there's no hope if there were other options, don't you think?" She is talking to me like a preschooler again. I lean my back against the hallway wall, sliding down til I am sitting on the tiled floor. Nurses and doctors and patients all walk by me, stepping over me as though I am not even there.

"Sam," I mumble. "Please."

It's not even that I think she can change anything. It's that I am so painfully, agonizingly terrified to be alone. I want her here with me, even if she can't talk to my mom and the doctors.

"I'll be here as soon as you get back-" she tries.

"Yeah, great, fine," I snip, hanging up on her abruptly.

It's not her fault.

No one can help me, right now.

Stage Five: Guilt

I saunter back towards my dad's hospital room in a bit of a daze.

I can hear my mom crying.

My dad is covered with a white sheet.

He died while I was outside on the phone.

...I missed it.

Stage Six: Depression

The funeral is actually pretty small, back home, followed immediately by the wake at my house.

Even though my dad was pretty much famous, he was still somewhat of a hermit, so there are some distant family members here and some of his closer friends in the industry. I am actually slightly irritated that a lot of the guests are murmuring excitedly over the fact that Edward Norton came. He worked with my dad a few times. That's the highest profile 'celebrity' who made it.

My mom and I are greeted with condolences, and it feels odd standing in the front of the room with her as people walk by, shaking our hands as though they are moving their way down an assembly line. I am surprised, though. Matt, Sam, Chris, Jess and Mike… they all came… I am even more surprised that Emily and Ashley came, too.

I haven't seen Ashley since the day I apologized on stage; Chris said she was taking some time to sort through her emotions over the whole thing. Believe it or not, at one point I was kinda close with Ashley. Of course, it was strictly because I met her through Chris and he insisted on dragging her along with us everywhere we went, successfully making me feel like a third wheel to their non-dates. But we got along fine, we had some fun.

She walks right up to me and her eyes are so glossy and intense she almost looks possessed; I am not sure if she is going to punch me or what… but she comes up, instead, and wraps her arms around me. I am stunned stupid and slightly embarrassed as Sam and Chris watch on as though they are proud parents of two kids who just made up.

"I'm sorry about your dad," she sputters off quickly, and then hurries off as though that might have been one of the hardest things she's ever had to do. I just watch after her as she leaves. I am in too much of a fog to really react. I wonder if I should go after her, but I am too numb. A walking zombie. Chris pats me on the shoulder on his way after her - "I'll go check on her," he assures me, leaving me with only Sam.

I've been avoiding her.

She probably thinks I'm mad that she didn't come out to the hospital, but after a few days of marinating on it, I realize that I was never really mad at her. Sam just tends to be my scapegoat - she is my savior and the face of all of my biggest frustrations and that's a heavy load to carry. I hate myself for that. She has strong shoulders, but it's not her job to carry the weight of me.

Before she can hug me or anything I excuse myself. I am still not totally sure why. Maybe because I have to let her go. Maybe because we are just holding off the inevitable - she is leaving and it's not her responsibility to stay here or take care of me.

Maybe I'm scared I might beg her to stay, and even more terrified that she might oblige.

Everyone I have ever loved has left me.

It just keeps repeating over and over and over and over again in my head; torturing me. Tormenting me.

I sneak out the sliding back door of our house and out onto the back porch. I take in a deep breath only to notice the stale taste on my tongue. I swear I haven't opened my mouth to speak in days. I can't think of anything else to say…

I also haven't seen Finke since my dad died. Obviously he is the more important person I should be seeing, but I don't imagine he'll be able to help me right now. I feel like my head is detached from my body, orbiting in space. I don't feel like I'm here.

I'm not here.

This isn't happening.

Stage Seven: Acceptance

So here we are… Stage Seven.

I've revisited all the stages like thirty times in the last few days, so we should be here, right?

This is the part where I'm supposed to talk about a break in the clouds where the sun shines through, or the way the wind blows through the chimes in the oak tree in my backyard, reminding me that my dad is still with me.

Yeah, well. No. Doesn't work that way. And acceptance is horseshit.

No one ever truly accepts that someone they love is gone, not really. That's why we talk about the "better place," - the Heaven they are floating around in eating lots of ice cream and playing fetch with all of our dead relatives.

That is not acceptance.

That is a delusion.

Acceptance would be realizing that my father's body was burned in a box. It ignited, inflamed, and made a once breathing, living, thinking, loving, feeling man into a pile of soot and ashes.

My dad is an element now, a piece of the earth, dissipated and scattered into a million places at once like molecules in space. He's everywhere, but he's certainly not here. And I am not even sure I believe in heaven anymore. To believe in heaven would be to believe in God… and I am not entirely sure what God's plan in all of this would be. And if there is a God, he gave up on me a long time ago.

I've been sitting out on my old swing set for a while before she finds me.

"This seat taken?" Sam's voice is low and raspy. I give her a meager shrug. I look up at her; her arms are wrapped around the pole holding up my swingset, her cheeks and eyes red from crying. I suddenly realize that the play structure seemed a lot bigger when we were small - the way you go back to your kindergarten classroom and notice how low to the floor the chairs were.

"Wow...I haven't been out on this thing in a long time. Brings back a lot of memories..." Sam sighs listlessly, recalling one of the first times she came over to my house after school with Hannah. Beth fell off the monkey bars and chipped a tooth that day - she never admitted that to anyone because she was so embarrassed. Maybe she was embarrassed because it wasn't like she was 7 or something… she was 13. Such a klutz… and yet always a daredevil. It was always interesting how vastly different the twins were.

Mom and Dad whisked her away to an emergency dentist and got it fixed within barely any time at all. Come Monday at school, no one could even tell the difference in her smile but it was always glaringly obvious to me - that hairline fracture across her front left tooth. Proof that some broken things never go back to how they were before.

"Don't feel like talkin?" Sam presses on, plopping down in the swing beside me. We both look up when we not only feel but hear the old metal bow from our weight. Once a few seconds go by with us still upright and not buried under jagged, weathered metal, we proceed to gently rock back and forth. The squeal from the aged chains holding us up is oddly comforting.

"Not necessarily," I drone back at her. I know Sam well enough, though. It's never stopped her in the past and it certainly isn't going to stop her from pushing now.

"Why are you mad at me?" she asks. I'm not mad at her.

"I'm not mad at you," I spit out quickly, closing my eyes and fighting off one of those mini-headaches.

"I'm sorry I didn't come to Cali-"

"Don't be sorry for that. It was unfair to ask you to come, I'm not sure what I was thinking." I wonder if Sam will ever realize that she doesn't need to fill every uncomfortable silence between us with apologies. I've never even given her one, and I'm the one who should be sorry. I turn towards her, watching her dig her shoe into the soft dirt beneath her swing. "If you're gonna be sorry about something, be sorry for making me so damn happy and then having to leave…" I tell her with a bit of amusement in my voice. I glance at her sideways and see her staring at her feet. "Sam?" Her eyes flicker up to mine.

"Yeah?" I reach forward, taking her chin in my hand.

"More than all that, don't be sorry at all." I let go of her and I shrug, my fingers tightening around the chains of the swing again. "Apologies are overrated and hardly ever sincere, anyway. I mean, look at me. I've said more apologies over the last month and for what? For my dad to die? Karma is a bitch. It was for nothing."

A pause. Heavy silence. And then,

"When do you leave?" I ask blatantly because I'm kinda tired of the cloud hovering over us. It's time to stop pretending we have forever. Our time has an expiration date and I am fairly certain I've always known that about Sam - that it was just a matter of time before she realized she was free to go.

"I'm not sure," she says quietly. "I was thinking of postponing it-"

"I want you to go," I admit, opposite of what I told her a few nights ago. I have to let her go. I couldn't bear the thought of her sticking around here to babysit me. Especially since it is clear that I'm still sick. And getting sicker. Last time I got sick, I tortured her. She needs to get as far away from me as possible.

They all do.

"I don't want you hanging around here anymore." I can't look at her face when she doesn't answer me at first because I know it's going to be that sad, sloped-eyebrow leer she gives me when I break her heart. Which is, apparently, often.

"What?" she utters, confused. I sigh again deeply, irritatedly, my head falling back.

"You heard what I said." It feels like one of those episodes of Lassie where they need her to run away for her own good. Go on, get outta here. We don't want you anymore, girl!

"Yeah, I know but… why?" I stand abruptly and the whole structure shakes, running my fingers through my hair and clenching.

"Because you're leaving anyway! And you don't need to help me out anymore, I'll be fine." Sam stands up now, trying to look me in the eyes but I won't meet her gaze because I can't even if I wanted to. There's too much going on around us distracting me; colors and shadows and wavy lines and everything seems slightly askew - I'm just waiting for her face to morph into something from Silent Hill.

"Josh," she barks sternly, trying to get me to snap out of whatever state I seem to be in. She takes a step back from me, her hand over her heart, the other over her mouth as she begins to cry. Not again, I hate seeing her cry. It's literally the worst. Especially when I am the cause of the tears.

"What?" I practically yell at her and she jumps a bit, startled. Her arms drop down to her sides.

"How long have you been seeing things?" she interrogates me and I give her another uncertain shrug.

"I'm not...seeing things-" I attempt to say, but I can't help but notice the Hannah-esq wendigo standing behind Sam at this very moment.

"Josh, I've seen you like this once before," she tells me, placing a hand on each of my shoulders to keep me from wobbling. I push her hands off of me.

"I'm fine!"

"No, you're not! You're acting like you did that night, back on the mountain!" she shouts. "Did you stop taking your meds again?" The accusatory tone in her voice leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I never stopped taking my meds, I'm not an idiot! They just stopped working!

"Just tell her the truth, Josh," says zombie-Beth now, out of nowhere. I shake the images away but when I open my eyes they are still there, next to Sam, who is watching on in worry. I must look as insane as I feel.

"I.. I didn't stop taking my meds," I mutter over the loudness in my brain. Handigo is growling now, an incessant, low hum. It's making it hard to concentrate.

And then, as it always seems to, everything just switches back to normal. I am slightly out of breath but incredibly relieved that maybe I can convince her that I'm okay now. Maybe even explain what's going on.

"What is going on with you?" she pleads for an answer. I hate the look of sympathy and worry on her face. It makes me feel pathetic. She reaches forward and grabs ahold of my hands. "I noticed this the other day - when you got arrested. Josh, you promised me you'd tell me if you were getting sick again, we can't let you-"

"We don't need to do anything, Sammy. Don't you understand that?" She lets go of my hands and wraps her arms around herself instead. She can't comfort me. Only herself. "Look, I see Finke tomorrow, I'm gonna let him know what's going on, okay?" I assuage.

"But what is going on? Are you seeing things? Hearing things?"

"A-a little bit of everything, okay?" I snap at her, I just want her to go away, GO AWAY! "But it's handled. And it's not your business, anymore. I don't want you here, I don't want you around me. I don't want you mothering me or worrying about me, just go. Please just go."

"But-"

"Would you just leave me alone!" I shout. She takes another tentative step back from me. "Just… stop," I groan into my hands, wishing I had any idea how to properly digest emotions right now. But with everything else going on, I can't comfort her. I can't make her believe me that I'm gonna be alright, because I don't know that. I don't know if I'm ever going to be normal and it's not safe for anyone to be hanging around me, anymore.

Not after last time.

I uncover my eyes to see her disappearing back into my house, her black skirt blowing in the wind a bit. I plot back down on the swing with all of my weight, terribly relieved that I am alone again.

Well… Not totally alone.

"It's just you and me now," I mumble, looking up at my 'sisters.' They smile at me. I deliriously, exhaustedly smile back.

Nope.

No one ever really accepts it when someone you love has to leave. I'll probably never be able to accept that my sisters are dead. I will never be able to accept the fact that my dad followed right after them. I certainly will never accept that Sam needs to be free of me just to live a happy life.

...The only thing I can try to accept is that I'm insane and there's probably nothing I'll ever be able to do to change that.

To Be Continued...