Whispers in the Dark
- Chapter Twenty-Six – Black Out Days
Slowly, Cory opened one eye just enough to try and tell where she was. It was a move she quickly regretted as the unforgiving sunlight pouring in from the window, burnt her already sore eyes.
Pulling in a deep breath, she tried to focus on anything other than the sick feeling in her stomach –unfortunately the only other thing she had to focus on was how her mouth and throat felt drier than cotton and how every cell of her body felt shriveled up from dehydration.
As she managed to stand up next to the bed she'd been sleeping on, she looked down to bare feet on the dusty hardwood floor and a look of confusion spread over her face, realizing she had no clue where her shoes were.
Seeing her jacket laying on a chair across the room, she made her way over to it and pulled it on before shaking her head and starting the dizzying decent down the stairs in the lake-house with a one track mind -relieving the Sahara Desert feel that had set in to her mouth.
Her mouth hung open in shock as she looked around the completely trashed living room at the foot of the stairs. Memories of the prior night were hazy at best and if there was anything she was truly lacking in that moment, it was the strength to try and remember anything that happened.
Cory managed to make it into the kitchen with only tripping over trash a few times and stubbing her toe against a glass bottle on it's side on the floor.
Fitting, she thought as she reached the equally disastrous scene of the kitchen, the house looked a war zone and to her it had been. She'd fought with herself all night.
Not even bothering trying to locate a clean cup of any sort, she turned the cold water on, gathered her hair in her hand and leaned down into the sink –taking a long drink of the water as it poured from the faucet.
Coming up for air, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and noticed the now dripping wet tips of her hair that had been lining the bottom of the sink while she got a drink.
The hazy feeling in her head started to give way as she ran her fingers over the damp parts of her hair and memories of the prior night started to come back, memories she didn't want relive.
Her nose wrinkled in disgust at the lingering scent of the lake water, or maybe it was just in her head. She wasn't sure –but either way it was enough to turn her already queasy stomach.
A relieved breath slid between her teeth when she reached into the jacket pocket and felt the rough metal of the keys to her dad's car and without even bothering to do a second look for her shoes; she made a determined move towards the door.
As if physically getting out of the cabin would erase everything that happened and the pain she was in.
Her feet were so cold that she could barely even feel the gravel drive beneath them, that was until she saw her dad's car wasn't the only one still outside in the morning light.
Jason's car was there as well, and with the realization came the stabbing pains of the jagged rocks under her bare feet when she turned to look back towards the house.
He deserved an explanation, he deserved answers -but she made the decision that he wasn't going to get either, and she quickened her pace for the car.
Maybe it was selfish to take off and leave him there, or maybe she was just too much of a coward to face him after he'd seen her at one of her lowest points. For arguments sake she might even claim she was fleeing because she pretty sure her breath could have taken down a man twice his size.
~(Flashback)~
Alison walked into her best friend's room, her eyes going to the closed bathroom door as she called out, "Hey, I brought your homework."
Tilting her head to the side she corrected, "Well, Spencer got your homework, but I brought it over."
Not hearing a response from her friend, she dropped onto the foot of Cory's bed and laid back staring up at the ceiling as she loudly said, "This is the third day in a row you've bailed on me for school. I swear if I have to listen to Spencer practicing her flash cards for Latin at lunch one more time, or have to chase Hanna away from dessert... I'm going to lose my mind."
"Cory?" Alison asked, raising up to the look at the still closed bathroom door, "What are you doing in there?"
"I'm sick."
Alison raised an eyebrow as she accused, "Maybe your parents are buying that, but I'm not. Your room is starting to smell like my brother's room –minus the dirty dishes and gross guy smell."
Walking over to the closet, she pulled the doors open and looked at herself in the full length mirror hanging on the inside of the door as she pulled a dress down from the hanger and held it against herself.
Her nose wrinkled as she brought the fabric to her face and breathed in.
"Ugh, seriously? Cory, even your clean clothes have the smell of weed, like, burnt into them."
"They do not-" Cory tried to argue, but another round of stomach pain hit her and she couldn't even finish her sentence before she had to hang her head back over the toilet.
Dropping the dress on the bed, Alison walked over and pushed open the bathroom door to find her best friend sitting on the floor, crammed between the small space of the bathtub and the toilet.
Her brunette hair was hanging messily in a loose ponytail over her shoulder as she breathed heavily and rested her elbows on the toilet seat waiting for the next round to hit her.
"Wow…" Alison breathed, leaning against the open door frame as she continued to take in the sights in front of her.
Cory was in a sports bra and pajama shorts, there was a shirt across the room on the floor and several wet wash rags on the floor around her.
"Everyone wants to be the party girl until their half-naked on the bathroom floor, with vomit in their hair -making best friends with the toilet."
"Shut up." Cory painfully breathed out as she blindly reached behind her to the edge of the tub feeling around until she located a wet rag and held it to her own forehead, "I'm burning up."
"Please, just shut the door." She begged as she dropped the rag onto the floor and regained her grip on the sides of the porcelain feeling another violent bout of vomiting threatening to spill out of her already raw throat.
With a disgusted expression, Alison stepped back out in the room and pulled the door shut behind her trying not to focus on the sounds of her friend's retching.
Sitting back down on Cory's bed, Alison looked around debating with herself on whether it was worth staying there or not. If she was going to be in the bathroom puking for the rest of the night then she'd pick someone else's house to hang out at.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the top drawer on the bedside table wasn't shut all the way. Curiosity got the best of her and she reached over to open the drawer up the rest of the way.
Beside the cellphone charging cord, iPod and half read book there was a bottle of pills in the drawer. Taking out the bottle she read the label and saw they were pain pills prescribed to Cory's mom, she guessed from the car accident a few months back that had messed up her shoulder.
Setting the bottle upright on the nightstand next to the alarm clock and lava lamp, she leaned forward and reached under the head of the bed until her fingers landed on the cool glass neck of a bottle of vodka.
It wasn't hard to put everything together and realize her friend was probably so sick from mixing pills and booze.
She opened her mouth to tell Cory she'd found the pills, but before she could, she heard a car pull into the driveway. Setting the alcohol bottle down next to the pills she walked to the window and looked down to see Cory's mom getting out of her car with a few grocery bags in hand.
Cursing under her breath, Alison opened up the windows in an attempt to air Cory's room out, along with spraying some perfume trying to cover up the smell of pot that she was pretty sure was now saturated into the wallpaper.
As she capped the perfume bottle and returned it to her purse, she started to sit back on the bed until she heard footsteps right outside of the door and she realized she'd left the vodka and prescription pills out in plain sight.
"Cory, I'm home from work. I stopped by the store and picked up some soup and popsicles-" Megan Blackwell's sentence was cut short with surprise as she started to open the door to her daughters room, but instead was met by Alison.
"Hi, Mrs. Blackwell." Alison beamed a smile as she stepped closer and made sure to block the view of the nightstand.
"Oh, hi Alison. I didn't know you were here." Megan said with a forced smile at the teenager she's been getting less and less fond of every time she came around.
She'd seen such a change in Cory through her years of friendship with Alison, and as the pair got older the more she saw how manipulative Alison was with all of her friends.
"I just got here. I brought her homework." She explained, stepping even closer and putting a hand on the door like she was going to close it at any second with Megan still standing in the doorway.
"Oh, thank you."
Alison nodded, keeping a smile plastered on her own face hoping Cory's mom wouldn't hover there for much longer but to her surprise, Megan turned and walked away.
~(A few hours later)~
"Didn't you're mom always use to make homemade soup when you were sick?" Alison asked, as she scooped a spoonful of chicken noodle soup up in the spoon and slowly let it fall back into the now room temperature bowl.
Cory ran a brush through her freshly washed hair and dropped it on her nightstand with a thud as she sighed, "Not since what happened with my brother. Since he died she's been…" Her voice trailed off with a weak shrug before she added, "She's doing the best she can considering everything she's been through."
Looking up to her best friend, she tucked her hair behind her ears as Cory said, "You didn't have to stay here."
"Where else was I going to go, hang out at Spencer's house?" Alison asked with a weak laugh, her blue eyes alert as she saw her friend's gaze kept drifting back to the bedside table where she'd found the bottle of pills of earlier.
"You know they won't help." Alison stated, rising to her feet as she walked over and plopped down on the bed with her.
When Cory shot her a confused expression she nodded towards the drawer and said, "The pills, the drinking…drugs –whatever. You're not like Jason, who has the emotional capacity of a fifth grader at best."
Her brown eyes were narrowed as she raised her head and argued, "You're wrong about him, Ali."
Rolling her eyes she sighed, "It doesn't matter. I know you Cory Blackwell, I know all of your secrets and I'm the only other person who knows what happened with your brother. You're not the only one having to live with covering that up."
Her eyes dropped to the bedspread as she pulled in a shaky breath and said, "All of the drugs on earth couldn't drown out that pain, Cory. Not the way you are."
"What do you mean the way I am?"
"The way you feel things... There are times when you don't feel anything at all and times when you feel so much all at once that it's burns you up from the inside out. I know that, because I'm the same way."
Cory raised her head, feeling everything her friend was saying on a deep level. The pair knew and understood each other in a way few people truly do, that was why they were the closest out of their group of friends.
Some days it felt like their bond was made of iron and couldn't be broken and at other times, Cory felt trapped and weighed down by it.
"Are you?" She scoffed, "Ali, if that's true then anymore... your days of feeling nothing are out numbering the days of the others."
"Maybe." The blonde shrugged, "Or maybe that's just how I have to be, you know I have to be invincible because the second sometimes finds out I'm not –they'd go in for the kill."
Cory nodded as she bit down on the side of her tongue, what she really wanted to say was that people in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones at anyone else. If Alison wasn't so horrible to others, then they wouldn't have a reason to want to hurt her, but she couldn't sit there and be that big of a hypocrite over something she was equally guilty of.
After Alison announced she was staying the night, she changed into a pair of Cory's sleeping clothes and crawled into the other side of the bed. Her brunette friend was already dressed for bed and lying flat on her back staring up at the dark and shadowed ceiling.
She scooted over until her head was on the same pillow as she stared up at the same ceiling and asked, "How much money do you think we could get for the jewelry we took of your mom's that night, to help with our lie about the robbery?"
"I don't know." Cory admitted, her eyebrows lowering as she whispered, "Why? We buried it in the woods… probably couldn't find the spot even if we tried."
"I dug it back up." Alison admitted, "I've got it hidden at home –where no one will find it."
"Ali!" Cory complained, in a whisper yell as she side-eyed her friend who wouldn't look back at her.
"What? It's not like we can just give it back or anything."
Cory's silence was a clear sign of her disapproval, but she also knew she didn't have much ground to stand on if she tried to argue against the idea. It was next to impossible to win any kind of argument against Alison DiLaurentis, her knives always cut the deepest.
Alison stayed silent too as she thought of all the threatening messages she'd been getting, it had went from taunting to death-threats and she'd been working on different ways to get a large amount of money together in case she needed to disappear from Rosewood.
She'd been blackmailing Aria's father over the information she held on his affair with one of his students, as long as he kept paying her –she wouldn't tell Ella about the affair.
There were times she was close to feeling guilty about the things she'd been up to, but then it was just almost too easy to gather information people would pay to keep hidden away.
"What do you need money for?" Cory whispered to her best friend.
"A safety net." Alison admitted, pausing for dramatic effect before adding, "With enough money, I could go anywhere in the word."
"Sometimes I feel like anywhere has to be better than here." Cory sympathized, clearing her throat as she spoke.
"You could come with me, you know? We'd pick new names, get passports and just start fresh somewhere. We could dance our nights away in the best L.A. clubs, watch the sun rise from a Miami Beach, go on a wine tasting tour through Italy… see the Eiffel Tower with our own eyes. We could go anywhere, do anything we wanted." Pulling in a breath Alison finished, "Be anyone we wanted to be."
"Just pack up and leave everything and everyone behind?"
"Sounds appealing, doesn't it?" Alison questioned.
With a nod, Cory admitted, "Yeah, can we leave tonight?"
The pair laughed, and Cory turned over onto her side facing away from Alison. The blonde raised up on an elbow and said, "I'm not joking, we really could get out of Rosewood."
"We aren't even old enough to get our drivers licenses, Ali. We wouldn't make it very far." Cory sighed, closing her eyes and trying to ignore the feeling in the pit of her stomach like something bad was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Dropping back down onto her back, Alison let out a heavy sigh. Maybe it sounded like some fleeting thought to Cory, a joke between friends, but she'd been feeling more and more like she really might need to leave Rosewood. Of course, no one would understand that when she couldn't –or wouldn't give the whole truth of what had been happening.
She'd became so paranoid over the anonymous threats and messages she'd been receiving that she'd even started to wonder if the person taunting her was from within her group of friends, the only person she was absolutely sure it wasn't was Cory. On several occasions she'd came close to opening up to her about it, but she didn't want to drag her already troubled best friend into something she might not be able to handle.
~(End of flashback)~
Hearing a knock on her bedroom door Cory, raised her head from where she'd started to drift off to sleep on her bed and asked, "Who is it?"
"It's me." She heard Emily reply from the other side.
"Oh, hey Em." She greeted, sitting up and quickly trying to smooth out her damp hair that was still drying from the shower she'd just taken, and the clean clothes she'd changed in to.
"Are you just now waking up?" Emily asked with lowered eyebrows as she walked into her friend's room.
"Sort of." She lied, offering up a weak smile before questioning, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm freaking out!" She admitted, sitting down on the edge of the bed and hastily pulling her hair up with the band around her wrist. "I did it –I gave Zoey my number… but Samara's other friend Quinn saw the entire thing. She's going to tell her, I just know it."
"I'm sorry, Em." Cory breathed –and it was the truth, she was sorry for everything her friend was going through, but her own problems were starting to take front and center attention.
Like how she'd admitted to Jason that she'd actually killed her brother and how a part of her really wished she hadn't been pulled from the lake the night before.
Getting through the day was getting harder and harder and most days she didn't even want to put in the effort it took to get out of bed.
"Right?" Emily asked, shaking Cory from her own thoughts and she realized she'd been so absorbed in her own head, that she'd been missing out on what her friend had been telling her.
"I guess." Cory shrugged, silently hoping it was an appropriate answer.
"It did." Emily complained, pinning her eyes shut, "It had to have looked like I was really giving Zoey my number."
"That's how it looked because that is what happened." Cory said, her words harsher than she meant for them to be. Blowing out a sigh she added, "Maybe you should try explaining things to Samara?"
"And say what?" Emily questioned. "She's called twice already and I'm afraid to pick up."
"If you can't tell her the truth about A, then make something up. Maybe… I don't know, maybe say you were wanting to exchange numbers with everyone so you could all meet up again or something?"
"I'm better with bluffing at cards." Emily shot the idea down. "Plus, lying to her is only going to make me feel that much worse about all of this."
"Yeah, but ignoring her calls only makes you look worse if Quinn really did tell her what she saw." Cory argued, and Emily couldn't disagree –though it didn't make picking up the phone any easier.
When Cory's phone went off with a text, she quickly grabbed it up from the bedside table and read the incoming text from a blocked number.
'Nothing like a little drunken honesty. Haven't you heard loose lips sink ships? Wonder how Jason will handle knowing he's dating someone with blood on their hands?'
"Cory?" Emily asked, as she saw the color drain from her friend's face.
The sound of another incoming text nearly caused her heart to stop inside of her chest, and she ignored Emily as she read the next one.
'Looks like you can take the girl out of the party, but you can't ever take the party out of the girl. –A'
Still ignoring her friend, Cory reread the texts over and over, looking for any sign or clue of who else had been targeting her. That was the deal A had offered her –she broke sobriety and in return, would learn who had tried to kidnap her outside of the grille days before the fashion show.
The same person who'd been calling her house and hanging up, and following her around town in a darkly tinted car.
"Another A text?" Emily guessed.
Quickly darkening the screen on her phone, Cory shook her head back and forth as she lied, "It's just Jason."
As much as she tried to hold her anger in, it still seeped out into her tone –sharply carving every syllable of her words. She'd done what had been asked her and so far hadn't gotten anything in return.
She felt like an idiot for believing in what A had told her to begin with, but it seemed plausible that they might know who else was stalking her.
A was always watching them, knew things that no one else knew.
"Did you guys have a fight?" Emily asked, her brown eyes wide. She was thrown off by her friend's sudden shift in mood.
"No." Cory answered, giving a small shrug before admitting, "Things are just a little different now… and I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to talk to him."
Emily opened her mouth to push for more info, but her attention was drawn down to the bed where Cory's phone went off –this time with a call that actually was from Jason.
She watched as her friend reached over and touched the screen to ignore his call.
"You want to talk about it?" She softly asked upon realizing she'd been doing nothing but talking about her own problems.
"Not really." Cory declined, looking back down to her phone as Jason tried to call her again.
"You want to get lunch or something?" Emily asked. Out of everyone in their group of friends, Cory was the one who they'd all go to with their problems –yet, she was the type to hold everything in.
"No, I think I just want to sleep for a while." Cory admitted, avoiding her eyes as she added, "I'm ready for a lazy weekend at home."
"Okay." Emily said, as she stood to her feet and lingered where she was, watching Cory for a few seconds. She didn't want to push her to talk about something if she wasn't ready, but Emily had an unshakeable feeling in the pit of her stomach that things were a lot worse than she was letting on.
Just as she reached the bedroom doorway she turned and said, "Hey, you know I'm always here if you need me… right?"
Silently, Cory managed a weak smile and nodded, avoiding eye contact as she waited for Emily to leave her alone in the house and alone with her tormented thoughts.
It wasn't too long ago that she'd made a promise to herself that she'd be better; a kinder daughter for her dad, a more involved friend and that she'd apply herself at school more.
She wanted to be all of that and so much more –but now she felt like her only true talent was making things worse on herself and everyone around her.
~(Monday morning)~
"Don't forget, I'm picking you up early from school tomorrow for your afternoon appointment with Dr. Sullivan." Austin reminded his daughter as he turned into the school parking lot, early Monday morning.
Cory got out of her dad's car without saying a word to him as he pulled to a stop outside of Rosewood High.
He made sure she was walking towards the door before he drove away.
She'd spent all weekend in her room and not only wouldn't talk to him, but when Jason had showed up Sunday morning she wouldn't even go to the door and judging by how her friends had resorted to calling their landline; he had a feeling she wasn't speaking to any of them either.
The entire thing had left him with a sick feeling in his stomach. He was used to her not opening up to him, but he knew even if she wasn't talking to him, at least she had her friends and even though he still didn't care much for him, she'd seemed happier since she'd reconnected with Jason.
Only now the knowledge that she was pulling away from everyone she cared about, had Austin extremely worried about her –so much so that he'd argued with the receptionist at Dr. Sullivan's office for nearly thirty minutes on the phone trying to get her an appointment a whole week before she'd already been scheduled.
Coming to a stop on her trek towards to stairs, Cory pulled her phone from her pocket when she heard her text alert and for the first time she actually hoped it was a message from A.
She'd waited all weekend to hear from the blackmailer –waiting on them to hold up their end of the bargain and tell her who else had been stalking her.
Letting out a sigh when she saw it was a text from Emily wanting to make sure she was going to be there for the college fair that day, she closed out of her texts and put her phone back in her pocket, but made no further attempt to advance towards the school building.
People were walking past her, some narrowly avoiding bumping into her and other's shoulders collided with hers. All of the talking from everyone hanging around outside and all of the students and teachers just arriving for the day sounded like buzzing in her ears and with each passing second it felt like all of the air was being forced from her lungs.
She didn't want to be there. Inside she wasn't ready to face anyone yet, it was hard enough just having to look in the mirror to get ready that day. As someone else bumped into her and didn't even try to offer up an apology, she started to feel invisible and became evermore aware of the feeling of her own heartbeat in her chest.
Across the way she spotted Spencer and breathed a silent thank you when her friend hadn't spotted her yet.
Too much, it was all just too much and she felt like if she stayed at school for another second that everything was going to collapse in on her.
Spinning on her heels, she turned to leave but stopped when she saw Jason was just steps away from her –the same concerned look on his face that he'd been wearing the night she'd ended up in the lake.
"Are you following me?" She asked when he reached her, but her voice felt weak to her own ears and she wasn't even sure he heard her.
His eyes traveled over her face and judging from the dark circles under her eyes she hadn't been sleeping much –though what worried him more was the nearly vacant look in her eyes.
Comparable to the lights being on inside of a house, but without anyone being inside.
When he didn't answer her question, she turned back to go in the opposite direction, but he brought her to a stop with a grip on her arm just firm enough so she couldn't slip away.
"I need to get to class." She lied, avoiding his eyes. The more she'd thought about what she'd told him about being responsible for her brother's death, the more she'd been sure that things were over between them.
How could he look at her the same way as before, knowing what he knew now?
Jason DiLaurentis might not have been a saint on any terms, but he also wasn't a murderer –something she couldn't say about herself.
"Cory." He breathed, turning her back around until she faced him, though she still couldn't bring herself to look him in the eyes. "You scared the hell out of me." He admitted, watching her closely as he spoke.
"I'm sorry." She apologized, but her voice sounded just as empty as the words did.
His first reaction was a flash of anger, blood red rage at how she was acting. Like she didn't have the time to be around him, or didn't even care enough to try to and talk to him. Not to mention she'd ignored him all weekend and even went so far as to have her dad send him away when he'd gotten so worried he went to her house.
But the anger was quickly replaced by an understanding of what she had to be feeling inside.
He'd gone for a year thinking he might have killed his own sister and during that time he'd found himself on the theoretical ledge many times –countless days of being so absorbed in guilt that he didn't care if he lived or died.
What he couldn't understand was how he hadn't seen it sooner. They'd spent so much time together and at times he felt like she was holding something back from him, but he honestly hadn't realized she was being swallowed up by her guilt and pain.
Swallowing hard , he pushed away the images of how bad she'd looked the night after being pulled out of the lake; so cold that her lips were turning blue and he quietly said, "You can't keep going on this this… something has got to give and you're either going to start dealing with everything that's happened, or it's going to break you."
"I already have an appointment with my therapist tomorrow." She stated.
"Yeah?" He scoffed, "And how well has that been working for you?"
Finally, she raised her head enough to look at him with a stunned expression on her face.
"Come on." He said nodded towards where his car was parked.
"What? Why?" She asked, with raised eyebrows.
"Just give today." He pleaded, his eyes locking with hers as he held out his hand and pointed out, "You ran off on me and then ignored me all weekend, so just give me today."
"Where are we going?" Cory asked, her hazel eyes slowly leaving his gaze, as she looked down to his awaiting hand.
"Trust me." Was the only answer Jason gave her, and Cory glanced behind her towards the school to see Spencer was watching them, before she reached out and placed her hand in his; letting him pull her towards his car.
A/N – I know you didn't get to see much of Jason in this chapter, but I promise he's going to be in the next chapter. ^_^
First off, I thank all of you who have been so supportive of this story. It means the world, honestly, it's amazing to know that so many of you love the story so much.
That being said, I have been getting some guest reviews and anonymous messages on Tumblr about lack of updates when it comes to this story. Some of those have been polite and others have been rather rude, even worse some were down right hateful –trashing my other stories even.
I do apologize for the lack of the updates, but there are some things that some of you need to understand. Like how I was without internet access for around 7 months. Not only did that keep me from being able to actually update anything, but that also meant I didn't have access to Netflix or anything, which is where I re-watch Pretty Little Liars to write.
My Gotham story is updated so regularly because during that time, I did have the first season of Gotham on my computer and I was able to keep inspired and write a great deal of chapters for that story. I can update so often because I still have finished chapters for that story on hand.
That being said, leaving nasty reviews on that story and saying I should post more for this story because it's the only one I've written "that is worth anything", doesn't make me want to update this story any faster. Quite the opposite actually. Putting me, my writing and my other stories down doesn't exactly get me inspired to write for Cory.
I understand how frustrating it can be when you're invested in a story and then the updates stop and months go by without any new chapters and I'm flattered that some of you care about the story so much that you're still showing interest after nearly a year of no updates. That is amazing and to those of you who have sent pleasant messages and reviews to show there is still interest in Cory's story –thank you! Your voice did not fall on deaf ears, I heard you and I've been working to get new chapters out.
I know some of you might not be writers yourselves, or your writing process might be entirely different from how mine works. But I cannot bring myself to write for something that I'm not motivated or inspired to do so. A lot of the things that have happened on PLL, I really didn't agree with and I felt really let down by certain things and even though I'm current only writing for season 2; I was still really bummed out by events in later seasons, it still makes it difficult to stay excited for the show, and in turn, my own story. And I know that's one of the great things about fanfiction is that I could use my story to fix the things that let me down. But it all goes back to just trying to stay inspired!
Maybe some of you might be content with half-hearted attempts at the story as long as the new chapters keep flowing, but I'm not. I put my heart and so much time and effort into everything I create and put out there to share with people. I'm not comfortable posting something that I'm not proud of or that my heart isn't into, and honestly, it's not fair to my readers and fans either.
Something else to keep in mind is that I do this for free, you know? The hours spent plotting, writing and editing. All that time I put into my stories is my spare time; which truth be told, I seem to be having less and less of. Outside of the fanfiction world I have a lot going on, probably many of the same pains and stresses that you have and sometimes I do good to make it through the day. I would love to have copious amounts of free time to write and stay up to date with all of my stories, but that's not real life. It's not practical.
Most of you have been truly amazing and understanding of this and that means so much!
I'm not trying to come off as ungrateful for the support and continued interest in Cory's story, that couldn't be further from the truth. I am beyond thankful for all of my readers, I love you all so much! You don't even know how much!
At the end of the day though, I am a human being with feelings –just trying to get through the days and it's not okay to be rude over a certain story not getting the amount of updates people would like. It's just not, especially when there may be circumstances going on behind the scenes and in my life that most people don't know anything about.
Believe when I say I'm doing the very best I can.
Also, yes, I have started a new story for the Scream series airing on MTV. I'm sorry that's annoying and upsetting for some individuals. However, going back to what I said earlier about my writing process, I have to write when inspiration for something strikes and I'm currently inspired by that show and excited for my fanfiction story.
It's not as though my writing for Scream interferes with my writing for this. In fact, a lot of times when I'm stuck on a certain story or having a case of writers block, branching out and starting something new inspires me all over again and can help me get past those rough patches.
I can't promise that I'm going to have a constant stream of updates for Cory, and truth be told updates won't be nearly as frequent as my Gotham fic, since I have chapters on hand for that story. And yes, maybe I'll be updating my Scream story more than this one for now. I'm not sure, it all depends on several factors out of my control. But I can guarantee you that I will write for and update this fic as much as I'm able to and I really hope you all continue to stick with me.
Normally I let this sort of thing roll right off and won't speak out on it, and I'm sorry for this super long authors note, but I just felt like there were several things I needed to address and I hope you can all understand where I'm coming from a little better –much as I understand how entirely frustrating it is when you're invested in something and wanting more and not getting it.
Thank you all so much for reading both this chapter and my note here at the end. I want to say again that I love you all so much and all of your reviews with words of support and encouragement literally mean everything to me and help keep me inspired and motivated.
xx