A/N: Happy New Year! I hope you all are safe and doing okay. This chapter is a short one but it's important. I hope you like it. Enjoy!

Chapter Sixteen

I took the opportunity of having a late study hall to leave school and head to the junkyard. I had thick gloves and a sledgehammer in the trunk. It was a little creepy with how empty it was but I was starting to get used to it. I walked around slowly. The sledgehammer was heavier than I expected, and I wasn't sure what I expected, but I was pretty certain that all of the lessons I've had so far helped in the strength to carry it.

Luckily, with the lack of a major population, the junkyard didn't expand or change too much through the days. It made it easier to track where I had already looked. I just wanted a piece of metal that wasn't too thick but was also coloured preferably red or blue.

I was in the third pile, my arms were already tired but there was something about using the sledgehammer to move and hit pieces that made me feel better. I shoved part of what looked like a dryer aside. I had yet to find the perfect part and I was beginning to think I never would at this rate.

"There you are!"

I looked up, jolting at the sudden sound of someone. No one was ever here when I was. Bob was walking towards me from his car. He waved as I saw him. I waved back and dragged the hammer down the pile.

"Hi! What are you doing here?"

"I came to see how you were!" he said, smiling at me. "Joyce told me I might find you here. So, how are you?"

I stared at the earnestness on his face and felt myself smile back. I could be truthful with him. "Honestly, it depends on the day."

"What do you mean?"

I sat down on the hood of an empty car. "Sometimes I'm good. I feel like myself and that I can do this but other times...god, it's exhausting. It really is. I am so tired all the time and it's mostly just from existing. That sounds terrible, but it's true. Sometimes…" I took a deep breath and tried to formulate my thoughts. "I don't want to be here. It's so hard going day by day, seeing a reflection that isn't mine. I'm not supposed to be here and yet I am. And I can't tell anyone. I can't tell people, 'hey, my body doesn't feel like mine today so can I not do gym?' or that I feel like a robot, going through the motions without purpose and being bored out of my mind because god, I've been to university and I have to do this shit again. I get called Tammy and it brings it all back again. I'm not supposed to be here. And I feel worse because I don't know what happened to Tammy. I don't know what happened to this girl who has loving parents and a dog who hates me and knows I'm not her, and friends..though her friends suck. I hope she appreciates what I'm doing...but I also...I miss my family." I felt my throat start to close up.

"Do they even know I'm okay? I can't...I have no idea what's happening back home and I just, I want to be in my bed and see my friends and be able to call my mom and listen as she goes on about one of her friends. And I can't." I started to cry. I curled up as best as I could, putting my feet on the hood of the car and resting my head on my knees. "I'm turning twenty-nine in a few weeks and no one knows. There's not going to be a party or someone calling me or a million posts on my wall from people I barely talk to anymore. I'm going to turn twenty-nine and no one's going to fucking care because god, who knows when Tammy's birthday is but she'll be eighteen and it's going to be Christmas and I just...it won't fucking matter because I won't be home. There is no home. And God, that's the scariest part of all. What if I can't go back?"

"Hey, hey," I felt a hand on my shoulder. "It's...well it's not okay but you're not alone." He moved and sat next to me on the car. "I know it's not easy. I can't for the life of me imagine being in the situation you're in, but you're not alone. You have me, you have Joyce, even though she doesn't know the truth, she's good like that. You made friends, you told me so yourself. And these are friends that aren't Tammy's, they're yours. You have people with you, to help support you. It's okay that you feel bad or that you don't feel like yourself. I wouldn't expect you to, but you can always reach out to me. If you want to celebrate your birthday, we will. If Christmas is hard, we'll get through that too. Don't be afraid to let people in, Kate. You're a good judge of character. You'll know who you can trust."

"It's hard."

"I know. It's not fair that this happened to you or to Tammy. But it happened. Until we find a way for you to get home, we'll go day by day. Kate, you are by far the bravest person I know and it can't be easy being brave when all you want to do is hide and pray for it all to end. In the words of someone much wiser than me; 'It is not our part to master all tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set'."

I gave him a wry look, wiping the tears off of my cheeks. "Tolkien?"

"Okay, how about this: 'your deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised'." He looked at me carefully. "They are not unpraised though. I'll praise you and will continue to do so until you realize the truth. Every day you keep trying, that you keep doing this and living, makes you far braver than anyone I have ever known."

I started to cry again. "Tha-thank you, Bob. Seriously."

"It's never a problem," he said. "It never will be, Kate."

Bob was the best person in the world and anyone who said otherwise could fight me.

[tbc]