Lies. So many fucking lies.
Adam stared at the TV with his hands balled up into fists. He had started off sitting on the couch, deep in thought as a show he was half paying attention to played in the background. Then when he decided to switch channels, and he came across the news…
He knew he should have looked away. Would have gladly taken obliviousness over this.
There was a new game. One that he supposed he should have expected, but he still couldn't help but feel almost insulted at it. This was in the same old, crappy house that his own trials or games or whatever the hell were held. With peeling wallpaper, a rickety old stairwell, boarded-up windows.
His best friend's body, hidden underneath the ground.
They hadn't found Scott. The people there had breathed in the nerve agent he faced, most of them died. And none of them had found Scott. The pit he died in was full of syringes. Adam didn't know if his friend was moved or if he was underneath it, and frankly, he didn't want to.
But it had been a year. For a year, Adam had sat in the shadows, knowing that Scott was gone while no one else did. Apparently the news of this was enough for his parents to call off the search. With Scott's weird interest and his less than stellar background, his folks had figured he could have been the latest in Jigsaw's games. Then when they were told of this game, and their search came up empty, they stopped.
It was too much, his memorial was set for later that day.
And Adam was gonna go. Because of course he was. He hadn't killed him, he wasn't dumb enough to not believe that, but Adam was there when it happened. And of everyone that would be there, he'd be the only one who knew Scott was gone.
He couldn't say hey to Scott's mom, couldn't reminisce about camping with his dad — in their minds, Adam was supposed to be dead too. Driving to the building and being in the parking lot as they mounted Scott was better than nothing, no matter how borderline insulting it was to everything they had been through. Even though he knew that Scott would cringe at the thought of being cried over and talked about by a bunch of people he'd barely remember, in a building he'd never go to when he still had the choice.
A friendship of twenty years, and he couldn't even see his friend off right.
"Fuck," Adam whispered between his teeth.
There was something about the fact that it was official. With just seeing it, he could tell himself it was a nightmare. Or some horrific vision his fried brain had made up. Suddenly it'd go away and Scott would turn some random corner.
It felt real. More real than it had in a damn year.
Adam grabbed his keys and stomped out of his unit. It was a crappy old apartment that he could only get because the license plate guy "knew a guy who knew a guy." The neighborhood scared the hell out of him, and he looked over his shoulder every time he walked to his car, but considering the fact that Adam Radford didn't have much of a credit score, it was the best he could do.
He got in his car and drove to the church.
At first, he wanted to drive in silence. Then maybe he could talk to himself about what to do and remind himself over and over that he could see friends he had wanted to see for years, and he couldn't talk to any of them. That so much as being there could kill him if he wasn't careful. Lawrence essentially told him to get the hell out of the state as fast as he possibly could, meanwhile he was going where he had grown up. Surrounded by people he knew.
But he couldn't not do it. He was driving through the part of town he grew up in, a good bit away from where he lived now. And as he saw it, he kept checking out how an old mall he loved had shut down, and they had started to build a road they had planned out for years. It was all coming back to him.
The only part of his childhood he regularly saw, other than Scott, was his parents' house. But they were on the outskirts and closer to Adam's old apartment. For reasons he didn't know, he had avoided the area around his high school and where he used to hang with friends.
Adam didn't smile, it was too painful of a reminder of Scott. But his shoulders did loosen and he unclenched his jaw, making the headache he didn't know he had more noticeable. Scott went around here a lot, and he had asked Adam to come along. He wanted to "take a trip down memory lane," and had gone on and on about it. Just one more time, it was all he wanted.
Fuck, Adam wished he gave him that one more time. Or that Scott was there with him, in the passenger seat as he complained about how bad traffic had gotten and made up dumb road games because he'd get bored on his phone.
It was home, and he loved it. But home didn't feel right anymore.
He sighed and pulled into the church's parking lot. It was massive, and most everyone was parked close to the building. The couple of times he had been there, he had used the same spot near, underneath a light. But instead, he parked in a corner spot, as far from the church as he could get. No one was nearby.
And he looked at the building, where they were crying over his friend who would never want so many people to cry for him.
"You think this whole thing is stupid, don't you?"
Of course he knew there wouldn't be a response, but he knew what his friend would say. He'd tell him to shut up, that no one liked a smartass know-it-all. Then Adam would call him a douche, and they'd go back and forth for a while. All in the midst of a laughing fit that they could barely breathe through.
Adam chuckled. "You were a real bastard, you know that?"
Yeah. Yeah Scott knew. Just like the guidance counselor in school knew, the principal, the teachers, their parents. In school Adam was always the good, sensible one of the two. It was something that he scoffed at now — the fact that he was the good one in certain pairings — but it was true. Even as kids, they picked up on it. Then those same adults would tell Adam he needed to leave Scott, that it was too much and he was going to hurt him eventually.
But he never listened. Sometimes he'd regret that decision, but that definitely was not one of those moments.
A song played on his radio, one of their favorites from when they were kids. It made the tears streaming down Adam's face more real somehow, more prominent.
"Fuck," he whispered.
A failed test subject, that's what Scott was to the world. In his own trap, Adam was once concerned with what he'd be remembered for, his legacy. The fuck up, the stalker, the creep who made that girl uncomfortable in the hall of his apartment building.
"Guess I got what I had coming for me, huh?" His lip twitched. "And then some."
Rockstar was the girl who went and—
Adam couldn't help but feel appalled at the fact that Scott and his entire existence was being reduced to "failed test subject." "Victim" was another one that the press used a lot, and his friend would raise all hell for that one.
"'Victim,'" Adam echoed, scoffing like he had just heard it for the first time. "Man, that would piss you off so bad."
He could feel Scott's heavy presence, but he couldn't look over anymore. Couldn't shake the idle hope that Scott would come running out of that church and barrel into his car, ready to make some kind of a great heist.
Instead, he looked at his windshield. Where it would forever have a chip from when Scott got pissed off at his parents and hurled something at Adam's car. He wouldn't lie and say that it was now some great memory, a sentimental way to remember him bye. Adam never did that crap.
But it made a fresh tear fall anyway. Adam could look away from it, but he didn't want to.
"I miss you, man," he whispered. He rubbed his eyes, the tears gliding across his hands. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you. And now I'm having trouble even finding the people who did this to you. It'd piss you off if after everything I went and fu—"
There was a knock on Adam's car window, and he jumped.
He looked over, his heart already racing. And he saw Lark, one of the members of Scott's band. He had met him years back when he tried out to be a drummer and dropped out of high school to join the infamous Wrath of the Gods.
Adam's eyes were stuck wide open, and he could barely breathe. But he slowly lowered the window anyway, pleading.
He said, "Lark, please I—"
"How in the fuck are you alive?"
Adam tried to mutter a reply, but it wasn't much of one. He couldn't recite what he said to the man if he tried.
"If you're here, maybe you should, I dunno." Lark gestured towards the church. "Fuckin' go in, maybe?"
"I—"
"And I still don't know how you're okay."
Adam's kept his palms on the wheel, tightening and relaxing his grip. His car was still on, he could race away before Lark had the time to tell any—
Tell. That is what Adam was worried about. He was supposed to be dead and now all of the sudden he was at Scott's funeral? And he couldn't believe that Lark would go and keep his mouth shut without some sort of convincing.
Adam sighed. "He died from—"
"Jigsaw, I know. I watch the news." Lark shrugged. "Well, I watched it for that."
"I was in a Jigsaw trap, too. And I failed."
Lark's shoulders dropped. He looked at Adam not quite how he used to when he was defending him from Scott, but pretty close. Adam couldn't place it, but it was like Lark knew.
He mumbled, "Don't make me ask a third time."
Adam bit his lip. Then he gestured to the passenger seat, and Lark got in. Anything was better than someone standing outside his car and drawing attention to him. Better than—
"Okay, continue."
Adam scrubbed his face with his hands. Then he looked up at the tree his was parked in front of, the way it idly swayed in the wind. And he thought about trees he used to climb and all the mindless stuff kid-him had taken for granted.
Fuck if that kid could see him now.
He whispered, "I was let out."
Lark took a sharp breath, like a snake. And Adam could feel the tension rise in the car, tension that hadn't been there even before he got in.
"They fuckin' 'let you out,'" Lark replied, "and Scott is still dead?"
"It wasn't that simple. I failed at first and then—"
"You disappeared not long before him, and everyone said you were dead. Then he goes missing and he's obliterated in a Jigsaw trap, and you're magically alive again?"
The bite to his voice laced every word. Adam couldn't get over how pissed off Lark sounded. How he almost sounded like he blamed him.
Something that Adam had idly done for way, way too long. But Lark couldn't possibly know what happened.
Adam replied, "What are you trying to say?"
"Nothing."
"No, say what you wanna say, dammit."
"I'm saying that you're becoming a self-absorbed prick just like he was."
He bit his lip and looked back towards the church. It was all he could do to not scream something back. He couldn't get on Lark's bad side, not more than he already was.
Scott was never cool with Lark calling him that. Not in the way he was with Adam.
And Adam wanted Scott to come and punch Lark right in his fucking face, but he couldn't. At least Scott would know that he was in trouble, if he were there. And even though he'd give him shit, Scott would still help him out.
But he couldn't. Not anymore.
Adam said sharply, "Maybe I just finally realized that I deserve better than this crap."
Which is something that past him never would've been able to say out loud.
"I need you to promise me something," Adam whispered through his teeth.
"Oh shit. What?"
Adam looked back at Lark, not trying to hide the fresh tears. "I need you to not tell anyone I was here. I mean it, it could kill me."
"Dude, I seriously doubt it—"
"You wanna fuckin' try it and find out?"
Adam was trembling, and he could only hope that Lark hadn't noticed. He wasn't one to grovel, he hated it. But after everything that he had gone through, he sure as hell wouldn't let this be what finally did him in.
He whispered, "Please Lark, okay?"
Lark grumbled, looking lost in thought. He ran his fingers through his hair and grabbed random chunks of it.
It was insulting, Adam had to admit. Lark was pissed at him for living and then not even having the decency to see Scott off. But meanwhile all he wanted was to race in there and say goodbye to his friend for real. Not through wooden doors or separated by what felt like miles of steel and glass and the walls of a church that Scott would — again — have absolutely fucking hated.
After a while, Lark got out of the car. Then he told him, with the car still open, "I won't. But I don't ever wanna see you around here again. Scott deserved a goodbye."
Even the grateful part of Adam couldn't thank him. He felt like throwing up. Instead, he said, "Close my door."
Then Lark slammed it and walked away. Adam watched him storm into the church, ready to join the crowd of people who didn't get Scott at all.
And he needed to leave. He knew that.
He shook his head as fresh tears fell. One more minute, it's all he wanted. Because he didn't have the chance yet to tell Scott about how Lawrence got him out, or how the chick he flirted with in the hall of his shithole apartment hated his game so much that she went and threw a bag over his head.
One more minute.
Adam's shoulders dropped.
Because that wouldn't be enough. After that he'd want to tell Scott about one of the nurses at the hospital was hot or how he managed to make a trip there without having one of their burgers. Then he'd wanna tell Scott all about what Lark said and ask him to beat his ass and—
A minute, another minute, a minute more. He'd stay for one more minute for the rest of his life.
Adam looked back at the church one last time. "I'm sorry for everything." He wiped the last of his tears away. "Rest easy, man."
Then he turned his car on and backed out of his spot.
And he left. Left the remains of his friend in his rearview mirror, biting his lip as he found the old track he and Scott used to listen to.
He didn't grant the place one last look.
Scott wouldn't have wanted him to.