Chapter Twenty-Six

According to everyone that mattered, I had attempted to kill myself.

It was the grief, they said. After finding out I'd had an older sister who'd been murdered years before, the belated sadness was enough to drive me over the edge. Some unexpected streak of madness had possessed me to trek through the forest in the middle of a rainstorm and go for a swim with a broken arm—broken, they said, by a fall I could no longer remember.

All things considered, they told me I was lucky. The impacted fracture in my forearm was a doozy, but it would heal. There was also glass to be pulled out of both my feet and some stitches needed on my forehead where I'd somehow bashed it underwater, but those, too, would get better with time. It was just that on top of all of that, my stint in the lake had left me with a particularly nasty case of hypothermia. They told me that I should feel blessed to have been rushed to the hospital so quickly, because, as my nurse had so gently put it, “If you hadn't gotten immediate care, you'd be lying in a coffin right now, not a hospital bed.”

As much as I hated the hospital, suffocating under six inches of blankets was infinitely better than six feet of dirt.

So many words were said in those first few days, as I drifted in and out of consciousness and learned to live off of much-needed painkillers, but none of them were the truth. The true story of what had happened that night was one that the doctors and nurses could never hear, and would never believe. The official story left me tangled in a million lies; lies to physicians and therapists, lies to police officers, lies to the countless busybodies who drove an half an hour into Butler just to nose around in my dramatic and anguished life.

My mother was a frequent visitor, of course; she practically lived at my beside for most of the time. Father Lucas made a trip up too, telling me that the town was keeping me in their prayers. Aubrey called from Boston to give her get-wells, and made me promise to give her the full breakdown of what had happened that night when she came down for Christmas. Even Mrs. Hummel made a trip up with Svana to hear the whole story, and she cried when I told her about my sister. (This threw Svana into a fit, so our visit didn't last very long).

The one person I didn't see during those few days of recuperation was the very boy who'd made sure that I was alive to even wonder about him. Logan never showed up, never called, and never returned a single text. When I asked my mom and his sister, they both said they hadn't heard from him. Spending all day in a hospital room staring at the wall leaves a lot of time for thinking, and I found myself worrying in every spare moment, trying to think of what I could have possibly done to warrant his completely ignoring me.

It was driving me just a little bit mad.

By my fourth and final day in the hospital, everything had been mended and all the questions had been asked, and I had all but given up hope of Logan coming to see me. My mother was at work, so I was trapped in my room, flipping through the most useless selection of channels I had ever had the misfortune of seeing. The television on the wall barely had enough connection to manage a visible picture, though, so perhaps I wasn't missing out on much. All I wanted was to get out of the suffocating hospital and saw the uncomfortable gown off of my body so that I could go back home and be miserable in peace.

“Parker.” One of the nurses poked her head into my room as I was trying to determine whether the fuzz on the screen was Toddlers in Tiaras or Keeping Up With the Kardashians. She was speaking to me in that soft, pitying voice reserved for puppies and babies: the tone that had become the soundtrack of my days ever since I arrived. “You have a visitor,” she continued, smiling slightly.

“Mm,” I mumbled, hardly paying attention to her. Odds were, it was nosy Jan from back home, in for another fresh wave of inpatient gossip. But the voice that thanked the nurse as she pushed open the door was immediately recognizable as very much not Jan—and not even a woman, for that matter. It beckoned my attention immediately, and I turned my head, my suspicions were immediately confirmed. Logan was standing in the doorway, one hand in his pocket and the other crushing the stems of a colorful daisy bouquet.

“Hey,” he said, his eyes skimming the white tiles.

I swallowed and hoarsely replied, “Hey.”

As Logan shifted from foot to foot, radiating about triple his usual amount of awkwardness, I carefully used my one good arm to hoist myself into a sitting position. I was suddenly conscious of the fact that four days of immobility couldn't have done me any good: I had no makeup on, and my hair was ages overdue for a serious brushing. And while those things had never quite bothered me, the way Logan was studying my face made me hyper-attuned to the fact that I was looking significantly less attractive than normal.

“I, um, I brought you some flowers,” Logan said eventually, haltingly, dissolving the silence that had cropped up between us. He took a few tentative steps forward, his sneakers scuffing softly against the floor, before coming to a stop a few feet from the side of my bed and looking at me expectantly.

“Right.” I glanced quickly around the room, as if the sparse white-and-gray furniture was somehow going to sprout a vase. When nothing appeared, I coughed and sheepishly slipped the glass of water across the table beside my bed.

“You can go ahead and put them in here,” I said, ducking my head. Logan raised his eyebrows, his lips twitching in a quarter of a smile, before leaning over and carefully arranging the bright flowers in the small glass. Once they were situated, he hesitated for a moment—then, as if on impulse, strode forward and sat down on the edge of my bed, facing me. His green eyes searched mine, filled with an emotion that I couldn't quite place, and he fiddled with the loose end of a blanket.

“How's the arm?” he asked after a while, his voice low.

I shrugged. “Broken. But healing.”

“It doesn't hurt, does it?”

“No, thankfully. My feet, though, on the other hand—let's just say walking isn't really high on my to-do list at the moment.”

Logan tried to laugh, but it sounded forced and hollow, and when it petered off, the silence remained. I had known Logan for nearly three quarters of my life, but at that moment, I couldn't figure him out. He was here visiting on my very last day in the hospital, but the simple act of opening his mouth seemed to physically pain him.

And he was being far too quiet.

“I guess I really should be thanking you,” I remarked eventually, just to fill the space.

Logan looked up quickly, his expression flustered. “What, for the flowers? It's fine, really, I just thought it'd be nice to—”

“For saving my life,” I murmured.

After a moment, he cleared his throat.

“Oh, that. It's not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” I scoffed. “The doctor said if you hadn't gotten there when you did, I would be dead.”

A shadow flitted across Logan's features, and he mumbled a few unintelligible syllables. I tilted my head, peering at him through narrowed eyes, keeping my focus trained on his face until he finally look my way. When he did, I immediately taken aback by his wide, fearful eyes.

“You could have died.” His words were quiet and strained, as if it took an unimaginable effort to drag them from his lips.

“But I didn't,” I said softly, wringing my hands.

“But you could have. Jesus, Parker, you were so close. Even after I pulled you out of the water, you just looked so—so broken, I didn't know how you could possibly survive.”

“I did, though.” Tentatively, I reached for his hand and brushed it with mine. “I'm right here, and I'm perfectly fine.”

Logan shook his head, continuing as if he hadn't heard me. “And I keep thinking about how if I'd insisted on going inside with you when I dropped you off that night or insisted you come over, none of this would have happened.”

“Logan.” Hating the self-loathing in his voice, I grabbed his hand in my good one and squeezed until he was looking at me again. “Maybe that's true, okay? Maybe if you'd gone in with me and stayed until my mom came home, none of this would have happened. But the point is that it did happen, and you can't undo that. And at the end of the day, you're the only reason I'm alive right now. So can you please stop feeling guilty and just realize that I literally owe you my life?”

In spite of Logan's regrets, my words sufficed to make him smile, even if just the slightly bit. I let my lips curve up a bit in response, and used my good arm to brush my knotted hair out of my face. The moment didn't last, though, because within seconds the vaguely happy expression was slipping from my best friend's features. He pointed his gaze away from me once again, shaking his head.

“I just.” He took a deep breath. “I don't understand. Why you did it, I mean. Why you didn't call me and try to talk things out.”

I wrinkled my nose, confused. “I did call you, though. Isn't that why you came to the lake?”

“Yeah, after you had thrown yourself in. I know you were going through a lot with Rosemary and your mom and everything, but I would have listened to you. You know that, right?”

Something about Logan's tone—the slow, therapist-like edge—and the condescending expression on his face set off warning bells in my head. I looked at him carefully, his hand still in mine, trying to figure out what he was thinking.

“I don't understand,” I said belatedly. “What are you trying to say?”

Frustration clouded Logan's features, and he pulled his free hand through his hair. “I'm trying to ask you why the hell you attempted suicide when I was only a phone call away.”

My jaw dropped along with my stomach: I took in the torment in my best friend's irises and suddenly felt as if I was going to be sick. It made sense, of course, because not only had no one been in touch with Logan, but he hadn't believed in the demons in the first place. There was no easy way to describe it to him concisely, and there was sure as hell no way to make sure he believed me. All I could do was hope for the best as I met his eyes, took a breath, and tried to explain.

“Logan, please,” I said, my voice firm. I tried to squeeze his hand, but he pulled away, and I sighed. He wouldn't look at me, but I kept talking. “I wasn't trying to kill myself. I would never do that to you. I wasn't even trying to go to the lake, and that's why I called you. I was scared, because somehow those...creatures found a way to crawl inside my head and control me. I thought I was dreaming, but then suddenly I was by the lake, and everything was real, and—and they were all there. Everything out of my nightmares was just lined up there in the forest, and that boy, the one who kissed me—he was at the center of it all. He killed my sister, Logan, and he was going to kill me. But Laury was there, and she—”

“Laury?” Logan interjected, confusion spiking his eyebrows as he turned back to me abruptly. “Laury was there? But the police said that she...well, they found...you heard about it, right?”

I nodded solemnly; they'd told me everything, and I'd pretended to be surprised. “Yeah, I heard. They found her car totaled in a ravine off the side of the road, but she was nowhere to be found. They think she must have survived the crash and dragged herself off somewhere, but officers with rescue dogs have combed the area and there's nothing. No body, no clothing, no blood.”

Logan made an affirmative noise, then shook his head. “Parker, how could Laury get from the scene of the accident to Bear Lake alive? They said her car was in pieces.”

“I don't know, okay? It wasn't her, it was them. They ran her off the road and dragged her with them to meet me at the lake. She was on her way to warn me about them—she called just before you picked me up from the pool. But she never made it; they got to her first.”

The tiny room was silent for a moment save for the low hum of the television as Logan mulled over that. “Then where is she now?” he asked eventually, a frown curling his lips.

“I don't know,” I mumbled, shrugging. “She's the one who pushed me into the lake, actually. Not that she was, um, trying to hurt me, or anything. She was trying to stop the boy from hurting me, and I kind of fell in. If she hadn't shoved me, I probably wouldn't be here right now. But”—I shook my head—“I have no idea what happened to her. I'm alive, but she's just...gone.”

Logan studied my face, his eyes so intense that I had to look away. Finally, he pursed his lips and breathed, “I'm glad you're alive.”

“Yeah, so am I.”

The atmosphere in the room had become significantly less tense, but it was still a far cry from the companionable silence I was accustomed to having with Logan. Chewing on my bottom lip, I tugged absently at the unbroken pendant around my neck—it was my sister's somehow in pristine condition, as if it had truly become solid in the transition from dream to reality.

Logan seemed to notice it, because he leaned down and squinted at the glimmering mirror. “That necklace,” he said. “That's the one I found in my car. I thought it was broken; when did you fix it?”

I cleared my throat, dropping the charm back against my collarbone. “I didn't. This is going to sound crazy, but my sister gave it to me. In a...a dream, or something, at the lake. Something to remember her by.”

“You're right,” Logan affirmed, shaking his head. “That does sound pretty crazy.”

“But do you believe it?” I asked after a moment, tilting my head. “The monsters, the nightmares, Laury—or do you still think I'm crazy?”

“I never thought you were crazy, Parker. I just thought that—I don't even know what I thought, at this point. But I didn't think you could be right.”

“And now?”

He let out a breathy snort. “Now? I'm more confused than ever. I'm not sure what I believe”

I looked up at Logan out of the corner of my eye and, with as little fuss as possible, swung my legs over the side of the bed. He edged over to make room for me, and I settled into place beside him.

“Just a thought,” I said, clenching and releasing the sheets in my fists. “You might consider maybe believing me.”

“I—” He swallowed. “It's weird, because now that everything has happened, I think I'm beginning to. I can see in your eyes that you're telling the truth, so either you're completely hallucinatory, I'm being pranked, or all of this has been completely real.”

I chuckled. “The last answer is the winner.”

He didn't speak, just nodded, and it was quiet for a while. I looked around the sparse room that had been my home for the past few days, and my eyes were drawn to the vibrant shock of Logan's daisies sitting in my glass of water. As I studied their bright colors, I felt a tickling in my head: almost like something was scratching against a door up there. I tried to ignore it; I'd been getting the feeling since I got to the hospital, but I figured it was simply paranoia. There was no use in getting worked up over a pointless stray thought.

“God,” Logan said just then, providing a much-needed distraction. He seemed to be thinking to himself, but I still asked, “What?” as he scrunched up his face.

“I'm just thinking,” he said, closing his eyes briefly. “You really could have died out there, Parker. All these weeks, you could have died, and I've just been here telling you that you don't know what you're talking about. Jesus Christ, do you know how close I was to losing you?”

He was looking at me now, his eyes wide. I eyed him carefully.

“You didn't,” I reminded him.

“But I was this close. And I just keep wondering what I would have done without you and realizing that the answer is absolutely nothing because I really just think everything would be pointless if I didn't have you. I know I don't understand everything that's going on, and maybe you'll explain that to me sometime, but I don't even care right now, Parker, honestly. The monsters could have just been under your bed or they could have been flesh and blood, but I don't care at all because you're here, and you're alive, and you're okay. I could have lost you, and I think that's made me realize how much I actually l—”

I kissed him. I didn't know why, at the time. Now, I tell myself it's because I wanted to shut him up. But really, I think it's because I knew what he was about to say, and I wanted to beat him to it. And the best way to achieve that at the time didn't seem to be with words, but with a surprisingly simple action.

At any rate, it was a good kiss. It was the kind you get lost in: the kind that makes you forget the clouds over your head and the skeletons in your closet because all you can do is focus on the moment. My hand that wasn't encased in plaster mysteriously wound up tangled in Logan's hair; his found their way to my lower back, pulling me closer to him as if even a grain of space between us was far too much.

We had definitely gotten better at this.

If it was up to me, those few seconds would have stretched on for hours. I didn't want to think about anything else; not the whispers in my head, nor the prospect of going home. I'd almost forgotten that those things existed, and perhaps that was because I was so eager for them to go away.

As it turned out, even my silent wishing for more time was not enough to draw out the moment. We were still very much occupied when the nurse came in, coughing awkwardly and rapping on the door until we had the decency to pull apart for air.

“Pain medication,” she said, her voice stiff and squeaky. “And, um, visiting hours are over, young man.”

I felt a blush rise to my cheeks. “Do you think you could leave the meds on the table?” I asked casually, just a little bit breakfast. “And can he just stay for one more minute so we can finish our, uh, chat?”

I thought I heard the nurse scoff a little bit at the word chat, but she left the pills on the table beside me and marched dutifully out of the room.

“Wow,” Logan said, once she was gone.

“I, um”—I cleared my throat—“I didn't mean for that to happen. I just kind of just went with my gut.”

Logan snorted. “You are officially welcome to do that anytime.”

I smiled, leaning my shoulder into his and letting my head fall against him. I didn't say anything about anything that hurt, because that was all behind us now. The monsters were gone, the nightmares had ceased, and I was free to start over and pretend none of it had ever happened. Even Laury's disappearance wasn't painful; although that might have been simply because I was refusing to think about it for more than a heartbeat.

“Is it your last night here?” Logan asked, breaking into my thoughts.

I nodded. “Yeah, and thank God, too. I can't wait to go home. The hospital is so cold.”

“No kidding.”

Logan's arm had absently found its way around my shoulders, and now he calmly fiddled with strands of my hair. I chewed on my lip and inhaled the smell of his t-shirt.

“Will you call me?” I questioned, tipping my head to look up at him. “When I get back?”

He gave me an odd look. “Parker Sage Elway, I am your best friend. I will be the very first one to greet you when you step onto the curb, whether you like it or not.”

I smiled softly. “Trust me, I won't mind.”

Shaking his head, Logan squeezed my shoulder a final time and got to his feet. I tipped my head back expectantly, without really thinking about it, but he leaned forward and gently pressed his lips against mine once more. A soft smirk jumped at the edges of his mouth as he headed out.

Just as he reached the door, though, Logan paused. He glanced at me over his shoulder, something like concern altering his features. “Parker,” he said slowly. “The...monsters. Are they gone? You never said.”

I swallowed hard, feeling that niggling scratch once again in the back of my mind. “They've been taken care of,” I assured him with a smile.

He still looked worried. “Where are they?”

Where? I could hardly answer that. I pressed my lips together, then parted them again to repeat my answer more firmly: “They've been taken care of.”

Logan didn't seem entirely convinced, but it was enough to earn a nod. He was still nodding as he murmured a shy, “I love you,” as he slithered out into the hall.

“I love you too,” I said aloud to the closing door, the familiar words somehow feeling different on my tongue. I didn't question it. I simply reached over for my meds, scooping the little pills out of their cups only to realize that my only glass of water was being occupied by a bouquet of effulgent flowers. Smirking to myself, I pressed the little button on my TV remote that called the nurses' station and asked for a new cup.

As I waited for my nurse to come, I shook the pills around in my palm. There were three: one in bright red, one a dull blue, and one as black as the cruel boy's eyes. It was so easy to compare the color to him now, to them; I figured it always would be. They personified the darkness that had haunted me for so long. Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I still saw those of a handsome, auburn-haired young man staring back at me, reminding me that he hadn't disappeared completely.

He was still there. He would always be there, lingering. He was there, always trapped inside a dream I could never have, and my sister and Laury were gone. But I was here. I was sitting in an itchy gown in a lumpy hospital bed, but I was very much here. The monsters under my bed had turned out to be just that: monsters. They were nothing more than silly little creatures that I made real by believing in them. They were in my head now: my mind, my rules. They weren't going to hurt me or anyone else ever again, because I no longer lived under their maleficent shadow.

And I wasn't afraid of the dark anymore.

---------

Dedicated to Macy because she's amazing and has been such a supportive reader, as well as a fabulous person and friend who always leaves long wonderful comments and um this sentence doesn't even make sense but ily Macy bye

A/N: Well, that's the last chapter. There's an epilogue as well, but apart from that this story is basically over. Which is weird. But it's a good feeling, anyway.

Also I hope you appreciated that last Larker moment (this is directed at Leigh who had better love me for adding in that scene).

Thanks for reading!