chapter nine,
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        CARLYN SAT IN the back of an ambulance, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The pain in her arm had been lifted due to the painkillers the EMTs had given her, so now she was just numb as she blankly stared at the ground.

        She was so utterly exhausted that she didn't feel anything.

The only thing on her mind was her necklace. What was left of it, anyway, which was the broken pieces she clutched in her hand. Tara and Sam stood beside her, watching the EMTs and firefighters.

At the sight of Kirby being wheeled out on a gurney, the sisters rushed forward. Carlyn looked up and quickly followed them, tugging the blanket closer to her body.

"If you ever need me, call," Kirby instructed when they reached her. "We're all part of the same fucked-up family now. And legacy doesn't always have to be a bad thing. Okay?"

A sob slipped past Tara's lips, making the three girls' attention snap over to her. "It's just Chad. . ." she whimpered out an explanation.

Carlyn bit down on her lip. Now she felt something. Her best friend was dead and she was going to have to tell the Meeks-Martins. She didn't want them to learn from the news, so it was best coming from her.

"Hey, we got another one here!" a firefighter announced.

The four of them looked over, seeing an EMT and a firefighter wheeling another gurney. Carlyn's heartbeat picked up when she saw who was on it. Chad.

She was the first one to leave Kirby's side, Tara and Sam following after her. "Chad?" she called out, her voice weak. The EMT and firefighter came to a stop in front of his ambulance, allowing them to catch up to him. "Chad?"

Carlyn didn't touch him, scared that if she did, he'd be gone. Just a figment of her imagination.

"How are you alive?" Sam questioned.

Slowly, the boy lifted his hand, five fingers held up. "Final fucking Five," Tara mumbled, reaching up to pull off his oxygen mask. She cupped his cheek and pulled him down for a kiss. She let out a small laugh and pulled away, placing the mask back on his face. "Sorry, you probably need that."

His eyes flickered to Carlyn and he gave her a soft nod, like he knew she was afraid to touch him. She reached out for him, carefully touching his face to make sure he was real before she rested her head on his.

"Oh my God!" a familiar voice exclaimed. "I know who the killer is!" Mindy ran towards them. "It's Ethan and Bailey!"

"And Quinn," Sam added.

Mindy's eyes widened. "And Quinn? Fuck. Did I miss the monologue again?"

Carlyn softly laughed and nodded. "Yeah."

Mindy groaned, but her face filled with concern when she finally realized their state. "Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?" she repeated, eyes running over their bodies to check for more injuries. "You don't look okay."

The firefighter and EMT wheeled Chad into the ambulance. Tara stood behind, letting Carlyn and Mindy step into the back to ride to the hospital with him.

"Oh my God, we all survived. It's a twist on a twist. They gave me a lot of drugs, by the way," Mindy rambled. "You guys should get some of these drugs. I can't feel anything below my shoulders."

Mindy rambled like that the whole way to the hospital.

"I mean, not to say I told you so, Car, but I told you so," Mindy had said at one point. "Ethan made the most sense. Not only was he the roommate, but he was also the love interest. Boom. Double whammy. You — You look like they should give you some of my drugs."

An I told you so from Mindy was better when she was high on painkillers than when she was sober, so Carlyn took it. She really didn't mind the constant talking.

        It was better than never hearing her voice again.

○●○

MOVING BACK TO Woodsboro hadn't been ideal. After all, they'd moved all the way across the country to get away from it. But regardless of how big New York was, the members of the Final Five couldn't stay there. They wouldn't have been able to finish the year without a painful reminder of what had happened.

Carlyn was currently sitting beside Chad's hospital bed. He had yet to be released, so she spent most of her time there. He'd been asleep when she arrived, leaving her to go through her polaroids she'd brought by herself.

        It was her first time actually looking at them since the year prior. She hadn't been able to because they were reminders of everything she'd lost — her boyfriend, her friends, her innocence. But now they were officially the only pieces of Wes she had left.

        Everyone looked so happy in them. She held a picture of Wes and Chad, where the latter was cheering because he'd won a game of pool. Wes was just staring at him, clearly annoyed yet holding back a small grin.

        "I like this one," Chad's voice made her jump. She looked up from the polaroid to the boy. She wondered when he'd woken up and how she hadn't heard him. He smiled up at her and turned the picture so she could see it.

        It was a group picture taken by her mom.

        The group was sitting on the couch in the Windsor's living room. Mindy had her legs thrown over Carlyn's lap while she held up a peace sign. Carlyn was slumped against Wes, her head in the crook of his neck while his hand rested on her side. Chad had one arm lazily thrown around the boy's neck and the other wrapped around Liv's waist, tucking her close to him. Then, there was a scribbled-out Amber with her arms around Tara, who had leaned in closer for the picture.

After what happened last year, Carlyn had gotten rid of every piece of Amber she had, ranging from her clothes to pictures on her phone to polaroids of just her. She scribbled her out with Sharpie in all of the group ones.

She'd done the same with Ethan. She got rid of a hoodie he'd let her borrow that she'd completely forgot to give back, deleted pictures of him, cropped him or scribbled him out of group ones.

        She refused to get rid of perfectly good pictures of her friends just because of one person.

        She set the other polaroid on her knee and took the one from Chad. "Me too."

        Chad grabbed the one she'd down and looked at it for a moment. "I miss him."

"I do, too," she mumbled. She swallowed and adjusted in the seat. "How're you feeling?"

"I feel great," he smiled proudly. "They're still giving me pain meds."

Carlyn laughed. "So you're high. Being alive does have its perks."

"Absolutely," Chad nodded.

     "Do you know when you're getting out yet?" she wondered.

"Sometime in the next few weeks," he answered.

Carlyn grinned. "That's great."

"How are you holding up?" Chad questioned a bit hesitantly after a moment of silence. She still had yet to talk about Ethan, but Chad knew Carlyn Windsor like he knew his twin sister. They may not be related, but they still grew up together.

"I'm fine," she lied easily. From her therapist (because the five of them had to go to therapy) to her parents to literally anyone, I'm fine had become a reflex. Second nature at this point.

The truth was, sometimes she'd catch herself missing him. The part of him she'd known, at least, and she'd have to remind herself that Ethan Landry and Ethan Kirsch were the same people. The shy, dorky boy who'd reminded her so much of Wes was a cold-blooded killer in the same way that Amber was.

"Car," Chad gave her a look. "It's okay to miss him, you know that, right? I miss him. I miss Amber sometimes, too."

Words only Carlyn and Chad could ever speak to each other. Tara would probably understand, but Sam and Mindy wouldn't. They covered their pain with anger.

Carlyn shook her head. "I don't want to miss him or Amber. Amber took Wes, and. . . he almost took you." And in some ways, it was like he'd taken Wes as well. Her eyes pooled with tears. "I really fucking hate him."

"I'm not saying you have to forgive them," Chad gently assured her. "I'm sure as hell not going to forgive them. But you were falling hard for him — and don't tell me you weren't, I know you better than that. He was filling that Wes void. And I know because he was filling mine. It felt like he was keeping Wes's memory alive, but we don't need him to do that. Wes's memory will live on in the five of us."

Carlyn stayed for a while but left after the Meeks-Martins got to the hospital and Chad fell back asleep. She stopped at her house and made her way up to her room, grateful her parents weren't home. Her eyes landed on the necklace pieces she had resting on her nightstand. She quickly grabbed them before leaving again.

Carlyn drove to Woodsboro's cemetery and got out before she allowed herself the chance to turn back. It took her a while to find where his tombstone. She hadn't been there in over a year.

Wesley Paul Hicks, 2003 - 2021.

Carlyn stared at it for a second.

        Suddenly she was back in October of last year, two weeks after what happened in Amber's house. She was wearing a black dress that covered her scars and her mom had fixed her hair in a cute little half-up half-down. She stuck close to her friend's and Wes's grandma at the ceremony. People were coming up to them and asking how they were holding up while she was desperately trying to hold back tears. Then she started sobbing in the middle of her speech and couldn't finish.

"Hi, baby," she quietly greeted, sitting down on the ground. "It's been. . . a while." It was awkward talking to a piece of stone instead of her boy. She sighed and began picking at the grass. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner."

She hadn't visited when she graduated or before she left for New York. It felt wrong. Too soon. The fact that she was getting to do those things when he was buried six feet in the ground wasn't fair.

"Did you know that Chad's really philosophical and shit when he's high?" she traced the letters of his name. "He talked about you. He said we didn't need. . . him to keep your memory alive. That it's in us."

She looked down at the necklace in her hand. "He ripped it off when we were fighting and it broke." She lightly scraped up some dirt with her hand and rested the necklace there, covering it. "I didn't want to get rid of it 'cause I thought that meant forgetting you, but I realize now that just because I close a chapter doesn't mean that it's getting rid of you. You're always going to be a part of me."

She tensed when she heard footsteps and pulled out her knife, only to realize that it was just someone else coming to visit one of their loved ones. She let out a relieved breath and looked down at the knife, recalling how the blade had slid across Ethan's throat. "I don't understand how they did it. And how they did it so easily? For fun. . . It makes me sick."

She sat at his grave and rambled for a while, talking about everything from that night to graduation to New York and how scared she was that Ghostfaces were just going to keep coming back. Even if she knew it was crazy, she swore he was listening. He'd always listened to her.

"I'm going to try to move on," she promised firmly, standing from the ground. She'd been there so long the sky was dark. "To keep you and your mom's memory alive. And Liv and Anika's."

She stood there for a second, the cemetery oddly comforting even if it was night. "I love you, Wes," she whispered before turning around and heading back to the car.

As she drove away with puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks, a small smile made its way to her lips. It wasn't like she was completely moved on, but she was getting there. And he'd be proud of that.

𝒎𝒆𝒍 𝒎𝒆𝒍 !!
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