Over the course of the next week, Jackson was at my apartment frequently. He mentioned many times about how much he loved the playlist I had given him. We talked mainly about the playlists I make and what was going on in our college classes. Sometimes we would talk about what we were going to do after college. We both only had one more year to go: he was half of the way through his third year out of four, and I was the same but with my first year out of two. I had been thinking about possibly going for longer, but I had only been talking to Jackson about it.

Jackson was in college to earn his bachelor's degree in business administration, for he wasn't completely sure of what he wanted to be, but he knew he wanted to do something with a business of his own. He told me all about how he'd acquired the taste for owning a business because his grandfather had owned a car shop. Jackson knew he didn't want a job dealing with cars, but he knew he would love to own a business someday. He explained how he loved cooking and had always thought about owning a restaurant, but he was never sure if it would be possible.

I talked mainly about how I had changed my mind after the accident happened. I was now going to college to get my associate's degree in nursing. I wanted to become a registered nurse because I wanted to help people. I knew I would go back to college later to get my bachelor's degree, but I also thought that getting an associate's degree would be a great start.

Jackson and I talked about many things when he would come over to my apartment after his classes were finished for the day. I got to my apartment about an hour before Jackson did, so it was nice being able to have some time to do things around the apartment. I knew his classes ended around the same time as mine, but he seemed to think I'd forgotten because he would come over after I'd been home for a little while. He understood that I needed a little bit of alone time before we spent time together, and I appreciated that. That was one thing Thomas could never understand.

One afternoon, we were talking as we ate takeout from a wonderful Chinese restaurant I'd found in the time I'd lived in the area. We communicated between bites. Soon, we each opened our fortune cookies while laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. Not much was funny, but we had started laughing, and it was one of those times where, once you started, you couldn't stop yourself no matter how hard you tried.

Between Jackson and me, we were laughing so hard that I couldn't hear my fortune cookie as it snapped open. I didn't get to read my fortune because there was a knock at my door. I stood up and made my way over to the door from the bar in the kitchen. When I looked through the peephole of my apartment, I saw a familiar face in front of the door. I sighed, unsure of what to do. I looked back at Jackson, giving him an apologetic look because I knew this was interrupting our time to spend together. My face turned frustrated, showing my emotions to the man about to walk through my door.

I opened the door slowly and Thomas stood there, looking at me with a slight pout on his face. He wanted me to forgive him. Little did he know, I wasn't mad at him about anything. Yes, I didn't like the way his hug or his forehead kiss made me feel about him, but I wasn't upset with him. I just wasn't able to look at him without thinking of Sawyer.

I was beginning to get over the occurrence, however, and I was finally beginning to be able to see Thomas without thinking of my youngest brother. Thomas slowly made his way into my apartment, setting his keys on the kitchen counter as he always had.

"Devyn, I'm really sorry about what happened the other day. I didn't mean for you to take it that way–" he apologized, but he stopped talking when he looked up to see Jackson sitting at the bar.

"Who's this?" He asked protectively. He obviously didn't want me to have another friend. Thomas was the one I'd always invited over. It was Thomas who watched television with me, usually reruns of our favorite shows. I knew he was a little jealous because I'd made a new friend.

"Thomas, this is Jackson. I met him last Monday after classes. He's been coming over a lot lately. I'm sorry I haven't called to talk to you, but I thought I told you not to come over unless I called you," I whispered the last part, mad at him for showing up unannounced.

"I missed you, okay? I was getting worried, and I wasn't sure why you were so shaken up about what happened. I wanted to check to see if you were okay," he explained to me. I nodded, sighing.

"That's alright," I told him, smiling a little. "I'm fine now, by the way. I don't know why I reacted like I did." I was lying straight to his face, but I knew he couldn't tell. I didn't show it. "Would you like to stay and hang out with us? I could pull out some games, and we could play a little while."

"I'd love to, if that's okay with you and Jackson. I didn't mean to barge in on your time to hang out," he apologized in his own special way, walking toward the bar to greet Jackson with a handshake that turned into a hug. Jackson was the hugging type, and there was no doubting that.

"That's fine with me, Tom." Jackson nodded, smiling brightly at him. I could tell Jackson was trying to be friendly, but it almost made me laugh. Little did he know, Thomas couldn't stand being called Tom. It took all efforts to hold in my laugh. It was obvious Thomas was already annoyed with Jackson because I was hanging out with Jackson and not him.

"You can call me just Thomas, really. I don't like the nickname Tom," he admitted. I'd known that for a long time, but I knew Jackson wouldn't have known that.

"Sorry, just Thomas." I heard Jackson apologize as I walked into the spare room to bring out some games. They both laughed, and I slowly made my way from the closet toward them.

"That's alright. I get called Tom all of the time. I don't know why I don't like it. I guess I just don't." Thomas shrugged as I walked back into the room. I knew it irritated him the slightest bit more than he showed, but I was glad he was nice enough to let it go. As he saw it, Jackson was his replacement. Even though that wasn't how I saw it, I couldn't help that Thomas was jealous. I hoped that as we played some games together, they would warm up to each other, and Thomas's jealousy levels would go down.

I sat the stack of games on the kitchen table. Even though I usually only ate at the bar, I still had the table for times like these: game nights. It had been a long time since I'd had a game night. In the time since my family died, I hadn't played games because I had no one to play them with. I never thought playing with two people was very fun, so I never played with just Thomas and me. Now that we had Jackson in the friend group, we were able to play games again. I was ecstatic. I'd always loved games, especially when I'd play them with my family.

"What games did you bring out?" Jackson wondered, looking at both the board games and the card games. He smiled when he saw the game Trouble. I'd told him the stories of when I used to play it with my brothers.

"How about we play this?" He winked at me and picked the game from the pile. I smiled back at him and agreed. With Thomas's approval, we sat at the table and opened the box before pulling out the game board and the pieces that went along with it. I placed all of the pieces in their sockets, and we began to play.

"I used to love this game. I'd play it all of the time." I grinned as I spoke, trying not to bring up my brothers or seem too sad. I'd remembered that I hadn't told Thomas about them before, and I wasn't ready to tell him quite yet.

"Yeah, I always loved it as a child, too," Jackson agreed with me. I loved how he was trying to encourage me, to get me to stop thinking about my brothers. I couldn't stop, however, and I was trying extremely hard to not cry in front of either of them.

It had been a little while since I'd had a panic attack, and I was doing my best when I was able to control them. At that point in time, I felt as if I was going to have a panic attack, and I quickly excused myself from the table.

After walking into my room, I sat alone in the corner. I didn't want to be around Thomas or Jackson during my panic attack. I felt dizzy, nauseous, and tired. I closed my eyes and laid my head back against the wall. As I lay there, I saw the car crashing into my family's car over and over again. For some reason, I focused on the driver of the other car who was also miraculously alright, as the doctors told me. I couldn't see him clearly, but I began to realize that I recognized that man. I had no idea who it was, though, because I could not see him easily. I could only tell that he was most likely tall and seemed to appear extremely skinny.

Whenever I stopped feeling dizzy and was less nauseous, I walked back out into the "dining room," even though I wasn't sure if you could consider it a room. I apologized for walking out like I had. They forgave me and told me they didn't mind. I sank down into the smooth, sky blue chair that I'd been previously sitting in. We began to play the game, and I constantly heard "pop!" for the next twenty minutes.

My eyes focused on the game board, watching as the die in the middle jumped around underneath the dome it was concealed in. I made myself think of things other than my brothers. I loved the memories, but it wasn't the time to be thinking about memories. I didn't want to cry in front of my guests.

When I looked up from the game board, my three brothers sat before me. Sawyer, only a toddler, was pressing the dome in the middle of the board incessantly. Alexander was trying his best to calm Sawyer down, even though every one of us knew that was impossible. Blake sat beside me, counting the spaces and figuring out what number he needed to get so he could send me back "home." He placed his small pointer finger onto the rim of each socket and counted how many spaces he'd have to move.

Thinking we didn't see him pressing the middle more than once, Blake placed both hands on the center dome and hit it as many times as he wanted to until he could see that he had the right number. If he had the chance, he always sent my pawns home. Although his actions were annoying to some extent, I allowed him to do so. I knew he enjoyed the pleasure of winning, so I sacrificed my game for him. He was always a competitive child. I held in a laugh as my younger brothers looked at me, unsure of what their older brother was doing. I shook my head and giggled.

I felt a hand on my back, patting my upper back and moving to my shoulder. I turned to see my father standing there, watching our game. When he realized I was looking up at him, he tilted his head down toward me and winked at me, for he knew what I was doing. I smiled up at him and he kissed my forehead, whispering in my ear about how great of a big sister I was.

"Devyn," my father began to speak to me. I looked up at him and waited for him to continue. "Devyn," he repeated, persistent. Why had he felt the need to address me? He was just talking to me, but I let that thought go and spoke to him.

"What?" I asked him this time. I felt someone shake my shoulder, and I was brought back to reality. Jackson was watching me worriedly.

"Devyn, are you all right?" he wondered, looking at me closely. His eyes stared into mine, concerned. I felt Thomas's eyes on me as well, and they felt as if he was watching me like I was a patient in a mental hospital. His eyes were confused and judging. Jackson's eyes were more welcoming and understanding, which I enjoyed.

"Yeah," I promised, returning my focus to the board. "I'll be fine, don't worry. Is it my turn?"

There was hesitation in Jackson's voice, but he replied, "Yes." After I received his response, I clicked the middle of the board, taking me back to Blake's and my game. I heard Blake giggle as he placed yet another one of my pawns in my home space.

"Blake, I can't believe you sent me home again!" I exclaimed, knowing I'd make him laugh once more. He chuckled and motioned for me to take my turn.

I popped the dome on the game board, and all of a sudden, Jackson and Thomas were once again before me. There was a four on the upward side of the die, so I picked up a pawn and moved it the appropriate amount of spaces.

My turn finished, and Thomas began his turn. He pressed the plastic over top of the die, creating a popping sound. Blake, Alex, and Sawyer sat in front of me yet again. Blake was popping the die over and over again. The sound pounded in my head and got louder every time he hit it. I clenched my teeth together to take my mind off of the pain of the noise ringing through my head. It was popping nonstop. Nothing could make it cease.

I gripped my ears as my head throbbed with the noise growing louder and more definite. The sound grew unbearable, even though I had covered my ears to block the sound. I barely heard the thump as I fell to the floor. My father dropped to his knees to ask what was wrong while Blake continued his search for the perfect number.

"Devyn, are you okay?" Dad cooed. "What's wrong? Do we need to call 911?" he fired questions at me. He stroked my hair, continuously asking me if I was all right.

Apparently Blake had found the number he was trying to find, because I heard one last "POP!" and I was lying on the floor of my apartment, not my childhood home. For a second, I looked around confusedly until I realized what had happened again.

"Devyn." Thomas looked down at me as Jackson held my head off of the floor. Thomas had his hand on my arm and looked at me, concerned. He had no idea to what was going on. Jackson knew.

"I need to talk to her for a minute," Jackson told Thomas. I watched what was going on above me as Thomas just stared at Jackson and nodded. "Alone, please?"

"Um..." Thomas took his hand from my arm and grabbed the table to pull himself off of the ground. "Of course."

"Thanks," Jackson whispered to him as he walked out of my apartment for a few minutes. As soon as he was gone, Jackson looked down at me. His face was upside-down, so I slowly sat myself up and turned toward him.

"I—" I began, but Jackson stopped me from speaking.

"No, Dev, don't talk. I know what happened. I'm sorry for suggesting the game," he apologized, looking down at his hands as if it was completely his fault.

"Jacks, don't blame yourself," I put my hand on his wrist. "You did nothing. I—"

"You stopped taking your medicine, didn't you?" he questioned, but he knew from seeing my reaction. "Why, Devyn? You know what that does!" he scolded me.

"When I take my medicine, I feel like I have to have it to keep my life under control. That is not a good feeling."

"I understand where you're coming from, Devyn, but you have to take it. You could injure yourself even more than just falling off of a chair. Please promise me you'll start taking them again," he begged, grabbing my wrist as I kept a grip on his. There were tears in his eyes, showing that he was extremely concerned for me. I nodded slowly, but Jackson looked at me intently. He told me, "I want to hear you say it. You promise you'll start to take them again?"

"Yes," I agreed quietly and pushed myself off of the floor. I grabbed my phone from the table and texted Thomas to tell him that if he wanted to, he could come back to finish the game.

He responded less than a minute later, "I've got some tests tomorrow, so I should study. I'm on my way back to my dorm now. See you later."

"So Thomas isn't coming back to finish the game. Honestly, I don't feel like it either," I admitted to Jackson.

"That's all right," he replied as he began to pack away the game.

"I'm sorry we couldn't finish it. I know you love this game," I pouted, upset because I thought I'd disappointed him.

"Don't apologize for something you can't control," he shrugged. "It doesn't matter, anyways. I'll put these away, so where do you want them?"

"You can put them in the closet of the second room. You'll see some other games there," I explained to him.

"Okay." He nodded, understanding where I meant. I sat down on the couch and, as my body connected with the soft fabric, I was seated back in my family's blue SUV.

This time, the fog was somehow completely gone. I could see clearly out of the windows of the car. My dad's gaze was focused on the map my mother had so they could find their way to the church. As the beastly pick-up truck rounded the corner, the driver's bright blonde hair caught my eye. Because everything was in slow motion, I studied his face and focused on the dark brown eyes of the male I knew I recognized.

As usual, the crash played over and over again in my head. I couldn't stop seeing it. Every time I'd see the crash, it would go faster. It must've shown at least twenty times before I was shaken back into reality. Just like he had been earlier, Jackson was hovering over top of me, holding me tight.

"You need to start taking your meds again," he sighed, knowing that I was alright in his grasp.

"I know..." I paused, not even bothering to respond to Jackson. "...who it was."

"What are you talking about?" he questioned, gazing farther into my eyes as he tried to decipher my words. I did that for him.

Quietly and so inaudible that Jackson didn't hear, I whispered to myself, "It was Thomas..."