۫ ּ ִ ۫ ˑ ֗ 𓏲˖ 𑁍 ࣪ ִ ۫ ּ ִ ۫ ˑ ֗
࣪𓏲ּ ֶָ  ✩◿𝓓𝓣𝓐◸ 🂱 ࣪𓏲ּ ֶָ
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE—
muscle memory

Sarah staying with Gwen at night. They slept in the same bed, Gwen liked having Sarah there with her. She woke with a gasp that night and then woke Sarah, telling her all about her dreams of what her thinks the outside of the house looked like.

"Tell me if anything starts to look familiar." Sarah drove slowly down the streets of north Denver, Gwen peering out of the passengers seat.

"It's gotta be around here." she shook her head, looking at both sides of the street as Sarah drove as slow as she possibly could. "My dreams are right sometimes. I feel like this one is."

"Whatever you need." Sarah promised her. Gwen's dreams had been right about two things in Sarah's life, she trusted them to lead them to Finney somehow. "I believe you."

Gwen gave her a sad smile. "I know you do. No one else."

"Finney does." Sarah reminded her as Gwen looked to the window again. "Vance did too, you know?"

"Did he really?" Gwen glanced over at her, she hadn't known that. "Because of what I told him that one time? About Billys bike at the river?"

"Yeah." Sarah nodded as she gave her a sad smile. "So, if Vance Hopper can believe in something like that, I think it must be pretty real."

It made Gwen smile a little. "Sarah?"

"Yeah?" she hummed, taking a turn to the next street.

"I know this is really hard for you too." she whispered to her, her breath fogging the glass just a little. "But thank you for being here with me."

Sarah took her eyes off the road. They'd been going so slow that she knew she barley had to watch the road. "I told you that's i'd be here if you needed me."

"Finneys gonna be really happy that you stayed." Gwen promised her as she looked to the window again. "Maybe forever this time?"

Sarah shook her head. "I don't think so."

Gwen frowned as Sarah reached over and put her hand on her head. "I think i'll just take you two with me."

Gwen nodded with a swallow, a sad smile on her lips. "I'd really like that, Sarah."

Sarah didn't like the idea of Gwen going to school, but at the end of the day Terrance was the one that was the parent. She resulted in hanging up the missing flyers for Finney, using his school photo. She stared at it after she hung it up on the post in the middle of town. Billys photo had been there, Griffins had too, then Vance's was, likely Bruce's, and Robins was on the other side. Sarah winced as a flash of a memory flashed across her head.

"Give him horns." Matt laughed as him and his other two friends crowded the post in the middle of town. They were all so close together that it was hard to see what they were messing with.

"I'm glad he's gone." Matty said honestly. "Dude was insane."

"So insane." Buzz pulled back, lowering the sharpie. Sarah had been waiting for her friend outside of the store, watching the whole thing go down. When they backed up, she'd seen they'd been drawing on Vance's missing poster. It struck an ungodly amount of anger inside of her, the type that she needed to hurt something or it'd probably result in her keeping it all balled up inside that it's start to make her sick. "He should have been the fir-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence before a hand latched onto the back of the collar of his shirt, yanking so hard that he was thrown onto the ground. Sarah immediately got ontop or him and slammed her hand into his face.

"Oh shit." Matt looked to Matty for something to do. Matty grabbed onto Sarah to try and get her off, but he barley got his hands on her before Robin came running from the store and tackling him. Matt ran away, not sure who else was about to run from that store.

"Hey." Sarah held Buzz's face as his red blood practically matched his red hair. She smiled at him as if she hadn't just hit him in the face six times. Her bloody hand clutched his face, making his cheeks squish together. "You come here again and i'm gonna fucking kill you."

Robin was just holding Matty down, but he didn't put up a fight. He just laid there and let Robin hold his arms down. He let him go and stood up. "Don't move."

Robin went to Sarah after she hit Buzz again, pulling on her arm as he caught sight of the woman in the store holding the phone to her ear. "Cmon, Sarah. Don't think you wanna get arrested."

She got up when he pulled her, the pair hurrying away as he grabbed the bag. "Woah, our chips stayed unharmed."

"What'd you do? Throw them before tackling him?" Sarah laughed as Robin popped the bag open.

"I kinda threw them and tackled him at the same time." he nodded with a comical laugh, holding the bag her way so she could dig her hand in.

Sarah blinked the memory away, taking a deep breath as she took her eyes away from the post. She circled the the other side and stared at Robins, frowning as she touched the photo of him with the hand that had the bandana around it.

"Okay, I got the copies." Mr.Yamada walked from the office, a whole basket of newspaper in his arms. "I could come with you in the morning to throw them."

"No, I think i'll be okay. I know you've got school to teach and you already missed today to be with me." she took them from him. "Thank you though."

He looked at the post she'd been frozen infront of moments before. "Finney reminds me so much of you."

Sarah gave a small smile. "You've said that before."

"He does." he said again as she turned her back to it, not wanting to get stuck staring like she had so many times before. "He's such a good kid, a good student. I love having him in my class, Robin too. There such sweet boys, even when they weren't."

"Yeah, they are." Sarah gave a sad smile. She had hope before Finney that Robin was alive, she could admit that. He wasn't gone long, there was a huge chance he was still alive when she first got to Denver. But, deep down, Sarah knew that taking two boys at once wasn't The Grabbers way. She knew that if Finney was alive, and he had to be, that Robin just wasn't. "I miss them."

"I miss them too." he nodded, putting his arm around her as they walked away from it. "Let's get these newspapers in your car so you can get up at four. You think your body is ready to physically get up that early? You're not just gonna hit snooze and fall back asleep, are you?"

Sarah cracked a small smile. "No. Billy use to drag me with him all the time. I think it's...muscle memory."

He nodded and rubbed her back. "Muscle memory."

Finney let the door handle go with a gasp as the phone rung. He gasped and walked over, yanking it off the wall. "Hello?"

"Don't go upstairs." this voice wasn't familiar, not exactly anyways. He was a lot clearer then Bruce had been, he understood him better. Not so upset.

"Why not?" Finney stared at the cracked door.

"It's a trap." he informed him of what they all had known.

It didn't sound like Bruce, Finney knew that. "Are you-are you Bruce?"

"Who's Bruce?" he asked him back.

"I was just talking to Bruce." Finney explained, hoping maybe that would give something away.

"I don't know any Bruce's." the voice said back.

"He's the baseball player." Finney explained to him.

"We don't play...baseball here." there the sad tone was, the one Finney was expecting to hear immediately. It took a moment to come, but it eventually did like he expected.

"Who are you?" Finney turned to the side.

"I don't remember." he answered him, but Finney slightly knew he'd had to have forgotten it.

"Did you play soccer, football?" he looked for any possible way to match a name to a voice, because this one really didn't recognize this voice.

"I delivered newspapers." he said in return, staring at Finney despite him not knowing. "You know my friend....you know Sarah."

Finney felt his heart sink, he knew exactly who it had been and was in shock he had never heard his voice before. "Billy. You're Billy Showalter."

"Maybe." he said back, he knew that Sarah had said it to him that time she was in the afterlife, but he had forgotten it again.

"No, you're Billy." Finney was absolutely certain.

"Do.not.go.upstairs." Billy told him very clearly, backing away.

"What is he doing?" Finney questioned him.

"He's waiting." Billy paused. The sadness was gone and he was overtaken by anger again. "On the other side with that fucking belt. He didn't say you could levee, so if you try, he'll punish you. He'll beat you with that belt until you pass out. It hurts, kid. It hurts real bad. You'll cry. You'll beg him to stop. We all did. But he just keeps beating you."

"Hello?" Finney heard the line go. "Hello?"

But he was gone, and Finney stared at the door as he pulled it open before shutting it again. He sat on the ground with his knees up until the phone rung again, bringing him to his feet once again to hurry over. "Hello?"

"You said my name was Billy." Billy stared at the photo Finney had placed on the bed, it was of the back of it where Sarah's name was and his blurred to nothing.

"Billy Showalter." Finney confirmed.

"Don't call me that." he snapped at him. The spirit bottle started to shake. "I don't remember it. It's not who I am now."

"What do you want me to call you then?" he slowly approached the shaking bottle. "What do you remember?"

The bottle fell. "I told you. I was a paperboy."

"Okay. Paperboy." Finney confirmed for him. "Did you really do it? That day with the car?"

"What car?" Billy asked him.

"When Sarah ran from her house and thought she'd seen you, but that car almost hit her because she wasn't watching." Finney explained, recalling his memory. "My sister said she saw you shove Sarah out of the way in one of her dreams. Did you really? Or did Sarah move on her own?"

"No." Billy said back. "I shoved her. It was the only time I was allowed to help her."

"Allowed?" Finney asked him.

"We only have enough energy to do something physically like that just once. Even though she keeps almost getting herself killed." Billy huffed and shook his head. "Where did she go? I haven't been able to find her until a few days ago again."

"She went to Aspen for school. She's home now." Finney told him. "You're able to see her?"

"Sometimes, only for a little bit." he said back, Finney listened closely. "She's really worried about you, kid. You need to listen to us so you can go back to her, do what non of us could."

"What?" he asked.

"See that wall infront of you?" the ghost asked, knowing Finney was staring at the right wall. "See the wall separated from the floor?"

"Yeah." Finney said back.

"I tore a long cable loose from down there." Billy told him, knowing it could help. "I kept it hidden."

"What am I suppose to do with that?" Finney asked him, just as lost. His eyes widened a little when the empty sprite bottle started to spin in a fast circle, pointing to the window high up.

"Go back, and do what non of us did." Billy told him one more time. "Live for Sarah. Just do it for her, and tell her that I don't blame her. I don't blame her for not walking home with me."

The line fell dead.

•

kylie speaks

billy had like one minute
of screen time but i loved
him so much. he gave me
mean best friend but also
a sweetie vibes with super
rich parents that aren't
involved in his life much vibes
if yk what i mean