Lights | A Forever Fanfiction

Chapter Nineteen: Through the Mist

I was trembling. It took me several minutes to notice it, but I was shaking like a leaf. As we sat down in a cafe, I had to form fists with my palms to prevent them from trembling. Dr. Morgan handed me a warm paper cup filled with hot cocoa.

"I want to go home," I said quietly. "I want to go home. I don't want to grow up. I don't want to deal with this." I laid my head down onto the table, laying my trembling arms to rest around it, like a protective ring.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Morgan murmured.

"Why?" I mumbled, my voice muffled. "It's not like it's your fault. It's not like we can even do anything. Even if we did, Adam would be born again in the Hudson, ready to return to his life."

"I don't know about his companions, though. Maybe Lieutenant Reece will have some information?" Dr. Morgan wondered.

"Except she's pissed with us," I grumbled. "I hate this."

"I know."

"What do you know?" I snapped, sitting up. "You've been so clueless! You're supposed to be an adult. Adults know everything. You're so stupid." Guilt stormed through me, paralysing me, as my sudden rage melted away into hollowness. My head fell onto the table with a loud thud. Pain snapped through my forehead, and the hot cocoa tipped over, spilling onto the table, onto the floor, everywhere.

"You didn't mean that," Dr. Morgan said. "Because you're a better person than that."

I just shook my head, as the cooling hot chocolate dripped to the ground in a series of quiet plunks.

"Come on, Lights," Dr. Morgan said. He tied his scarf around his neck and fastened the buttons of his coat. Outside, snowflakes drifted to the earth. He gathered a handful of napkins and sopped up the mess. He helped me up. I did not respond. He started to take me back to the police station, and I followed him silently, my head cast down, emotionless, unresponsive.

"I want to hate everything," I said, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. "I want to kill Adam, permanently. I want to find his accomplices and bring them to justice. But, most of all, I want to hate you." I could practically feel the wave of injured pride seeping out of him. It was so intense it may as well have been tangible. "I want to hate you, because right now, my subconscious thinks that you brought this upon me. That this is your fault. That the moment you steeped into my mother's life, fate changed its story. So now here we are." I felt tears press forwards, spattering against the pavement. Dr. Morgan's confused gaze was burning through me, searching for answers amidst my chaotic, scattered mind.

"I want to hate you," I continued, "because, even though I know it's not logical for me to blame you, I do. And if I don't hate you, I'll just end up hating myself, because why was I so stupid that I couldn't even find out my mother's secret? How did I not notice?"

The silence muffled my senses, filling my mouth, my eyes, my ears, my nose, like cotton being stuffed inside of me. Tears streaked forwards, seeping forwards and falling through the empty air. Dr. Morgan reached forwards, as if to hug me, but reconsidered. Probably a good choice, considering my current state of mind.

"Like," I sobbed, "I have an IQ of a hundred and thirty five. I should have seen it." I choked. "I must seem so stupid, wanting to hate you. I must be really stupid." I shook my head. "I'm just so damn lazy. School? Hah, hahah. That's nothing. But the real world? That's what I'm running from. That's what I don't want to deal with." I doubled over, ignoring the questioning stares from the passersby around us. "So now, my father is dead. My mother is insane. The rest of my family is AWOL. I have no friends."

"Lights," Dr. Morgan said cautiously. "It's not your fault."

"Maybe I do need a shrink," I moaned. Gentle hands embraced me. I didn't bother to fight him off. "I'm sorry."

"Okay, Lights," he replied quietly. "It's okay. I promise." We looked at each other, the silence speaking for us.

"I'm sorry," I said again.

"Don't be," he replied. "As an expert on death, I can say that I'm surprised you lasted this long."

"What?"

"Without a depressed emotional breakdown," he explained. "Within the five stages of grief - There was denial, your calm attitude before. Anger came with the book-throwing rage at the apartment. Bargaining must have been lost in translation, because I don't know when that happened, but I do know that you just went through the fourth stage: depression."

"What are you, a psychiatrist?" I asked with a tearful giggle.

"Maybe," he replied. "People aren't my thing."

"Meh," I agreed, trying to collect myself. I felt incredibly pathetic, but on another level, I felt better. Then again, tears release a chemical in your body that make you feel better, so if I hadn't felt better, that would have been unusual.

My scattered thoughts were brushed away like dust with the wind, and I rose fully, wiping away the salty tears that clung to my cheeks.

As we walked away, sudden realisation fell over me. My thirst for vengeance was my way of bargaining. It remained, but I was no longer destroying myself over Adam and his stupid cult thingy.

I was the only one who knew that.

I was the only one who could get inside my thoughts, and merge with my mind, or be in my head.

And somehow, that thought made me very, very happy.

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