Close To You | Sam Carpenter

06

Mabel continued to take deep breaths, or at least try with her eyes closed. She was putting her thumb on her other fingers in succession trying to count in her head. She had her knees against her chest at the end of the corridor sitting on the floor.

"Mabel."

The girl immediately jumped at the voice and looked up at the person who had almost made her heart explode in her chest.

"Samantha ?"

She sat silently next to Mabel who was staring at her speechless watching her movements carefully with her eyes.

Their shoulders brushed and Sam turned to her.

"Are you okay ?" She asked softly.

"Y-yeah I'm fine. I'm sorry I lost my temper, I should have, I just-" She took a deep breath and turned to look at the wall.

Sam noticed how shaky her breathing was and frowned in concern.

"I just know it's him Samantha. I'm not crazy-" She began to breathe heavily again with tears rolling down her cheeks. "Y-You have to believe me. I know he's the one who attacked me."

"Hey hey hey-" She put her hand on her chest to prevent her from getting up. "I believe you."

She sniffled and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "Really ?"

"Yeah." She nodded reassuringly, trying to hide her growing concern as she felt the girl's heart pound against the palm of her hand.

She hated when Mabel was sad. It made her sad too.

"You can leave me Samantha. I'll be fine." She mumbled, looking down at Sam's hand.

"Don't act like you don't care." She replied quickly with a serious tone.

Mabel sighed deeply and closed her eyes, she had heard that somewhere before.

"Don't act like you care. I know you care about it."

"This is the purpose of acting. Nobody knows what I care about or not, Sammy."

She felt her stomach drop due to her emotional downfall. A cold shiver ran through her lower back as she opened her eyes in realization.

Everything comes back to her in a deafening silence. The hospital, Gale, Dewey, her birthday. Sam Carpenter.

A drop of sweat rolled down her temple as she gulped slowly trying to process everything she had just experienced again.

Sam didn't know if she should be more worried or relieved that Mabel's heart stopped pounding almost suddenly. She slowly removed her hand and Mabel sighed again.

She remembered now how she had moved on from her crush for Kirby at the time. She had fallen in love with Sam. The real love, the real and only one that Mabel could only express for Sam and no one else.

She had a crush on Sam before she remembered all that. But now it was the end of her.

✭ ✭ ✭

Kirby passed the card and opened the front door to the shrine letting everyone in.

Tara had the idea to use the fact that the killer was going to follow them no matter what to their advantage. And Bailey after hesitate for a moment had agreed. He had insisted that they take the subway. So they did and they lost Mindy, Anika and Ethan along the way, stressing Mabel even more. She didn't want to leave them alone with that psychopath.