doppelgänger --> there's never just one {sequel}

dennis

He was familiar to the feeling of needle against skin, sitting there in the hard leather chair in the middle of a tattoo shop, hearing the constant buzz of the machine that the artist was holding in her hand.

Love was made to break, he kept mouthing the words to himself as he watched the thick black letter slowly come together, vertically across the edge of the bone leading up to his elbow, on the inside of his right forearm. Not too long ago, he had gotten a sketch he'd put together of a girl standing lone, with angel wings, facing the other way so only the back of her and the side of her face was visible, on the inside of his forearm for his adopted sister back at his old 'parents'' house. She had gotten sick as a little girl with something deadly called meningitis, which later killed her by infection in the neck, then going to the brainstem, all occurring to her at five years old. Dennis remembered her often complaining of headaches, which turned out to be brain inflammation, and she also had fevers. Her parents blew it off and ignored it until she went to the doctor's for a yearly required checkup one day, and the doctors found the meningitis by chance. But by that time, there was no hope. They had caught it too late.

She would've been fourteen.

He blamed Robert and Emily Kelter, his adopted parents for it completely. Neglection is what they did to her, and to he himself as well when they were small children. There was no doubt they should be locked up by now.

Dennis often had nightmares and flashbacks that kept him awake when it was dark and the moon shone through his window, of his childhood when he lived with that evil man and woman. Beatings, whippings, 'canings', spankings, smackings, locking-in-closets and other unspeakable crimes was how the Kelters tortured little Dennis -- and sometimes even five-year-old Fiona before she died from illness.

Those thoughts were never leave his head.

And now as he sat, seventeen years old, getting words that felt true to him etched into his pale flesh, the needle was painless. He felt numb. Number than he ever had before.

*

Dennis and his twin sisters had always had very close relationships with each other, from the time they were little, to now, in their teenage years. They told each other everything, and always stood by each other, like siblings should. Late nights staying up, talking about anything and everything in the dead of night, when sometimes they would all three get caught hysterically laughing at something ridiculous by Scout and Andy and get scolded an told to get to bad and get some sleep.

Those were good times, and despite the fact that either Scout or Andywould catch them and seem mad at the time, Dennis and the twins knew their parents would laugh about it to themselves later.

And it wasn't like that didn't happen often. But recently, ever since Dennis and Bex had broken up and had their toxic falling-out, Dennis hadn't been the same person they always knew. And no matter how hard the family tried, even if it was Dani or Sadie, they couldn't get anything out of him, not even just to clear what happened between he and Bex in the first place.

But finally, one evening when Sadie went upstairs to go try again, it seemed she'd caught him at the right time once and for all.

No later after Sadie had just taken her fist back off Dennis's bedroom door from knocking on it had he opened it straight away.

Sadie raised her eyebrows in surprise, meeting eyes with him. "Wow, um.... I'm kind of shocked you answered me quickly. I didn't even say your name yet."

He shrugged, indicating the fact he thought it was no big deal.

"Okay, so... can we please talk? I've been waiting forever."

"Yeah, I know. All of you have. I was just never ready to talk about it before, and I'm sorry about that." He paused, looking down for a second. "You can come in now, you know."

Sadie nodded and walked under his arm, where it was leaned against the doorframe, and walked into his room.

Please don't notice the shirt, please don't notice the shirt, he prayed as she walked into the room, and he quickly pushed the door up behind her and ran over to his desk chair, grabbing the gray shirt off of it and tossing it in his closet. But it seemed he was too late in attempting to hide the turned-inside-out, blood-stained fabric from her. She had already noticed, pointing it out and running over to his closet to inspect it.

She picked it up, forcing him to look at it by holding it up in front of him. "So, this is why you cringe every time I hug you," Sadie said, a tear rolling down her cheek. "You're cutting your stomach and your chest so no one will see. Why didn't you tell me, Dennis? I can help you."

"Sadie, you can't help me," he assured her, shaking his head. "There's nothing you can do."

"Isn't there something.... Mom and Dad can do? Or a therapist, or church or something?"

"Sadie," he said with a doubtful smirk, "Mom and Dad could only do the same as you. Therapists just feed you medication after medication, and they don't listen. And what is church going to do? The priests are sinners too, just like us. What are they going to do, cleanse me! It's not like they're holier than anybody else. No one can fix the mental sickness in my head. Several mental issues, rather."

Sadie continued to focus on Dennis, hard, begging him, "Just let me help you. Let us help you. I promise, Dennis, someone will be able to help. Most likely everyone will, because we love you."

He stood there, silent for a moment. He looked back at his sister again. "Thanks, Sadie, but no. No one has the ability to fix my problems. I appreciate the fact that you care though, anyway."

"No one in the world?" she said as she looked down at the floor.

Dennis's gaze flicked over to her once more. "What?"

"You said no one has the ability to help you. And I said, no one, even in the entire world?"

He turned his gaze back down to the carpet floor below him, his arms crossed. "I don't think so."

Dennis thought no one could heal the pain he felt.

Little did he know, his family knew differently.

And they would do everything they could to heal his mind, his body, his soul....

His heart.

Even Dennis knew he deserved better then this. And the fact was, he did. It would just take a little more time to heal him, because he was a good person, and good things took time.