Everything is better now that we've broken free from the menacing grasp of the Weekes family. We barely even talk about my parents except to laugh at how absurd their doctrines are, how absurd they are to try and influence me with them and their blatant fallacy that only a bigot could believe, but for the most part, they're only the occasional manifestation of childhood cringe that paralyzes you before you scold yourself for bringing it up and frantically try to remove it from your train of thought. That's all they are now, nothing more to us than a speck of regret.

We have improved every aspect of our relationship to the point where we would do anything to protect each other, a promise that has materialized on several occasions when the horrid Spencer Smith has decided that a suicide attempt isn't enough of a hell for me and also decided that I was in need of more bullying, which Brendon saved me from, and then I saved Brendon when Spencer turned around to go after his opinions with a hammer of a fist to the nose, and after all of this turmoil we fixed each other up so that we could be the entirety that we have worked so hard to be, through every whisper of the underworld rising from the earth and scalding our feet and our stability that we now possess, and because of that stability, we are doing as well as we can.

We are doing so well that we have journeyed into the street to promenade across the sidewalk fettered by holes and cracks that I have been stepping on to abide with the old proverb that dictates that if a kid steps on a river of nothingness in the pavement, then they can break their mother's back, and my mother hasn't been very kind to me lately, so hopefully she's rotting in Bordeaux with an extremely painful coil in her already shrinking spine this very moment because of my vindictive actions upon the cement that never function but I wish did.

Brendon is absolutely pleasant while I think about breaking my own mother's back by hopping on cuts in the pavement, a broad grin camping upon his sunny complexion as he swings our hands back and forth by the fingers like an avid child on their way to a museum with their family or just loving life as it is, and I suppose that's where he is now, even if he knows that we're all dead at some point, but loving life means that he's absorbing everything about his surroundings that he can as if he's never seen it before, and I elect to do the same, because I really haven't seen it before.

The town looks vaguely familiar, as it is with amnesia, because I once knew this place very well until I chose to kill myself and erase those memories, except it didn't work, and I was left with this barren wasteland of a mind, but my memory is sluggishly returning to me from its vacation in hell, and this town is less vague than it would have been a month ago, though I recognize that if I'm slowly regaining my memories then I'll be met with the horrors I put my friends through, but the natural order fucks us all, so I might as well not worry about things when Brendon and I have worked so hard to soothe ourselves.

It's terribly hot in Nevada, but it's always hot in Nevada, so that isn't really a difference. I suppose I'm so acclimated to the temperature in Bordeaux after that one week I spent there and almost got disowned by my parents that I still haven't adjusted amidst the stress placed on me because of that, but I'm supposed to be taking note of everything, so once again, it is terribly hot in Nevada.

Every bounce of my feet upon the pavement is something that I've experienced before, but I cannot place when this occurred, only that it is a personal sensation in the soles of my shoes, all the way up to my bewildered brain whose cognition centers have been on a half time work schedule, and by the looks of it, doesn't appear that it will begin to operate full time ever again, as I did this to myself, and it's only following orders that won't relinquish their totalitarian status for fortuitous qualities, and there's no use in trying to persuade it.

We're nearing a dent in the usually continuous strip of buildings, fascinating and screaming to my attention, so I glance into the alleyway tucked within the crater briefly enough to glimpse an apple spraypainted against the wall dripping with moss to elevate the artistry, beautiful and oddly provocative.

And somehow after months of a terrifying haze slitting my vision with no hope for an escape, suddenly there is everything.

~~~~~

A/N: the last chapter woohoo we're out look at this cliffhanger haha I'm mean whatever WHAT VER!!!!11!!1!!i'm suffering

leave a review of the series in the comments if you want idrc I'm just a comment hoe

aesthetic: definitely not this book 'cause I hate writing it

~Dakota