Mixtapes & Polaroids | Sam x Deena

48

Deena should have known the good doesn't last.

Because when she's back in her room at the dead of night, the world asleep and no Sam to hold her hand or make her laugh— all of the silence becomes deafening. Even when she listens to her mixes, even when she turns the volume up so loud her head hurt, the silence still crept in like a flood daring to break down the door. The kind of silence that everyone wishes to vanish, the kind that makes your stomach drop and palms sweat.

And Deena could feel it all over again. It replays in her head like some sadistic snuff film she's forced to watch until she hurls. Because that's the thing with pain, when you mix it with trauma— it's the kind of venomous that hardly ever has a cure. Deena feels it pumping through her veins, every gripping, torturous thought like a clawed hand sinking through her skin.

And it makes her feel dirty. It makes her feel guilty, because she had just spent a good day. A day where she thought she was happy, where she made her friends smile— a day where she had Sam. And Deena hates that she can feel the darkness swallowing her again, because she could tell just by the way everyone looked at her that they thought she was getting better.

Deena was tired of letting them down, so when the sky turns a lighter shade of blue Deena takes a warm shower and puts on as many layers as she could. A little bit of snow had begun to fall, wisps of white covering the tops of the lampposts and trees, and if Shadyside wasn't so rooted with tragedy maybe Deena would even think it was pretty. So with Josh still asleep downstairs, Deena grabs the keys and finds herself driving to the one place she never thought she'd have the courage to return to.

"You know, you were the last thing I believed in." Deena mumbles, sitting cross legged on the grass in front of her mother's grave.

She's been there for hours, never saying a word. She just sits and stares, opens her mouth and closes it again. The sun was shining in the sky, snow piling up on her clothes as she brushes it off every few minutes. Every single time Deena thinks she knows what to say, the knife in her heart twists and she's left in searing agony. And maybe it was dumb, talking to a slab of stone and rotting bones like it could ever undo all the years of deception— but Deena was at the end of the line.

She was desperate.

"Now I can't even have that. I can't hate you for it either, because somehow I don't think— I just wish you made better choices. I wish you didn't have to leave me with all this baggage. I can't even recognize myself anymore." Deena says with defeat. She thought she'd arrive there with rage, but as she sat in place, all that was left to her was despair, exhaustion and a broken heart.

"I don't know when I can talk to you again. But I promise I won't tell Josh. He doesn't have to lose you twice, he doesn't deserve that." Deena's voice cracks as she speaks, and even when she wants to scream and curse and yell out every single thing that tore her apart she still found herself that little girl who adored her mother.

And she hated herself for it too.

She cowered even at the mere thought of the woman she spent her entire life yearning for. Now she had to undo all of it, like taking every good memory and stripping it to it's ugly core. Deena has to lose everything good, or live in delusion. Both paths that would leave her a shattered mess, the kind of mess nobody would want to touch. Not even Sam.

So Deena finally gets up, dusting off the snow from her clothes as she peers upon the flowers Josh had left just a day before. She knew it would be much easier to not have to do it alone, but Deena had always loved her brother more than she loved herself. Even if she didn't say it out loud much. So with the promise of self destruction and isolation, Deena takes a deep breath— as deep as she could, right before she begins to sink again.