"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter One-Hundred-And-Thirty-Three: On The Search For Eddie
(Vecna's Curse, Pt. 2)
***
Chrissy was dead.
That was all Rowan could think, ringing in her mind over and over again like a macabre refrain: Chrissy was dead, Chrissy was dead, Chrissy was dead. Mixed with the phrase was Chrissy's face, eyeless and streaked with bloody tears, jaw hanging brokenly in a forever scream, her limbs twisted, as Rowan felt her heart cracking over and over again, grief serrating her with jagged daggers while her face was blank, eyes now dried of tears.
Chrissy was dead.
Never again would she and Chrissy have a sleepover, singing duets and watching movies and having stupid sleepover games and whisper and giggle about their boyfriends and ask each questions from Cosmo quizzes. Never again would she and Chrissy go on a shopping trip or to the movies, or swim at Lover's Lake in summer. Never again would she and Chrissy talk of the future, of college and beyond, of shyly talking about marriage and families. Never again would Rowan and Chrissy halfheartedly argue about movies and music. Never again would Rowan call Chrissy for help with finding an outfit for a date and they would make a fun occasion out of it. Never again would Chrissy hold Rowan when she woke up screaming from a nightmare, or Rowan would hold Chrissy when her mother and her passive-aggressive comments got to her. Never again would Rowan see Chrissy's beaming smile, or hear her laugh, or call her best friend to talk or hug her.
Never again would Rowan see Chrissy and tell her best friend she'd known since middle school how much she loved her.
Chrissy was dead.
"See you tomorrow," Chrissy told Rowan, with a smile over her shoulder. Except Rowan would never see Chrissy again tomorrow, because Chrissy was gone, and Rowan should have told Chrissy how much she loved her, she should have hugged her just a bit more tighter, she should have said more than just, "See you tomorrow," she should have told Chrissy the truth right there and then, she should have let Chrissy know how much Rowan loved her, but she couldn't and Chrissy was gone.
Chrissy was dead.
The pain Rowan was feeling was the exact same pain she felt when Alistair died, except it was worse, because her best friend was never coming back, Chrissy was gone and she would always be and Rowan didn't want her to be gone, she wanted Chrissy back, she wanted to see Chrissy's smile and hear Chrissy's laugh and feel her embrace and hug her back and she wanted her best friend back but she can't and she fucking missed her and it was fucking agony.
A sob scraped out of Rowan's throat and she hugged her knees to her chest tighter as her body shook with dry sobs, her back pressed against the door as her eyes burned with phantom tears but none slipped free—she'd cried out all the tears she had back in that forest, when she unleashed the storm of her grief. And yet she wanted to cry, she wanted to scream and shake the world with her grief, but she couldn't so instead she curled up in the backroom of Family Video so she could have the privacy to break down and sob out the ghost of her tears, the ghost of her grief, sobbing out the pain shattering her over and over and over again.
