Fly

Chapter 10: The Past

Note: I am not sorry for this one. 

The next few days at the Mystery Shack were surprisingly pleasant. The twins kept things lively—Mabel with her endless enthusiasm and Dipper with his ever-curious mind, always searching for the next mystery. Mabel's matchmaking schemes had grown more subtle lately (for now), which allowed you and Stan to find your own rhythm. Whether it was sharing a quiet morning coffee before the chaos of the day or getting caught up in Mabel's latest antics, there was a comforting familiarity to it all.

But as things seemed to move forward, you found your mind getting stuck in its old patterns.

In the quieter moments, when the twins were off on some adventure or the shop had closed for the evening, doubts crept in. Does Stan actually like me, or is he just being polite? What if I'm just annoying him? What if I'm reading too much into things? Your mind started spinning, conjuring scenarios where Stan grew tired of you, or worse, started avoiding you. You tried to push the thoughts away, tried to focus on the good—the warm moments you shared, his little smiles, the way he seemed to relax around you. But they kept circling back, eating away at the happiness you'd been feeling.

One evening, after another busy day, you found yourself alone in the storage room. The walls seemed to close in as the thoughts flooded back in, uninvited. You paced the room, your heart racing with the anxiety that always seemed to come when things started to go well. You'd been down this road before—things seem great, and then they fall apart. You couldn't help but feel like you were just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"You're gonna mess this up, like always." The thought echoed in your mind, relentless and cruel. You sat down on the corner of the room, your hands shaking slightly. You weren't good at this—at letting people in, at trusting that things could actually work out. The fear of messing everything up made you want to pull away before you got hurt. Better to leave than to be left again, right?

But it wasn't just the fear. It was the memories—the ghosts of old wounds that had never quite healed. You remembered the sleepless nights that had stretched into eternity, the way your mind would spiral until it felt like there was no way out. You remembered the tightness in your chest, the choking feeling that came when you were convinced you were a burden—too much for anyone to handle. Your heart pounded in your ears, the anxiety clawing at you like it wanted to drag you under.

The storage room felt even smaller as the memories began to resurface. You tried to focus on the sounds outside the door, the distant laughter of Mabel and Dipper—but the past had its grip on you. No matter how hard you tried to push it away, the echo of old voices crept back into your mind, as sharp and painful as ever.

You remembered everything.

(Flashback)

"Why couldn't it have been you instead?" Your mother's voice rang in your ears, filled with a bitterness that had never dulled. "She was the good one—the smart one. She would have made us proud. But you... you're nothing but a disappointment."

You remember standing there, a child lost in a world that had suddenly grown so cold. Her words cut deeper than any blade ever could. Tears burned in your eyes, but you'd learned not to cry in front of her. It only made things worse. You could still see your father, silent and stone-faced, his disapproval a heavy weight in the room. He never said much, but the way he looked at you said enough. You knew what they both wished—that it had been you in the car that night, not her.

Your sister. She was everything you weren't—bright, kind, effortlessly graceful. She never judged you for being unsure, for stumbling through life in a way that felt clumsy next to her ease. She had been your anchor in a world that seemed to have no place for you. That night, she had planned to take you out on the town—it had been so long since you'd left the house. She wanted to make you feel alive again. And for a little while, she had. You'd both been laughing, having fun, until the truck came out of nowhere. The car skidded, the world turned upside down, and your sister's life was snatched away in a screech of metal and shattered glass.