The Music I Live By

Chapter 3

A/N: So I'm about 9000 words behind schedule, since today is actually a separate day from yesterday. Boo. I'm up to 6290 out of 50000 words.

I'm still going to do this, I'm going to beat the freaking odds. 15000 words by the end of the day. I can do this, dang it!

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"You know, it's really silly of you to do this, you're just hurting us more than you're helping yourself." Andy said, standing behind her as she sat staring at the nameless crypt. He wasn't sitting beside her, probably because he knew that he wouldn't be warmly welcomed, at least not outwardly. They both knew that she would be more than happy for him to be sitting beside her, but she would act upset, and he probably didn't want her to even act upset, which was why he was just looming behind her, puffy black hair making an entertaining shadow as it blew in the wind.

"It's day time." She said off-hand-ish-ly, and was surprised that there seemed to be people, few people but people none the less, walking about.

"Yes." He said, not offering further explanation, though he'd known him long enough to know that he probably had an answer. He had an answer for pretty much everything, even things she didn't have answers to, which was strange since he was a figment of her imagination, but she supposed it was like the hallucinations, she couldn't stop it from being true, it just was, she just had to know when to stop asking questions and start ignoring the things that didn't make sense.

"I've never seen you in the daylight." She said, turning to look at him. She tilted her head to the side, surprised at what she saw. The sunken cheeks, dark circled eyes, and long black hair were all still there, but he had a more... alive look about him.

"I can't say the same, unfortunately." He chuckled. "But if it's any consolation you're beautiful in the daylight and the moonlight." He threw her a confident grin and she flushed.

"Becks," he sighed, coming closer to her, but stopping before he came close enough that he was touching her. She just stared at the crypt, feeling the same warmth radiate from in front of her as came from Andy, who stood behind her. "Why are you doing this?" he asked her, but she knew he was asking because he wanted her to realize the answer herself. Andy never asked a question he didn't know the answer to.

"This isn't good for me Andy." She said, looking away from him, biting her lip. "I shouldn't keep pretending you're real. I'll never actually be able to have you, so I shouldn't keep taunting myself. I doubt I'll ever find anyone who's as perfect for as a person I made up myself, even in a non-romantic way." She told him, and his cold hand touched her face, but sending a warmth deep into her bones that was so comforting.

"What if I wasn't made up? What if you didn't have to pretend I was real, because I was real the whole time?" He asked, and she laughed coldly.

"Don't say things like that." She said, tears welling in her eyes as she pulled herself out of his grip and looked back at the crypt. "We both know that isn't true."

He sighed, and started to say something but instead of speaking with his voice he said in a strange, high pitched voice-

"Rebecca, wake up." Her mother was saying, shaking her gently. She groaned, clutching her hand gently to her chest and trying not to let on about the other pains that racked her body.

"I'm up." She groaned, looking miserably up at her mother.

"They're going to take some X-rays, alright, come on." Her mother said, making her get out of her seat and go into a room that smelt like disinfectant. She wrinkled her nose and saw a flash of pale skin and leather out of the corner of her eye. She suppressed a smile, remembering that she was just imagining things. She wondered if maybe she should be slightly more worried about being so okay with imagining things. Surely it wasn't a normal thing to be okay with hallucinatin on a regular basis. Next thing she knew she'd be seeing him in the flesh right in front of her and would be convinced he was real, and think she could feel him touching her with his comforting, icy hands.

She jumped when his hand brushed hers.

Damn it, she had to stop thinking like that. His hand hadn't touched hers, she'd imagined it touching hers; it was a hallucination. She glanced at her mother, who thankfully hadn't noticed anything was wrong, then glanced in the other direction and for the briefest of instances she could've sworn she saw Andy standing right beside her, smiling comfortingly at her with his perfect pink lips, strangely absent of their usual red stain, and his usual dark make up seemed to have vanished as well, but she barely caught that brief glimpse before he was gone, like he'd never even been there, because he hadn't been. She was hallucinating.

She was guided into an X-ray room, and they discovered that she had hairline fracture in two bones in her palm. They put her in a brace, gave her some pain meds and sent her on her merry way, though she was more loopy than merry from the very strong pain killer they had given her, unreasonably strong, but she didn't care while she was practically high.

"Maybe I should've taken you to one of the big hospitals, I think they may have given you something to strong." Her mother said warily as she drove home to put Rebecca to bed.

"Tell her to take the pills away and not to give you any." Andy's voice murmured to her, and she giggled.

"Mom, Andy said not to let me have any more of the pills." Rebecca told her mother, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Who's Andy?" Her mother asked, and Rebecca laughed.

"He's my boyfriend, mom." She told her mother, leaning back on the seat contently.

"Boyfriend?" her mother asked.

"Ask her to take you to get food." Andy told her, and she nodded, letting him know in her intoxicated stupid that she was going to do as he asked.

"Mom, I'm hungry," Rebecca said, and her mother looked at her warily.

"Okay Becca, I'll get you some food, just wait until we get home." Her mom told her, and she nodded. Her mother had obviously forgotten about the boyfriend comment, which she would be glad for later. Her mother was always worried about her having a boyfriend for some reason, like it would be a bad thing, but then again she did get pregnant with Rebecca just before she graduated from High School, so maybe that had something to do with it. She didn't really care though.

"Tell her that you want a snuggly bunny tiger." Andy told her, chuckling and she tried to look up at him quizzically, but no one was there.

"I want a snuggly bunny tiger?" She said, more like a question than anything else, and her mother laughed.

"You're really out of it aren't you?" Her mom asked and Andy whispered more directions in her ear.

"Tell her that you're out of pickles."

"I'm out of pickles?" She asked, looking at her mother like she wasn't making any sense, except her mother was making sense, Rebecca was the one not making any sense.

"Really? I wouldn't think it would matter. I was under the impression that you were anti-pickle.

Andy chuckled and told her to say, "But pickles are my best friends, I don't want them to be deported," which she did say, which made her mother laugh a little bit.

"Alright, honey, we won't deport the pickles." Her mother assured her, and Rebecca smiled.

"Yay!" She said tiredly, closing her eyes again and leaning back against the seat. The familiar warmth was on her hand, but it wasn't as fleeting as it was every time before, not that she would've noticed how fleeting or not fleeting the touch was. All she knew was that she was more than happy to feel Andy's hand over hers again, like old times. It hadn't been long since the last time they'd been together happily, but it felt like so long to her semi-functioning brain, and even longer to her cracking heart.

"I love you." She said to Andy before she started to fall asleep, but her mother misinterpreted it, thinking Rebecca had told her she loved her, not that it wasn't true, it just wasn't in that context.

Her mother told her that she loved Rebecca as well, and Rebecca smiled when the familiar deep voice of her imaginary boyfriend spoke in her ear softly.

"I love you more than I love living."