Afraid (Alone 2)

19

"Okay?" I said and Dan was just silent as we both looked at Callie waiting for her to explain.

"When you were little do you remember not playing in a certain part of our back yard because you didn't like the humming of the air-conditioning unit when it kicked on on hot days? And when I did make you go around it you covered your ears and cried."

"I don't remember." I said.

"You were like two or three. Do you remember when we found you in that box in the attic when you were like seven and you had nightmares about being alone in the dark forever." She now said.

"She told me about that." Dan now spoke up as I nodded.

"What about the time there was an earthquake when you were four and you kept crying and I was being mean and I scared you by telling you the ground was splitting open outside?"

"What?! No. Why would you do that?!" I said.

"Because I was a little kid and I was mean." She said "But do you see the theme here? Everything that happened to you were things you were scared of. This was you, Amelia. Whatever happened to you two was you."  She said.

"What... how-how could I...?" I felt confused as I thought about it.

Was it my fault?
Was it all me that caused Dan and I to go though all of this?

"Let's not just make any assumptions, we really don't know or understand what happened." Dan said.

"Why else would you be there? She liked you and pretty much hated everyone else, or she thought she did." Callie said.

"It's my fault." Quietly left my mouth. I put Dan there somehow with me in my own hell, I put him through that and he accidentally fell in love with me because of it. Phil was now threatening him and they were fighting, there were pictures of me all over the Internet accusing me of breaking up Dan and Phil.

I looked at Dan who was carefully watching my face maybe to see what I would do next as the room was silent.
He had watched me die and it was my fault. I had put him through hell.

I felt tears leave my cheeks.

"I'm so sorry." I said to him.

"No, no." He said.

"I didn't know..." I trailed off.

"No Amelia, I'm sure it wasn't you, I-I don't know. It doesn't even matter." He took my hand but the guilt was overwhelming.

"If I had to do it again to find you I would. That's the truth. I could've stayed there with you and somehow I would've felt fine, I figured that out months into it. I'm glad it happened." He said but I felt like he was trying to make me feel better.

"You're crazy, no you wouldn't have just been okay with being there forever." I said calling out his lie but he was looking me dead in the eyes.

"I would've. If you did this, even if you didn't know you did, then thank you. Thank you for liking me so much before you ever even knew me, thank you for trying and try to be nice and close to me even though I ignored you in the begining. Thank you for making me worry about you enough for me to realized how crazy I was about you. I don't care how, when, where or why we met but I'm glad we did and that's why I wouldn't take back any bit of the time I was with you, not even the bad parts. An you didn't force me to fall in love with you or anything like that if that's what you're thinking, I just realized that you're pretty much the other half of myself, the half I never knew I needed or wanted or that existed." He told me.

"That's a little cringey, but cute. I don't know why I'm still here." Callie said.

"Shut up." I said and she sighed and got up and walked off and let us have our moment. My tears stopped and I felt better because I could see that what he was saying he meant.