This Summer (DMBB Spin-off)

Chapter 40: Letting Go

Extra long chapter since it's the last one!

***
"When you try your best, but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse."

Song: Fix You ~ Coldplay

***

40. Letting Go

I opened my eyes and looked at my hands. They were still trembling, but everything else around me was still.

The darkness was still.

"Shayley?"

I looked around and spotted Cameron.

"You're still here," I said. "H...how? I'm not..."

"Dead? No."

Someone else said that, and I saw my mirror image in front of me also.

I sighed and wiped my tears. "I'm still scared."

"Well if you want to get out of here, then now's the time," Cameron said.

I looked at him. "What?"

"Shay, you've got to go," he told me. "Now."

"What changed?" I asked.

"I don't know, but you've got to go if you want to get back. You can't stay here longer."

I hesitated, not really knowing what to do.

"Shayley," my image called. "You do want to go right?"

I shook my head. "I...I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?" Cameron asked. "If you stay here you'll die."

"If I go back I'll die anyway," I said. "I've tried time after time again but I've somehow always ended up at rock bottom. I can't go back...but she can though."

She looked at me. "Shayley?"

I shrugged wearily. "I'm tired of fighting. You said you're the old me right? The part that actually wants to live. If I have any chance of staying alive out there it has to be whoever I am inside of you doing the living, not the version of myself that got me here."

She looked at Cameron, then back at me. "Are you sure?"

I gave her a sad smile. "I have all the confidence that you...that I'm going to do it right this time."

Cameron smiled. "I'm glad you finally realized that."

She smiled, and then broke out into a soft laugh. "Alright then, Shayley 2.0 it is."

I let out a breath before muttering to myself, "Shayley 2.0."

***

I slowly tried to open my eyes. I heard voices in the background, but I couldn't make them out.

Speak Shayley, you've got to get their attention somehow.

I tried once more to open my eyes, and then I clenched and unclenched my fist.

"Shayley? Oh my God, Shayley!"

The cry. That voice. It was so familiar. It was...

My mom.