TW: SCENES OF EMOTIONAL TURMOIL, TRAUMA - REFERENCE TO ABUSE. PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION.

Structure Info:

Normal font - Present (as usual)

Italics - Mason's inner thoughts (as usual)

Italics underlined - sentences written in Lexi's notebook

Bold Italics - Past from Mason's POV

"Mason where are you going?"

"Leave me alone Sam!" I yell, not looking back as he follows me down the stairs.

"Tell me what's going on" he calls after me.

"Not now." I snap, slamming my hand on the exit button for the main door and storming out.

I basically sprint to Sam's truck, pulling open the door with such force it swings back and collides with my shoulder as I get in the driver's side. I'm an inch away from jamming the keys into the ignition when they're ripped roughly from my hand.

"Get out the car Mason" Sam demands, now holding the keys hostage in his right hand which hangs down at his side.

"Give me the keys." I reply, my voice low and commanding while I remain in my seat.

"I can't do that." he shakes his head.

"You have to." I respond, maintaining my tone and turning my head so I can meet Sam's eyes. Maybe then he'll see just how serious I am.

"I'm not letting you drive in this state. We somehow avoided a trip to the ER last night, I'd like to keep it that way." He replies calmly. I feel as though I finally get a glimpse into how someone being talked down from a bridge must feel by the way he speaks to me. I can feel his anxiety as he tries to pacify me - to make me see reason.

Now I know why so many negotiators fail. It's fucking patronizing. 

"Just get out the truck Mason and talk to me. Something clearly changed in the last few minutes. I heard you talking with Hugo and you were nothing like this then. What did you do?"

The anger I've been attempting to restrain bursts at the seems.

"What did I do?!" I spit at Sam, a venom dripping from my tone that used to be reserved for Lexi. Though I guess, it still is given the circumstances. 

I practically throw myself out the car and into Sam's personal space, squaring up against him. Our equal height  and similar weights makes it an even fight but he's running on fear and concern while I'm fuelled by an untamed chaos of anger, hurt and confusion. My guess is that if I had to fight him for the keys, the odds would be in my favor.

"Does everyone trust me so little?!" I snap, "Come on Sam, tell me what you think I did. Tell me how I screwed it all up this time."

"That's not what I meant." He replies, keeping his demeanour cool though his muscles have drawn taunt in anticipation of my eruption.

10 points to the Docs who allowed me to be diagnosed as 'explosive'. Seems they were right.

"No? Then what did you mean Samuel? Because it really sounded like you were trying to suggest I was responsible for whatever has me fucked up."

Every word is yelled in his face but he doesn't falter. He stands strong and speaks calmly once more.

"I'm not placing blame. I just want to help you."

"Help me?" I reiterate back at normal volume as I take a step back from him, "If you wanted to help me, you'd be driving the car - not standing here asking what I've done."

Sam doesn't hesitate. He brushes past me and sits himself in the driver's seat, slamming the door closed and revving the engine in a matter of seconds.

He rolls down the window and turns to look at me, "What? You want me to open the door for you too?"

I shake off my surprise at his gesture as I walk around the vehicle and climb into the passengers side. Although I don't know why I'm surprised anymore. Sam's the kind of guy who would ask 'how high?' if I asked him to jump, to a certain extent anyway. He's not a pushover is what I mean, he's just unyieldingly supportive.

"Where to Captain?" he asks, pulling out of the parking lot.

It's rare that Sam refers to me by my team title outside of games or training. I take it as a nod that I'm in control of the situation.

"Wrendale." I reply, tightening my grip on the notebook that's not left my hand this entire time.

It's time to go home.

~~~~~

"So this is it huh?" Sam asks as he parks up on the opposite side of the street to our destination.

"In all it's glory." I reply sarcastically, opening my door and stepping out the car. 

I lean back against it as Sam rounds the car to join me, falling into a similar pose as I've adopted - my free hand in my pocket and ankles crossed as I look ahead.

There's at least 20 houses on this street, but I only care about two of them; the two that are directly opposite me. One looks more cared for that the other but barely and I think to myself that it's only because the right one has boarded up windows - that one was mine. The one to the left was - is - Lexi's.

They're typical suburban homes. A driveway and front lawn lead to a porch reached by several steps. There's 3 bedrooms upstairs, though only one of them could fit a double bed, and a relatively small bathroom. Downstairs has two front windows, one for a living room and the other for a dining room or home office, whatever you needed it for. A small corridor leads to the back of the house where a small laundry room sits, neighboured by a generous sized kitchen that has a door to the back porch and into the garden.

Neither my family nor Lexi's had been rich but what our parents sacrificed in space, they got back from the view of the lake behind where I stood now. The same lake that Lexi and I used to skate on daily during the winter and pushed each other into in the summer.

We'd been average. Not poor or rich. Just your typically American families living close enough to a major city to work there but far enough away that you'd need to catch a train to get to the other side of Chicago in less than 2 hours.

The paint is peeling from both houses but at least Lexi's house looks lived in. Meanwhile, mine appears totally abandoned. 

I've been walking closer as I mentally recounted their layouts and now I'm stood outside my old front door, looking at a torn and faded repossession order. I'm not surprised given neither of my parents were around to claim interest in the property and I couldn't tell you the last time the mortgage was paid. 

I'm more concerned about the laminated document behind the repossession notification. I pull off what's left of it to reveal a document from the Chicago Police Department labelling the house as a Crime scene.

I check the date and find it was issued on March 24th - the day I was taken into care. The dates of interest to them for when the offences took place were 2 days prior with a message in bold that read 'Investigations not limited to specified dates and/or offences.'

"They must've had you bang to rights Dad." I mutter to myself knowing the evidence the Police would've found against him. There's only so many times the walls can be rubbed with bleach before the blood starts to stain.

"Why are we here Mase?" Sam ask, watching my carefully.

I thought he would've asked sooner but I was grateful for the time to collect my thoughts.

"I found this in Lexi's bathroom" I reply, lifting up the notebook, "She wrote it all down Sam. Everything."

I see the penny drop for him as he makes the correct assumption, "Holy shit."

"Holy shit indeed." I counter on a deep sigh.

"So you know why..." he trails off.

"Not yet."

"Not yet?" Sam reiterates my reply as a question.

Time to come clean.

"It doesn't make sense to me. I don't remember any of the stuff she wrote about the few days before I was taken away."

Sam looks as bewildered as I feel, "What does that mean? It didn't happen the way she wrote it?"

"It's more than that Sam. It feels like I'm reading the script of a movie I watched a long time ago. It's familiar but I can't imagine any of it. I try to picture it and draw a blank."

It was frustrating to say the least. Especially because I'd felt this way before around Lexi. Things she said, little insights she gave me - it didn't feel like new information but I also didn't understand where it had come from.

"You thought coming here would jog your memory." Sam deduces, "It hasn't, has it?"

"No, it hasn't" I grumble.

"Maybe we're in the wrong place?" he suggests.

I reopen the notebook and skim through Lexi's handwriting. In her rambled notes Lexi refers to the stone shed in my backyard the most. The scene she describes sounds like it came straight out of a true crime documentary - the kind when a psycho parent kills their own kids. 

"Come on" I direct at Sam as I jog down the front steps and turn into the driveway that stopped just before the grass in the backyard began.

The ground is a mixture of overgrown weeds and outright dead patches of grass. A lot more vines than I remember have wrapped around the stone shed, pushing between the bricks and almost hiding the now rusted door from view. 

Goosebumps rise across my skin as I walk towards it but I wasn't cold before...

"Help me get this crap off the door" I tell Sam and he gets to work with me.

My penknife helps speed up the process but we still have the locked bolt to deal with. Or at least I thought we did until Sam picked up a brick from beside the shed and smashed the hell out of it. 7 years of disuse along with Chicago's unforgiving winters and blazing summers had made the lock brittle, much to our advantage.

The bolt took a little work since it'd rusted in place but a couple hits from Sam's brick and the brute force of two division 1 hockey players was our key to the kingdom.

"You sure about this?" Sam asked as I rested my hand on the door's handle.

"Nope" I replied honestly. I was about to walk into somewhere that should have, given Lexi told the truth, been plaguing my nightmares since I was an early teen. I wasn't expecting being here to be some miracle memory cure... I just needed to see if I could at least sense there was something I'd forgotten. After all, it's hard to work on finding memories I didn't even know were missing.

"You want me to come in with you?"

I shook my head, "No I got it. I won't be long."

"Don't rush Mase. I'll be here whenever you're done."

For the second time in two days, I pulled Sam into a hug uncharacteristic of me. He patted my back like most guys do and we pulled away with a mutual understanding. I had to do this and he would be here for me while I did.

I didn't take a deep breath or give myself a pep talk. I'd been psyched up long enough for answers that walking into the shed didn't feel like something I needed to prepare for.

I pulled open the door with a loud screech as the metal frame chafed against it. The smell was one of must and damp, showing just how long it had been since it was open. 

I wasn't hit with anything as I stepped in. There was no sudden epiphany about the night Lexi wrote about, no tugging in my gut. It was just an empty room - a very fucking cold empty room.

I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Where was my big reveal? My flashbacks to the past? I felt nothing - zilch, nada.

Lexi's notebook weighed heavily in my hand as I looked around, trying to find something I wasn't even sure was here. I re-opened the pages of it again, hoping that both the information and setting could be enough to take me back to a time I'm supposed to remember.

Now I was thinking about it, I didn't have any particular memories of the days prior to my removal from the family home other than waking up in hospital from what I assumed was a beating that went too far but was told to explain by my father as a fall down the stairs. I had just pegged them as usual run of the mill days that had no reason to stand out. Even still, if foul play was suspected of my parents why did they let me go home? Why not take them from the hospital straight away?

'She trapped us.'

Lexi had written that about my mother, claiming she locked us in this shed after fighting with us.

'It was freezing - neither of us wore coats out.'

'Mason gave me his sweatshirt.'

As I stood reading the timeline of events, they still felt familiar but not totally real.

Real - I needed to make them real.

I poked my head out the door to Sam, "I'm gonna try something. I need you to lock me in."

"Are you insane?!" Sam screeched.

"Well I apparently blocked out my mother losing her mind and trying to kill me and my best friend so I wouldn't say I'm totally sane no." I reply sarcastically.

"Mason if that lock gets stuck and you freak out, what do you expect me to do?"

I shrug, "Push harder"

He looks extremely annoyed at my joking.

"It'll be fine Sam. We got it open once already." I say, playing down my anxiety that I may actually get locked in.

"Fucking hell." Sam mutters, "I refuse to be liable for your death if you freeze because I can't get you out"

"Noted" I reply, "Now can we do this before people start ringing to ask where we are?"

I take a step back as Sam pushes the door closed after me and wait to hear the bolt go across before walking over to the thick window for enough light to read the notes.

'Mason smacked the door with his fist, throwing his body weight at it trying to get out.'

"I'm gonna bang on the door Sam but don't let me out."

"Whatever you say crazy." I hear mumbled back through the thick walls and door.

Full immersion here I go.

I place the notebook on the floor and position myself in front of the door. My instinct is to use my dominant right hand so I curl it into a fist and raise it . I hit the door repeatedly, opting after a dozen or so hits to shoulder barge it. It's tiring and I can feel my shoulder becoming tender as I bruise the skin.

I know Sam's on the other side, that the door's not fully locked - but I can still feel myself panicking. Every hit that doesn't let me out makes me put more force into the next one.

"I need to get out" I mumble to myself punctuating my next few frantic shoves with the same words, "Out. I. Need. To. Get. Out." 

'Mom let us out!'

I whip around, my chest heaving from the exertion but the room's just as empty as when I locked the door. 

"You say something Sam?" I call out breathlessly.

"No" he yelled back.

"I swear I heard..." I trail off.

"Great. Now he's hearing voices." Sam mutters to himself.

I practically throw myself down on the floor beside the notebook.

'Mason yelled after his Mom - she didn't come back.'

I did. I yelled after her. She'd locked us in here and walked back into my house as if nothing had happened.

I hastily flip the page over to see what came next.

'Mason pulled me in - he gave me his sweatshirt'

I yank my sweatshirt over my head and throw it to the side. It's almost November so it's even colder now than it would've been back then in March. 

"Motherfucker" I mumble as the chill bites at my skin and I shiver.  At least no one can say I haven't committed myself to the role.

I sit myself down on the floor, my back resting against the brick wall. I'm cold, confused and sat in the same place I supposedly was 7 years ago. Now what?

I decide to close my eyes, trying to imagine myself as a 13 year old sat here with Lexi beside me. She'd smell like her tropical shampoo she'd used since I'd known her because she thought an exotic scent would make her seem more fun and vibrant. I chuckle to myself at the thought and the fact the scent that surrounded me last night while I held her was exactly the same as I remembered. 

What would she have done while we were locked in here? She'd have been freezing even under my extra jumper.

She'd have tried to give it back.

That thought settles comfortably into place in the narrative I'm re-imagining. Lexi would've worried and wanted me to have had it back but I would've refused - told her I was fine even though I was no doubt shivering more then than I was now.

"I'm sc-scared"

I pulled her impossibly closer, trying to comfort her, 'Me-e too'

I panicked internally as I heard the events play out but I kept my eyes screwed up, willing the fragments to keep coming and piece the puzzle together.

"You're so beautiful Alexandra."I whispered.

"I didn't kn-know you knew my full-l name" she replied quietly, a smile that looked as though it took more effort than it should've to appear spread across her face.

"I ask your Mom. I wanted to s-s-say it prop-erly when I as-asked you to the d-d-dance."

I sucked in a deep breath, my heart palpitating uncomfortably in my chest.

I had wanted to invite Lexi to the annual charity dance our middle school held. It would've been our last one before High School and I finally had the courage to ask her to be my date. I hadn't understood the butterflies in my chest that grew stronger as we got older together at the time but I was slowly figuring it out and hoped we could do it together from then on.

But I'd never gotten to ask her, or at least I thought I hadn't. I remember asking her Mom, Selena, for her favourite flower so I could buy her some for when I did it. She'd told me Lexi loved giant Daisies, because she'd had one put in her hair by a performer in a Mardi Gras parade when they visited New Orleans before Heather was born. Selena also told me after much begging and a promise to ace my spelling test that week that Lexi's full name was in fact Alexandra, something my best friend had always refused to tell me.

It all fit. Everything Lexi had wrote made sense. 

But it all meant that my Mom... my Mom had become more unstable than I realised. 

"She watched the whole thing Lex. She did Nothing"

No... she hadn't. My dad came home after a poker night, drunk off his ass and in the mood for a fight. I hadn't even had to say anything. He swung for me as soon as he walked into my room, clocking my face twice before he missed and... he hit the wall behind me... and my Mom smiled as she left the room, closing the door after her to ignore what lay behind it.

I open my eyes and pulled the notebook into my lap.

'Mason missed school'

'Mason was hurt - his Dad did it'

Lexi knew about it... because I told her.

My head was foggy as I tried to decipher what was real and the things I was making up to fill the gaps. Some of it I was taking directly from the notebook and other things materialised in my head the longer I sat here. But there were still so many holes in the narrative...

The lake.

This day had started at the lake with a conversation that I was yet to even have small glimpses of in my memory.

I'd told her about my Dad - she'd had the information to send me away because I gave it to her on a