Jeff Burton

YES THEY DID AND WHAT A TRAIN WRECK IT WAS. You’ve got half the tropes I’m using in that one story buried in this one I squeal like a pig every time I run across one.

You seriously lucked out, this just finished today so you get to binge uninterrupted. When you get to the end you’ll probably realize why it was so biblical

That’s exactly it Josh was literally born when Caleb’s life pretty much ended. Imagine being a ghost that still has a body like holy crap. Can Josh actually identify with the memories of another persons life? What about the emotions? How about the fact that according to Walter Josh’s body was designed to heal faster? And why hasn’t it? I actually did consider making Walter the bad guy but it was a hard thing to believe.

Oh forgot to warn you… nah you’ll run into it eventually.

Christ and I thought my beach chapter was good. This took that angst and dialed it up to holy crap. i seriously can’t count the number of times my hand went over my mouth with “oh no he/she didnt”. Julie is you know… but turns out she was right Brian bats for the other team and had the hots for Charlie. And because it’s a teen romance story from the 2000s of course Derek walked in at the most improper moment and now everyone has to sleep alone. i do adore Matt though. Straight friend cuddles are the absolute best.

Oh I’m not giving that one away nope!

Oh Derek is for sure Tropey and I’m totally not saying that because I’ve read a good chunk of this already. Julie seems a little bitchy though totally not foreshadowing anything 🙄 As for sports balls? Thank god this is after graduation so you won’t have to suffer through boys doing silly boy things lmao

No need to be technical Mr smarty pants! I spent most of 2000 in a perpetual hangover so I didn’t notice they where a thing till 2002 lol

This chapter right out of the gate already packs a punch, dudes barely got the diploma and his life is already got issues.

I almost choked on the sports ball comment. But keep in mind this was probably written before linkin park was a thing so be nice. 😂

If you guys keep stroking my ego I’m going to need a new pair of underwear lmao

That was actually a key thing, I knew total word count for this story as one unit was going to blow a 200k word count either way I did it. There’s just so much to friggen tell and you couldn’t gloss over any of it without doing damage.

This is the dilemma I’m working myself through too it’s been something I’ve been working on since the get go lol.

Oh I don’t know if she can handle that LOL

@Krista I was going to wait till the end but Julie is a bitch lmao.

Well I’m reading all of the dirty little secrets from the past I’m totally tagging you in everything that involves filthy. And you are a distraction a delightful one. I’ll continue the deep dives though. This particular story didn’t get a lot of love, and she probably hopes it stays buried but totally not going to happen lmao.

This is what I fear as well but the honest truth is the sequel is really what would have been in this one had I did this correctly and written it in one go and posted it on a weekly schedule like a sane person. i think if I stay true to my notes and just continue as planned without trying to outdo what came before it’ll be okay.

@Jason Rimbaud I found evidence the Fabulous One can write filthy things.

Yeah talk about one hell of a long prologue, now I can actually do the real story.

Gonna give it a go either way at some point. It would be interesting to score it two years in a row with the same series lol.

Gotta have that teen angst added to an already precarious situation! I honestly don’t know if I could handle it in Josh’s shoes. He has pain that is yet isn’t his but hurts just the same, and the anger that isn’t is just makes him hurt even more. It’s a pretty precarious position to be in.

Shhhh… Remember that record was not here. It never was. Honestly I wouldn’t mind hearing about what readers think of Greg’s choice as well.

It’s already looking like it’s going to be a doozy lol.

Greg has really been the rock in this whole thing, he’s been able to keep that professional detachment for most of the story and at the end he has to make that hard choice. That choice is also in a morbid way for Josh’s benefit. I’m half and half on Josh actually being told and not ending up angry like Caleb, and having one mad is bad enough but if both of them are mad for the same reason I think the mental foundations that are holding both personalities up would start to crumble. Josh needs the grounding the Kincaids can offer, Walter was correct in that. I think Walter and Greg will hold onto their secrets until they can’t anymore. And Walter is already in an impossible situation which you’ll understand in the first chapter of the next story. Hell they all are and they just don’t know it yet. And you’re correct to feel the chills the true shit show hasn’t even happened yet.

Those are seriously good questions and those alone are enough for the second book. One thing I didn’t consider until towards the end was Caleb’s anger, Josh is really going to need to do something about it because as we see towards the end, because of the upheaval of the crash memory the void and the fog holding the partitions separate is unstable. The other thing I can see that makes this unstable is something Walter told Greg: This was done incorrectly. A false identity was never provided to him, so somehow the ‘Josh’ identity and personality was created from nothing — this hints at an unstable foundation, the sleeper partition that is basically Josh was created on the fly, something that wasn’t supposed to happen. From where I’m sitting these two are on day 52 of 90, and there is only 38 days left. Something that isn’t in the story but in Lindsey’s notes which somehow I have access too (😇) is that when they were testing the range, day 93 was showing signs of mental fatigue and cross contamination of the partitions IE Caleb was leaking through. Here we are at day 52 and we are beyond leaks, Caleb is able to control, fight, and now able to communicate outside of the void. That’s not a leak that’s a breach. Im no neurologist but something tells me the human brain wasn’t designed to have two different people in it for a long period of time (or any amount of time). So that could mean one of them eventually gets lost. If Josh gets lost and Caleb is free with no restraint and he’s still angry what does he do? If Caleb gets lost do the memories and training go with him and can the brain handle functioning with just Josh. Its really some crazy sci-fi stuff when you sit down and think about it, I kinda already know where it’s leaning because I have some good thoughts for book 2 that have been building for a while but it might get crazy for a minute in the middle.