A/N: I never know what to write here. I guess... hello? Before you start reading, please note that this story contains mature themes that younger or more sensitive readers may find upsetting. If you're at all concerned, I will be happy to tell you what those themes are via PM, but only once we've reached that point in the story.

There are 8 chapters, which I will be posting once a week, on Saturdays. Hope you enjoy it!

On the highest bench of the spectator gallery, overlooking the baseball diamond, the rusted workout equipment, the black, metal tables, and finally the concrete wall, topped with barbed wire, Dipper sat. He sat and he thought about nothing in particular. From up here, he had the best view of the outside in the entire compound, and yet he had never seen any other inmate take advantage of the position. They didn't know about the view or they didn't care for it. Perhaps they didn't think of the outside like he did; perhaps they were accustomed to their lives within the wall. Content, even. Dipper tried to come up here at least once a day.

Over the wall, an unmarred stretch of grass led to the edge of the low cliffs. Beyond that, the ocean, adjoining the entrance to Coos Bay, and on the other side of the bay, the hills, coated in pine trees, rolled on and on until the state border. Occasionally a ferry would pass, and Dipper would try to make out any feature he could of the people on board, their faces unreadable in the tiny windows. He would wonder where they came from, make up their backstories. And here, on a clear afternoon like today, if he tilted his head up, squinted against the setting sun, it was easy to imagine that he wasn't here at all. It was easy to believe he was back on the beach that surrounded the lake in Gravity Falls.

He heard a clang below him and looked down to the bottom of the bleachers. Mitchell Lewis, the closest friend (or the closest thing to a friend) that he had come by throughout his incarceration, was climbing the benches, his boots against the metal disrupting the tranquility. "Thought I might find you up here," he said. He sat down on the top bench, two yards across from Dipper, went into his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter. He flipped open the box, held it out, and Dipper shook his head.

"Since when?" Mitch said.

"Shit'll kill you."

"Ain't never stopped you before."

"Yeah, that was when I thought I had nothing to live for."

"And you got something to live for now?"

"Yeah. Always have. Just didn't realize it."

Out the corner of Dipper's eye, Mitch studied him for a minute. Then, he lit his cigarette, took a long drag, leaned back and cast his eyes over the courtyard, the ocean. He was forty-seven years old, well-built, brown-gray spiky hair, a neat beard. He looked more like he belonged on the set of an action movie than in prison, apart from the missing tooth. He was in for murder. Life sentence. In a white tank top, no jumpsuit, the tattoo on his bicep was visible – a painfully generic red heart with an arrow through it. Worst mistake I ever made, he once told Dipper, without a trace of irony.

"A family?" Mitch asked.

Dipper said nothing. A speedboat exited the port, its drone audible from the courtyard. Five people were on board. Two of them kids.

"A girlfriend? Hell, a boyfriend? Gimme somethin' to work with, here."

Dipper was about to answer, actually, but he waited a microsecond too long.

"Shit, Bigfoot." Mitch kicked at the concrete stands and shook his head, pointed his cigarette at Dipper. "I ain't never met anyone as ungrateful as you. I been leading your ass around this shithole for eight years and you ain't never repay me. You think about that? You ever tell me shit about your life outside the clink? Hell no. I told you every last gory detail 'bout mine."

"Yeah, I wish you hadn't."

"Well what the fuck else am I gonna do all day? Sit up here by myself countin' the clouds? My back straight as an arrow?" He slapped Dipper's back. "We talk, we trade stories, that's what we do, else we go insane. We tell stories how we ended up here."

"I don't see the point in dwelling on things that I'd rather forget."

"Well tough luck, buddy. You done somethin' that deserve eight years, you ain't gonna forget it. They make sure of that." A long drag, a cloud of smoke, the wind carrying it to Dipper. "Man, all those stories you stay up writing in your little notebook, you ain't never thought to write something 'bout your own damn life? Somethin' real? You gotta put down your mem-rahs."

"Memoirs."

"S'what I said."

The speedboat, a speck on the horizon, fully disappeared. In truth, Dipper could go days without thinking of the people that once mattered most to him. Thinking of where they were now, how they must have changed, it only made confinement feel infinite. The time passed slower, even slower than it usually did within the concrete walls, while the boats sailed by, full of people growing and changing at a natural pace. "I have a twin sister," Dipper said.

Mitch had the cigarette at his mouth, but he lowered it. "Holy fuck," he murmured, and then glanced around frantically. "Is this it? Should I get comfortable?" He jumped up on the bench and yelled out to the courtyard, "y'all listen up! Bigfoot here's gon' tell his life story! Never before heard. Ex-clusive."

A pair of inmates out on the picnic benches turned their heads and stared for a long time, a standard reaction to Mitch's eccentric behavior. They shook their heads and grumbled something, then returned their focus back to a game of dominoes.

Dipper looked up. "Are you gonna let me tell the story are you gonna be an asshole?"

"Alright, alright, alright." He dropped back onto the bench. "So, you have a twin sister. What's her name?"

"Mabel."

"Mabel. And what's she like?"

"She's like... she was my best friend. Wouldn't ever hurt a fly."

Mitch nodded. "Uh-huh. And you hurt her?"

"I hurt her time and time again." Mabel's face broke into his mind. Smiling. Rosy cheeks. Long, brown hair, curled at the end. He imagined her in her house down in San Francisco – she had shown him the pictures – but what if she didn't live there anymore? What if her face had changed, or she'd cut her hair? It had been five years since he'd last seen her. More painful than the image of her was knowing that the image may have been inaccurate.

"We'd just graduated high school," Dipper said. "It was the end of summer and there was a house party, to say goodbye to the people who were going away to college. Mabel and I both went. And we were there till late. I remember a lot of people had left already."

He had been drinking, drinking enough that he needed to stick to the outside of a room so he had a wall to lean on, keep himself upright. He nodded his head to the music and swigged from his cup, unable to focus on any particular detail of the room but aware there must have been less than twenty people left in here, all in a similar state to him. He wasn't talking to anyone but that was fine, he was at a point where he wanted the night to roll on longer, he didn't want to go his bed and shut out the light and let the sobering silence creep in, even if there wasn't anything to do here. Not just yet. He smiled and watched Sheri Sykes and Amelie Nicholson dance, the only ones dancing. They were both straight, but they teased the room, their hands on one another's hips and their foreheads pressed together. Sheri bit Amelie's lip and they both broke into laughter, Dipper did too, always careful to react the way that people expected him to. He took another drink.

Everything was fine one minute, and his blood was boiling the next. He happened to look away from the girls, towards the entryway, and saw that Doug Tanner was leading Dipper's sister up the stairs, by her hand. She glanced behind her, smiling nervously, but didn't see Dipper. The rumors that had circulated the halls were months old – right after prom – but now Dipper heard the hushed voices clearly, in his head.

Nobody else was there but I bet he did it. I always knew there was something creepy about him.

He set down his drink and stepped around a group of guys. One of them called his name but he ignored them, he moved to the foot of the stairs and checked over his shoulder. Nobody was following him.

How have you not heard about it? It's 'cause you don't have Facebook, you fucking hermit. Cindy, dude. She said that Doug drove her home after prom but he parked up by the side of the road and locked the doors. He was drunk as shit.

In a more level-headed state, Dipper might have cupped his ear to the doors to listen, ensure he had the right room, but instead he bust open random doors and issued a slurred apology to the girl on the phone, the couple making out, and an empty bathroom.

She's saying he raped her.

End of the hall. Only door he hadn't tried. Doug had his sister down on the bed. Doug's shirt was unbuttoned and Mabel's was on the floor. The light from the hallway was a strip from floor to ceiling, perfectly centered on their startled faces. It was quickly occluded by Dipper's shadow as he staggered across the carpet.

"Dipper?" Mabel shrieked. She grabbed a pillow to cover her belly. "What are you doing? Get out of here!"

Doug saw what was coming and backed up, but he was too slow, and Dipper's fist sailed into his cheek, knocked him back against the wall. Dipper grabbed the collar of his shirt and kept him pinned, spat as he spoke. "The fuck are you doing, Doug? One girl not enough for you? You're gonna go after my sister as well?"

Doug's expression turned from mild irritation to fury. "You fucking psycho," he grunted, and shoved Dipper backwards with strength that Dipper's foolhardy mind had not anticipated. And then his ears were ringing, head spinning, he was down on the floor, and he heard something crack, and Doug's fists were raining on him, until Mabel tackled Doug to the ground. He wrestled out of her grip and stood, stumbled to the doorway, his shirt still open, slipping off his right shoulder. He turned back and said, "you're both fucking crazy," and slammed the door shut on his way out.

Mabel scrambled to her feet and knelt at Dipper's side, tilted his face up so he could see her. He could taste the blood spilling from his mouth. His nose felt like it had been removed, put through a blender, and glued back on. Mabel whimpered and, in spite of everything, hit him in the chest, called him stupid. So, so stupid.

Miraculously, no lasting damage, except for the relationship with his twin. They didn't talk about that night until a week later, when the lacerations on his face were almost fully healed. It was a Monday morning, the last one of summer. He sat at the kitchen table, sipped his coffee, laptop open. Mabel came in wearing her robe, didn't say good morning because they didn't do that anymore. She shuffled around in the kitchen. Dipper didn't pay attention. She was probably making toast. But then, she sat down opposite him. Her hair was still frizzy, unkempt from bed, and she folded her arms on the table and glanced out the window like Dipper wasn't there, so he went back to his laptop, didn't say anything.

"I don't know what you were thinking," she said.

He looked up, over his screen. Her eyes met his, now. She stared like they were old friends who hadn't seen each other in years.

"I don't know what you were thinking," Dipper said.

She shook her head. "He didn't do it, you know."

"How do you know?"

"How do you know that he did?"

"I prefer to err on the side of caution. Like, yeah, maybe that shark swimming around out there in the water doesn't bite people, but I'm not going to dive in and try to play with it."

"That's stupid."

"It's a perfect analogy, actually."

"If everyone thought like that, Dipper, his whole life would be ruined, don't you understand that? If everyone believed Cindy without a doubt, Doug would go the rest of his life with everyone around him hating him, staring at him, talking behind his back. Do you know how hard that would be?"

Dipper leaned back in his seat, incredulous. "And what if Cindy's sitting at home right now, crying? Crying because she'll never be able to trust a man ever again? What if she's been sitting at home all summer, feeling violated, and Doug's been out driving around with his friends, and they're all backing him up, including you. They're saying 'we know you didn't do it, Doug, we got your back, man.' How the fuck do you think that would feel for her?"

The tension on Mabel's face dissipated. Her eyebrow twitched. "He didn't do it. He wouldn't."

"Really? How many more times do you think he would have punched me in the face if you hadn't stopped him?"

She picked at a fingernail, red paint chipped and fading away. She didn't look at Dipper, didn't even acknowledge that she'd heard him talk, but then she raised her hand to her mouth, glanced sideways out the window, and started to cry. They sat in silence for five minutes at least, before she next spoke. "Did you take your medication that day?"

He exhaled through his nose. "Yes." When she said nothing, "go upstairs, count them," he said. "You know where they are."

"No, I believe you. But... Dip, there has to be another way for you to deal with it–"

"I know." He brushed his hair out of his face and scratched his forehead. "I'm trying."

She reached across the table and took his hand. "I know you are. I just worry so much that if you're violent with the wrong person, you're gonna get yourself killed."

"Well, that's what this move is gonna help me with, right? All that... 'country air' that Mom's been talking about."

"We've got a lot of good role models up there, too."

"I don't think you can call Stan a good role model."

"The other ones." She smiled, wistful. "I hate that I'm not gonna be around to look out for you."

"There's still time to drop out and come with me."

Mabel cocked her head.

"Kidding," he said.

A week later, Dipper tied his belongings to the bed of his maroon pickup and headed north to a town called Gravity Falls, Oregon. Before he left California he took an exit and stopped at a Denny's for coffee, thought about getting lunch, but his appetite disagreed. He sat by the window, his elbow rested on a sticky patch on the table, and he thought about the distance he had put behind him. Distance from his parents, which he was fine with, but also from his sister, the one person he relied on to keep himself grounded. At the same time he understood that that reliance wasn't healthy for either of them, that this distance was necessary. There was only so long she could put aside her own evenings to sit on the floor in his room and talk to him, comfort him, tell him he wasn't a monster. This distance was necessary. He would have time, now, all the time he needed to put school behind him, delay the choices he needed to make about the next stop in his life, wherever that would be. Time to find peace of mind. He set down his coffee, half full, suddenly eager to get back on the road. He paid at the counter and waited a beat until the waitress stepped away, then he put down a twenty and hoped she would look up out the window and smile as he drove off.

Nostalgia drowned him in waves when he took the exit off the I-5, past the welcome sign, the water tower, the diner, into the town he'd spent his summers at, up until the age of sixteen. Nothing had changed, nothing at all, as if it existed in its own pocket of time, nobody from the outside ever coming in and nobody from the inside ever leaving. He knew that wasn't far from the truth.

His great uncle, Stan, rose from the couch on the porch of his house as Dipper pulled into the parking lot, tires kicking up gravel. Dipper killed the engine and hopped out. His uncle clapped him on the shoulder, hard, and went straight for the ropes tying Dipper's stuff down to the truck, never a man for hellos or goodbyes.

"Yeah?" Mitch said. "And then what?"

"Well, Stan's house doubled up as a semi-popular tourist attraction called the Mystery Shack. He let me live there rent-free so long as I helped him out with his business. I worked in the gift shop, mostly. It was like, um, one of those weird-ass museums that doesn't really teach you anything, just a random collection of stuff that's fun to look at. Like something you'd see in Disney World."

"Do I look like I ever been to Disney World?"

"When I came back I was thinking business would be slower, especially 'cause I'd never worked there outside the summer months, but, apparently there was a whole host of families from all over the state that liked coming back every now and again, enough to keep the place running."

"And what? You wanted to inherit the place for yourself? Force the man into early retirement? Get him with a pillow in his sleep, make it look like an accident?"

Dipper turned away from the sunset and glowered at him. "You waited eight years for me to tell this story, and you can't even sit still for ten god damn minutes while I set it up for you?"

"Hey, man, story's gotta start strong. Gotta rope me in. Gotta be full of action from the start."

"Yeah, well, this isn't that kind of story."

"What kinda story is it, then?"

In his mind's eye, he was working the counter at the Shack, but then he was playing the crane game in the arcade at the bowling alley, walking down to the lake, eating steaks up at Lookout Point. "It's a story about a girl." Lounging in bed on the summer afternoons when he wished the sun would never set. Driving into the night, fast, heart racing. Switching off the headlights. Sitting. Waiting. "And how I ruined her life."