Wanna Live It Up Just Because

Arpeggio stood in the middle of the set. It was made up to look identical to her room at the time of her suicide attempt. In the time after, it changed drastically from being covered in dark colors to being covered in bright blue with hints of cotton candy pink. Dark colors were too depressing so she changed her room colors.

Well, Neon changed it but Arpeggio picked the colors.

Arpeggio's eyes wandered around the set design. It was pretty much a carbon copy of her old room. There were too many unhappy memories that it brought back. Why did she agree to this?

The rest of the band had already done their individual shots. Each had to recreate the moment when they heard about what Arpeggio had done. Neon's took place in the kitchen where she had been making dinner when she heard Arpeggio sobbing. Lestat's was at his home; he had been watching sports on the television. Jazz's was in the Lowry home, waiting for Neon to finish making dinner. Neon had to make an appearance in that shoot because she ran past Jazz in order to get to Arpeggio, which is what compelled Jazz to jump from the beanbag chair she was on and run to Arpeggio's room. Dante was set in his home office where he was in the middle of a phone interview when he got the call. Dorian's was in the hospital. He had been there all day, playing with the child cancer patients. When he went to leave, Arpeggio was being rushed in on a stretcher. He stood outside the ER, pacing till the doctor came out of the room.

"Hey, are you ready?" Neon's voice snapped Arpeggio from her thoughts.

Arpeggio looked at her older sibling.

"I guess so," Arpeggio's eyes drifted over Neon's shoulder.

Her eyes caught on a tall figure with black and blonde hair next to his friends and the cameraman.

"What are they doing here?" Arpeggio asked.

"Well, Jack wanted to come watch you take pictures. All Time Low has their shoot directly after ours so they came early to get their makeup or whatever done," Neon answered.

Arpeggio should have been excited to see Jack and she was, partially. Of course she was elated that he wanted to watch her. She wasn't so excited about the fact that she was about to recreate her suicide attempt and that he would be watching. Then they would have to change sets to the hospital room for the full band shot.

He had to watch this?

"I guess I'm ready," Arpeggio mumbled, shouldering the backpack resembling her old one.

"Alright," Neon walked back to the cameraman and director.

Arpeggio watched her sister tell the man something. He nodded.

"Okay, Arpeggio," the director said, voice booming, "Like you saw with the rest of the band, we're reenacting this as close to how it actually happened as possible. Even though we're not catching sound, making noises or talking helps make the scene more realistic. So just go when you're ready and we'll take pictures."

Arpeggio hesitantly nodded. This was nerve racking. Sure, her sister had found her after she drank the ammonia and bleach but she had never found out exactly what happened. Neon didn't know how she got the chemicals, though they were easily accessible considering the housecleaning materials contained them.

And now she had to go through the motions that she did all those years ago.

Arpeggio took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She would have to pretend she was thirteen again. The memories of her school experience flooded her mind; the name calling, the bullying, the rumors, the isolation. Tears ran down her cheeks and, just like she had at the age of thirteen, she sat on her bed and sobbed into her hands. When she pulled her hands from her face, black trails streaked her cheeks. She stared into the mirror attached to the set of drawers across from her spot on the bed; she could see the honey-blonde haired girl she used to be, broken and crying.

"I fucking hate you," Arpeggio yelled, taking the backpack off of her shoulders and slinging it across the room at the mirror.

The mirror shattered upon impact. Arpeggio stood and stalked towards the mirror, placing her hands on the top of the wooden drawers decorated with pieces of broken glass. The glass shards pricked her hands. She stared into her reflection in the cracked glass still connected to the mirror.

"They're right, you know," she spoke to the reflection, loud enough for her audience to hear, "You're ugly; you're useless; you don't deserve to live."

Arpeggio pushed away from the mirror and grabbed the bottles of mock ammonia and bleach products that were hidden on the opposite side of the drawers. This would be the difficult part: pretending that the fake liquids burned.

She took a swig of one bottle and promptly spit it out, as she had done when she first took a sip of the bleach. She took a breath, chugged the bottle and tossed it aside; she grabbed the other bottle and did the same.

Arpeggio let sobs rack through her body as she slid to the ground in a fetal position. Clutching her neck, she rocked back and forth, screaming. Her throat hurt from talking loud; the pain she was feeling wasn't false. How she was going about dealing with the pain was.

"Cut," the director yelled.

Arpeggio's sobbing and screams stopped. She sat up.

"Did I do okay?" she asked, her voice back to the low volume.

Her eyes scanned the crowd of people. Dante's eyes were wide, mouth open. Jazz had her hands covering her mouth; tears coated her eyes. A set of tears were running down Dorian's face. Every member of All Time Low looked shocked. Lestat looked horrified and Neon was bawling into his shoulder.

She figured she would get this reaction if she did it right.

Arpeggio stood and walked to Neon, who looked up as she approached. Seeing her older sister like that broke Arpeggio's heart. She was glad she hadn't been around to see how Neon reacted when the doctor actually did tell her Arpeggio attempted suicide.

"Stop crying; I'm okay, see," Arpeggio jumped up and down for effect.

Neon pulled her sister into an embrace, forcing her movements to cease. She buried her face into Arpeggio's shoulder.

"Never do that again," Neon demanded through her quieting tears.

"I won't," Arpeggio responded, rubbing her older sibling's back.

Neon's tears turned into occasional sniffles. Arpeggio continued to rub her sister's back. The director of the shoot walked to the pair and placed a hand on Arpeggio's shoulder.

"That was perfect," he stated.

"Thanks," Arpeggio responded.

"We need to get you all back into hair and makeup to do the last scene," he said to the group.

Neon removed herself Arpeggio, taking a breath.

"I'm okay," she mumbled, "Let's get this thing done."

She walked back to her makeup chair. Each of the remaining members of RxN embraced Arpeggio before making their way to their makeup chairs. Arpeggio made a move to follow them but was stopped by a hand grabbing her upper arm. She turned, meeting the sight of Jack. He pulled her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her waist.

Was he shaking?

"Jack, I'm fine," Arpeggio said.

Jack shushed her, pressing one hand on the back of her head and pressing it lightly against his chest. The other arm stayed wrapped around her waist. Arpeggio sighed and wrapped her arms around Jack's middle.

"Don't leave me like that," Jack mumbled.

"I won't," Arpeggio replied.

"Promise?"

"I promise."