When She Cries

We walked out back where everyone else was sitting. There was only one seat left though. "Here, you can sit on my lap," Zack said, sitting down, then pulling me onto his lap.

At first, I froze, but after he wrapped his arms around me, I was fine. I looked around and saw everyone's eyes on us. The ones that I couldn't bring myself to look at though, were filling with tears.

"What happened to your feet?" One of the girls asked, frowning down at my bare feet.

"Accident," I stated simply, not wanting to talk about the scars that adorned both my feet.

"So, how old are you?" Another one of them asked, trying to make conversation.

"Sixteen."

They must have seen that I didn't really want to talk, and moved onto something else. "So, let's introduce everyone," Zacky said. He pointed to everyone and said their names as they smiled and waved or nodded.

"Food's done," Matt said from the barbecue.

"Are you hungry?" Zack asked as everyone got up.

"Not really."

"You need to eat something, Noelle," Matt said, hearing my response.

I sighed, looking down. "Yeah, girl. You're like a fucking stick," Brian said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"I've been like this my whole life," I mumbled, not liking the sudden attention.

"Are you sure?" Matt asked, frowning. "Because from a few of the pictures I saw-"

"If I eat, will you stop talking about my weight?" I asked cautiously. Dad never liked me interrupting, so I was waiting for Matt's reaction. He just sighed and nodded his head.

After grabbing some salad and a little bit of other things, I went to go sit back with Zacky. "You sure that's all you want?" He asked, with a small smiled. I nodded and began to eat.

Everyone made small conversation with each other, and occasionally would ask me questions. "When did you start to dance?" Matt asked randomly.

Thank God I was already done eating and just sitting back, or I might have
choked on my food. Everyone turned their attention to me. "You're a dancer?" Johnny asked.

I looked down and nodded slowly. "When did you start?" Brian asked.

"When I was four."

"You'll have to show us sometime," Zacky said. I looked up at him, fear coursing through my veins. "Or not," he said, confused.

"May I be excused?" I asked politely.

"You didn't eat much," Matt said disapprovingly.

"I wasn't very hungry," I mumbled, just wanting to be alone.

He nodded, defeated. I stood up, grabbing my plate, and walking to the kitchen. As I was cleaning, everyone came in. "You don't have to do those, Noelle. We'll get them," Val said softly, putting her hand on my shoulder.

I flinched away and shook my head. "It's okay."

"Come on, let's go sit down," Zacky said softly, taking my hand in his. Knowing I didn't have a say in it, I let him walk me to the living room.

Once everyone was sitting down, the conversation was picked back up. I sat there, just looking at the floor. All I wanted to do was go up to my room.

"Where is Nat?" It was the first time I had heard his voice, and it wasn't exactly the question I wanted to hear.

"Jimmy," Matt said quietly, trying to get his friend's attention, but he continued to look at me.

I looked up at him as tears started to sting my eyes. "Her, Dad and Clarissa were in an accident. They were hit by a drunk driver," I whispered, trying to keep the tears at bay.

"What do you mean Dad? He's right in front of you," Brian said, confused.

"Connor was my father," I said, looking at him.

I saw Matt shake his head and stand up, leaving the room. "How could you fucking say that? After all he's doing for you? You can show him at least a little bit of respect!" Brian was showing his angry side, and this scared the shit out of me. "He's taking you in. He's feeding and clothing you. He's doing everything he can since he hasn't been able to be in your life, and this is how you're repaying him?!"

My head started spinning with events of the past years. It was getting harder to breathe as I watched the anger grow in his eyes.

"Brian! Shut the fuck up!" Zacky growled. He looked over at me with concern in his eyes. "Noelle..." He tried reaching for him, but I flinched away from him, shaking my head as the tears finally started to poor out.

I jumped up and ran. I specifically remembered how to get to the front door for this exact reason, but I wasn't fast enough.

Jimmy stood in front of it. I cursed, and ran up the stairs. As soon as I was in the room, I slammed the door and locked it behind me.

I looked around, trying to find a way out. The room was suddenly becoming smaller as my breathing continued to become shallow.

Finally, I gave into the darkness.

*Zacky's P.O.V.*

"God dammit, Brian! Did you really have to do that?! Now look what you did!" I yelled, trying to get to him, but wasn't able to. Jimmy and Matt were trying to hold me back. "Do you know how scared she is right now?! She just lost everything she had! Do you know how much it took for me to get her to trust me?! She was actually making a tiny bit of progress with in just a few hours, but you had to go and screw that up!"

"I'm sorry, okay?! It just pissed me off that she had the nerve to call Connor her father, instead of Matt!"

"That's because Connor is all she has known! She never knew Matt until he showed up a few days ago. Why the hell would she start calling him Dad because he said he was? She's confused, hurt and probably angry for what happened. We all need to give her some time. You too, Matt." I turned to look at the sad expression on his face. "I know it's hard for you right now, but she needs time to get used to everything. Give her some time to heal."

He sighed, running his hand through his hair. "I know, it's just hard seeing her like this. I want to know what happened to put her in this position. I want to hold her and take all her pain away."

"I know, just give her some time." I looked at Jimmy. "How you holdin' up?"

"I can't believe she's gone..." he said, shaking his head.

Nat was his younger sister. They didn't have the most perfect relationship, but he tried. She really changed after she met Connor. Everything went down hill from there.

"Guys, I think you need to see this," Johnny said grimly, standing at the bottom of the stairs. He had gone up with the girls to reason with Noelle. After that hadn't worked, he started to pick the lock.

We followed him up the stairs, not knowing what was coming next. The girls were either in tears, or close to it. We walked over to the bed, and saw why. Noelle was laying there, in a tank and shorts. The girls must have changed her, but, that wasn't what was wrong.

She had bruises and scars all over her body. One really bad scar went from her left hip all the way up to the underside of her right breast. It was healed, but looked like it had been painful.

Her eyes started to open slowly. When she saw all of us, and what she was wearing, she jumped back and hit the head bored. She curled into a ball and started shaking.

The only thing we heard her say was, "Please don't hurt me."