All For You & More

In order to move forward, you have to move back. In order to understand how things worked before Dannick made that life altering decision, you have to know who she was. Who he was. Who they are. 

You see, Dannick was never your average person, never particularly... Anything. She was a person that looked quite normal on the outside, very safe, you could say, but on the inside, she was anything but. 

Dannick was scary, not her personality, not her looks, but her mind, that was a frightening place to be. If she stayed alone and by herself for too long, she would quite literally go insane. 

She didn't know why she was like this, she didn't know how it gotten so bad, but she was, and it had, so she was stuck. Dannick was manic-depressive, and she was a prisoner in her own head. 

She had little friends, and no one was close enough to know the truth. She liked to keep to herself, ironically. She listened to music constantly, trying to block out the monsters in her head, trying to focus on the lyrics of the bands she adored rather than having to listen to the screaming going on in her head. She was content. She was getting through it. She was trying.

Trying, that's what she said she was doing, but her 'trying' was more like coping, and her coping included cutting. Nothing extensive, nothing dramatic, just a few thin neat lines here and there, hidden away by thick bands of bracelets, no one suspected a thing. 

The way cutting worked for Dannick, was a release. She thought the calamity in her mind was at ease if only for a moment the second the razor blade touched her skin. Dragging the thin metal over her wrist produced a thin neat line of crimson that she began to adore, and the pain wasn't pain anymore, it was a moment to breathe. The screaming stopped. The only thing she could hear was a voice, nothing more than a quiet whisper in the back of her mind encouraging her to go deeper, but she never did. 

In many ways, Dannick was what most people would consider crazy. No one knew this but herself. And she had planned to keep it that way.

Vic was normal. He was average. He was happy. He was just another teenager with long hair in a band, and that was that.

He didn't have many friends besides his bandmates, not because he was unliked, or unpopular, it was simply because, like Dannick, he liked to keep to himself. He enjoyed time to be alone and write music, or play his guitar, he liked simply having alone time. Sure, he enjoyed the company of his friends, but he always preferred to hang by himself, rather than being with too many people, talking too loudly, about things that were too unimportant. Vic was, in essence, a loner, but he didn't mind it.

Vic and Dannick knew of each other, like you would know of a person who is in a few of your classes, but you never talk to, they knew of each others existence, but they knew no more then that. That is until that fateful day, the day that would bring the two together, the day that changed it all.

"Ah, todays assignment, is taking a picture, one single picture, of something that makes you think twice. This could be a person, a thing, a place, i don't know, whatever makes you think twice, shoot it, and shoot it well. This is due at the beginning of the period tomorrow! Partnered up, that's how it's going today class, so grab a buddy," Their photography teacher Mr. Klein grinned from ear to ear and waved his hands in an upward motion, trying to get the unenthusiastic kids out of their seats.

Vic groaned and, from across the room, Dannick sighed. They both hated working with partners. They hated having to talk to people they didn't know, and spending the entire time in and awkward silence. They hated it.

Soon the whole class was partnered up, everyone standing together, clammering about what to take, random snaps going off as the students fiddled with settings on the digital cameras they held in their hands. The only two students left without a partner, were Vic and Dannick.

Dannick glanced around the room nervously, looking and silently hoping that she was the only one left without a partner, she frowned when she saw Vic sitting across the room alone too. He smiled sadly and did a slight wave to her, hoping she would get it, and walk over to him.

She sighed and grabbed her things, walking towards Vic unexcitedly. 

He stood up from his desk and put his camera strap around his neck as the girl he was going to have to work with got closer to him. The closer she got the more he lost his breath. She was really pretty. Something he hadn't noticed before, he had barely even caught her name all year, but staring at her now made him wish he had paid more attention. She was special, he could already tell.

She smiled slightly at him when she was finally a foot away. He spoke up first, "Uh hey, I'm Vic." he nodded at her, smiling shyly.

"Dannick," she said nodding, her first thoughts of him were, he's cute, but other than that she had no other opinions. He would probably be like every other guy out there, nothing special, nothing good, she would just have to work with him this one day, and then it would be over. 

"So... What do you want to shoot?" she asked him. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, something she did when she was nervous. She didn't know why standing this close to Vic made her nervous, but it did, and she was.

"Well... I don't know... The instructions were kinda... Cryptic, don't ya think?" Vic stated, shrugging his shoulders and he looked around the room, avoiding eye contact with her.

"Mm hmm... I don't know either..." because a lot of things make me think twice, she thought to herself, not bothering to finish her sentence.

Vic turned to her and smiled, confidently this time, he barely knew this girl, but he liked her already. He wanted to know more about her. He wanted, if nothing else, to be her friend.

"Mind if I take a picture of you?" He asked bravely.

She blushed besides herself and looked away sheepishly. She didn't know why Vic would want to take a picture of her, she was nothing special, nothing to think twice about, but she wouldn't deny him asking her, so she nodded.

"I guess so, but why me?" she wondered.

He chuckled, "Simple, you make me think twice."

And with that he put the camera to his face, finding just the right angle to capture this girl in, and he smiled, clicking one single time, capturing the moment, something he loved to do.

He bought the camera down to view the shot he had just taken and marveled at it as a huge grin erupted in his features. He could've sworn he had never taken such a good picture before, everything about it just looked, right. 

"Wanna see it?" he said hopefully, wanting to some how send her a signal that he liked her, as a friend if not more.

She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully before responding. 

"I'm sure there isn't much to see... But I guess," she said shrugging.

His grin faltered only a little as he leaned over to show her the image on the small screen on the camera. Dannick leaned in to see the picture and their heads touched together a little, neither of them pulled away in the slightest.

"Wow." she sighed, she was actually impressed. It was such a simple picture, but something about it made it incredible.

"You make me think twice," Vic whispered while Dannick continued to stare at the picture of herself, trying to asses what made it so pretty.

"Why?" she asked her, moving away from the screen to stare at Vic, who had a determined look on his face, dead serious.

"Because... I can tell there's something about you... Something more, and I want to know, you make me want to get to know you better," He said with a shrug, hoping that didn't sound too weird to her.

She furrowed her eyebrows at him, he was confusing her. She barely even knew this guy, but he really seemed interested in her, and it was beyond her why anyone would even want to get to know her... She wasn't that great of a person in her personal opinion.

"You want to know more about me?" she questioned, clarifying if she had actually understood him correctly.

He nodded, "Yeah, you seem really interesting"

She couldn't help but grin a little and nod at him, thinking that maybe there was more to this boy then she had expected. And there was more to him, a lot more. She never would've guessed that she would fall absolutely in love with him, she never would've guessed that 11 months later, she would be dying for him.