Of Our Souls

A few days later we were in Paradise, Nevada. We had just played a set and now we were at signing. The guys were happily chatting with fans, bearing grins on their faces. All of them had a few cards with numbers from girls who thought they had a chance with my boys. A smile appeared on my face as I realized that later in the bus the boys were going to make fun of all this. Or maybe by some miracle they’re going to text those girls, but I doubted it. It wasn’t the first time when they got numbers and they always did something childish with them. For example, prank call in the middle of the night one of those girls. It was fun to listen to them talk nonsense, because the girls never figured out who was calling them. And when I say never, I mean never.

My hand barely moved as I scribbled down my autograph on a piece of paper to a shy looking girl who was standing in front of me. I looked up at her with a smile on my face and handed back the piece of paper. Her face lit up in happiness and she stretched out her arm to take the paper from my hand. Her hoodie rolled up a bit up her arm and I caught a glimpse of her wrist which was lined with numerous scars. And some of them were fresh. My eyes widened a bit and I looked up at her face. She had noticed me look at her wrists and her eyes filled up with panic. Water pooled at the corners of her eyes and I knew that she was going to run.

“Can you wait a few minutes beside the tent?” I asked her quickly, fearing that she’d refuse and disappear, but she quickly nodded her head and moved away from the table. After that my head was a mess. I mean, what’s the chance that you’ll see a fan with scars? It happened rarely and most people wanted to hide their scars in fear that everyone will reject them.

The second I wrote my last autograph, I jumped up from the chair and ran out of the tent, not looking back at my band mates. They were my last priority right that moment. My motherly instinct had kicked in and I wanted to make sure that that girl was okay. I found her a few feet away from the tent and I walked up right up to her.

“Hey.” I smiled at her. She looked at me surprised and her face contorted in fear. I swallowed the lump in my throat and I forgot what I wanted to say to her.

“Let’s go somewhere quieter, okay?” I asked slowly, trying to sound coherent. Her answer was a brief nod and I motioned for her to follow me. No words were exchanged as I lead her towards the only place I could think of: the small clearing beside where the busses were parked. The familiar nervousness returned to the pit of my stomach and I felt my fingers start to twitch and my throat closed up a bit. My mind went completely blank the closer we drew towards the clearing. I closed my eyes for the briefest moment as I drew in a shaky breath.

“Hey Greta!” The call didn’t reach my ears, because I was too caught up in my mind. Various thoughts circled in my head and I moved in a robotic kind of way.

“You know Austin Carlile?” My surprised gaze looked up at the girl that was slightly taller than me. I smiled briefly and nodded my head.

“We met a few days ago.” I answered her as I turned my gaze towards where she was looking. There, in all his glory, stood Austin with furrowed brows. I raised my hand in a brief wave and mouthed him a ‘later’ which he seemed to have understood, because he nodded his head quickly and walked away. After the first day of Warped, I hadn’t seen him. It seemed to me that he had disappeared for four days to a magical land and came back only today.

“I hope you won’t be mad if we sit on the ground..?” I asked her after I turned to her when we were on the field. She nodded her head and we sat down on the ground. The second I looked up at the girl, I found myself speechless. I literally couldn’t say anything.
“Why?” I choked out after a few moments of watching her pick the grass. She stopped her movements and kept her gaze on the ground. Her shoulders were tense and I could see that her eyes were full of tears.

“I won’t judge you, because…” I sighed quietly as I pulled a few of my bracelets on my left hand up to reveal a few scars of my own. “I have a few scars of my own.” And I felt water pool at the edges of my eyes. The girl looked at my outstretched hand and then moved her gaze to my face. She seemed shocked and I wasn’t surprised. Only the band knew about my scars and other painful things. I never wanted to share my painful story with anyone who was outside of the band, because I was afraid. Afraid of being rejected and shun away. Plus, it would have started gossip which I hated.

“Why?” The sincerity in her eyes made a few tears slip out from my eyes and I quickly wiped them away. With a big intake of breath, I fixed my bracelets so they were hiding my scars.

“I want to make sure that you’re okay. I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours. Call it a trade, yeah..?” I shrugged my shoulders and ran my hand through my hair. Silently, the girl contemplated on my words and I felt nervous. I found it hard to breathe so I closed my eyes.

“I’m 18 and now that I finished school, my mom’s boyfriend of three months wants me to move out so they could start a family of their own. My mom is completely blinded by that guy and she agrees to everything he says.” The girl gave an angry scoff and continued her story. “I mean, I would love to move out, but I don’t have a job nor any money to be able to go somewhere. And I’ve been bullied by our neighbor’s son every single day for the past seven years. At first it was just childish things, but as the years went by, he started to point out my flaws. Then my self esteem was almost equal to a zero, but now, I can’t even look at the mirror and not see a fat, idiotic failure.” I swallowed the lump in my throat as I listened to her.

“And every day he does everything to get in my face and tell me that I will never reach anything in my life. As if, a suck up douchebag like him will reach something… And all of this is just too overwhelming and cutting is my only escape when I can blow some steam off and forget everything.” The girl sighed angrily and looked up at me.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t burden you with this…” She muttered sadly and I shook my head.

“Where’s your dad?” I quietly asked ad the girl immediately looked down.

“He died when I was 7.” I leaned over to her and clutched her hand in my own.

“I know you may not want to hear this, but this will be my pieces of advice.” I smiled warmly at her and she nodded her head slowly so that I could continue talking. “Talk to your mom about the part where her boyfriend is stepping out of line. Don’t come out as aggressive or then she’ll think that you’re trying to destroy their relationship. Just tell her how you’re feeling and what’s going on. As for the boy, don’t listen to him. He doesn’t have any meaning in your life so why listen to a person who is full of shit? You’re not a failure. You are not fat or idiotic. You’re human and you are you. No one else is as special as you.” I smiled at her and squeezed her hand.

“Thank you.” The girl smiled slightly and I saw tears pool at the corners of her eyes.

“What’s your story?” And I paled and felt numb. The girl saw my expression change and she opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off.

“Back home, there’s no one who’s waiting for me. My parents are dead. My so called friends believed that I was going to fail at this “music thing” as they said. My only family is my aunt and grandma and every time we do a video chat through skype, they tell me this won’t bring me enough money in the future. As if, money is the most important thing in the world…” I muttered angrily as I wiped my eyes furiously. The tears tried to slip out and I didn’t want to look weak.

“They also try to prove to me that I should quit this altogether and return home to finish my psychology studies. When I was in school, I got bullied, called fat, emo. I got told to kill myself, that no one will ever love me or that I don’t deserve to be in a band with five good boys. I receive a ton of hate for being the only girl in the band. It raises gossip and people talk that I slept with each one of them to get my part in the band. But the best thing that I have ever heard someone tell me was that my parents deserved to die and that it was my fault.” With a sigh I looked up at her and she had a few tears rolling down her face.

“I blame myself for my parent’s death. Every day when I look in the mirror I hate what I see. I feel like a failure. I feel angry, alone. I have insomnia and panic attacks…” I grew quiet and looked down in shame.

“Why are you telling me this?” The girl asked and I sighed lightly.

“Because I hope that you will never lay a razor blade on your skin again and cut because life seems unfair. If it wasn’t for those five boys that I am in a band with then I wouldn’t be alive. Find people who will help you pull through and you’ll conquer everything. You will prove everyone that you can reach what you want and that they had no right to talk shit. Don’t let anyone bring you down.” My heart was wavering from all the feelings that I felt as I talked. I wanted her to believe that she could do anything. I really wanted to help her…

It seemed years before she spoke and when she did, I wanted to burst into tears.

“I tried to kill myself six months ago, but in some kind of a strange miracle, I heard one of your songs and…” She choked a bit on a sob that was raking her body and I started crying like a little girl.

“I listened to the lyrics and I felt so many feelings and it seemed that I could relate to you and now, six months later, I am talking to you and I find out you went through much bigger shit than me. I feel stupid for cutting just because I have some idiot talk nonsense and that there’s a man in my house who will probably be out of it in a few weeks.” Through her tears she smiled and I wiped my eyes, but the tears kept coming. It was the sad truth.

“I can’t believe that you never told your fans about this.” She whispered and I looked down at the ground.

“I receive enough hate as it is. If I were to tell everyone then everyone would start talking that not only I slept with my precious babies, but that I used them with my sad life story. I fucked up once when I told someone this and it won’t happen again. I don’t want everyone to know, because I don’t think I’ll survive all the talks and looks and just overall everything…” I closed my eyes and ran my hand through my hair. It had been so long since I had talked about everything that I kept secret from the outside world that now I felt like some weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

“Thank you…” The girl smiled at me and suddenly I felt so vulnerable. Here I was, sitting in a small clearing, telling a girl, that I didn’t even know, a story about my life. For all I knew, maybe after she comes home, she’ll go on tumblr and write everything that I just told her in a post. Sure, there may be people who won’t believe this, but I’ll blame myself for opening up like that and letting myself go just because I wanted her to feel better and show her that cutting isn’t an option.

“I won’t tell anyone about what you told me.” As if reading my mind she took the words right out of my mouth. The sincerity in her eyes told me that she wasn’t lying and I smiled gratefully.

“Maybe I feel special, or maybe I feel blessed to have talked to you about this, I don’t know, but I feel good. Now, it seems that everything will work out and I promise you that I’ll try not to cut.” I couldn’t help myself, but I just scooted over to the girl and wrapped my arms around her. I was happy that she was going to try, that she wasn’t making fun of me or that she wasn’t screaming at me that my advice was shit. She hugged me back and I heard a light chuckle escape her mouth.

“I believe in you and I know that you will conquer everything.” I told her after I pulled away and she smiled shyly.

“You’re definitely my role-model.” She muttered and I blushed beet red.

“Am I interrupting something, ladies?” Both of us looked up at Austin’s grinning face. Before I could open my mouth, the girl answered for me.

“Not anymore.” And with a knowing look she stood up. My eyes widened like saucers and I blushed once again.

“Wait a bit.” I told her quickly standing up. I took out my sharpie and a piece of paper from my back pocket and scribbled down my e-mail.

“Wait…” I looked at the girl with furrowed brows. “I’m so rude. I didn’t even ask your name…” Both, Austin and the girl, started laughing and I pouted. It had completely slipped my mind to ask her name.

“Amanda.” She smiled at me and I grinned, stretching out my hand with that piece of paper.

“E-mail me if you want. I’ll try to reply as soon as I can.” With a big grin and a quick hug to both, me and Austin, Amanda walked away. It seemed that she was glowing with happiness and I smiled warmly.

“Something tells me that you just changed Amanda’s view on life.” Austin spoke beside me and I looked up at him. He was watching me with a warm gaze and I felt nervous all over again. After inhaling a shaky breath, I shook my head.

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t… Only time will tell.”