Status: Completed
How to Save a Life
Therapy
Part 2- Therapy
When you wake up, you’re alone and in the dark. Blinking the sleep from your eyes, you lay perfectly still for a moment as memories of what had happened pour over you. You take a few deep breaths, surprised when the tears don’t come. Maybe you’ve cried every tear you had to offer already.
Where the hell am I?
You sit up and look around. Now that your eyes have adjusted to the darkness, you can see a long, then strip of light. Feeling your way towards it, you reach out a hand and find that what you thought was a wall was actually a curtain. You pull it aside warily. It opens to reveal what would appear to be the inside of All Tme Low’s tour bus. Across from you, another curtain is partially pulled back to reveal Jack sprawled across his bunk, sleeping with his mouth wide open.
Aww.
Swinging your legs over the edge of the bed you’ve been in, you slide quietly down to the floor. Further observations reveal two more bunks, one above you and one above Jack, as well as several additional rows down the hall that you assume are for the crew.
You tiptoe cautiously across the carpet, making your way past rows of sleeping men to the back of the bus. As you reach it, you see a lounge-type room lined with pleather couches. Alex, still dressed in the jeans and Glamour Kills t-shirt he had been wearing earlier, was curled up at one end of a couch, his laptop screen open and glowing beside him.
Did I just sleep in Alex Gaskarth’s bunk?!
You smile at the way his beanie is slipping off the hair that you could tell had once been carefully styled, and at the way he looks happy, even in his sleep. Crossing the room silently, you walk over to him and sit down next to him on the couch. Leaning over, you examine the laptop.
“Wormhole- Wikipedia, the Free Encyclodpedia”
Why is he reading about wormholes at-
You check the clock in the corner of the screen.
Three-thirty in the morning?
Just then, Alex shifts and you pull away from the computer. He stretches his arms above his head, yawns, and opens his eyes blearily. He notices you and sits up immediately. He is suddenly wide awake.
“Y/n,” he says. “You’re awake. What are you doing up at-” he too checks the screen- “three-thirty AM?”
“Same thing as you,” you tell him.
“Which is?”
You shrug, and he sighs. Settling himself sideways on the couch so he can look at you, he says
“So are you ready to tell me why you tried to throw yourself off a bridge yet?”
You look away; you knew this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant.
What if he thinks I’m just a weak, pathetic mess?
“You’ll just think I’m pathetic,” you mumble, still not meeting his eyes.
“No,” he corrects. “I’ll think you’re strong.”
Finally, you bring your gaze back up to his. Mistake. You can’t say no to those beautiful eyes.
“It started a while ago,” you begin. “I don’t even know why, but I started hating myself and my life. I stopped talking to my friends, I withdrew into myself. I stopped giving a fuck about anything.
And then the cutting started. At first it was one little cut. Then another. And then I started cutting whenever anything went wrong, because it was the only thing I knew I could do right.”
You pull hack the bracelets on your wrist and show him the scars. You can see his eyes change at the sight, but you can’t read the emotion in them. Sadness? Anger? Regardless, you plow on.
“My parents found out. They thought I was fucked up, thought I needed therapy. But when it didn’t work, it tore them apart. They got divorced last month and it’s all my fault, none of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for me. And the whole time my grades sucked because I just could bring myself to care about school and my boyfriend thought I was mental and broke up with me on my eighteenth birthday, and I just can’t do anything right, I’m stupid and useless and ugly and a monster and I just can’t take it anymore.”
By the end, tears are streaming down your cheeks again. Apparently you haven’t used them all up yet. Alex reaches over and pulls you close to him. He strokes you hair and says nothing, just holds you as you cry on his shoulder as quietly as you can.
Y/n,” he whispers fiercely. “You are not stupid. You are not useless. You are not a monster. And you are the most beautiful girl I have ever met. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Now, let me see your wrist.”
Mystified, you hold out your wrist to him. He takes it gently in both of his hands and kisses each and every one of the dozens of scars that crisscross your skin.
“I kissed the scars on her skin, I still think you’re beautiful, I don’t ever want to lose my best friend,” he murmurs. “Y/n, you aren’t my best friend now, but you will be. You said you’re 18, right?”
You nod.
“What would you say if I asked you to spend the rest of the summer on tour with us?”
——————————————————————————————
Title credit: All Time Low
When you wake up, you’re alone and in the dark. Blinking the sleep from your eyes, you lay perfectly still for a moment as memories of what had happened pour over you. You take a few deep breaths, surprised when the tears don’t come. Maybe you’ve cried every tear you had to offer already.
Where the hell am I?
You sit up and look around. Now that your eyes have adjusted to the darkness, you can see a long, then strip of light. Feeling your way towards it, you reach out a hand and find that what you thought was a wall was actually a curtain. You pull it aside warily. It opens to reveal what would appear to be the inside of All Tme Low’s tour bus. Across from you, another curtain is partially pulled back to reveal Jack sprawled across his bunk, sleeping with his mouth wide open.
Aww.
Swinging your legs over the edge of the bed you’ve been in, you slide quietly down to the floor. Further observations reveal two more bunks, one above you and one above Jack, as well as several additional rows down the hall that you assume are for the crew.
You tiptoe cautiously across the carpet, making your way past rows of sleeping men to the back of the bus. As you reach it, you see a lounge-type room lined with pleather couches. Alex, still dressed in the jeans and Glamour Kills t-shirt he had been wearing earlier, was curled up at one end of a couch, his laptop screen open and glowing beside him.
Did I just sleep in Alex Gaskarth’s bunk?!
You smile at the way his beanie is slipping off the hair that you could tell had once been carefully styled, and at the way he looks happy, even in his sleep. Crossing the room silently, you walk over to him and sit down next to him on the couch. Leaning over, you examine the laptop.
“Wormhole- Wikipedia, the Free Encyclodpedia”
Why is he reading about wormholes at-
You check the clock in the corner of the screen.
Three-thirty in the morning?
Just then, Alex shifts and you pull away from the computer. He stretches his arms above his head, yawns, and opens his eyes blearily. He notices you and sits up immediately. He is suddenly wide awake.
“Y/n,” he says. “You’re awake. What are you doing up at-” he too checks the screen- “three-thirty AM?”
“Same thing as you,” you tell him.
“Which is?”
You shrug, and he sighs. Settling himself sideways on the couch so he can look at you, he says
“So are you ready to tell me why you tried to throw yourself off a bridge yet?”
You look away; you knew this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant.
What if he thinks I’m just a weak, pathetic mess?
“You’ll just think I’m pathetic,” you mumble, still not meeting his eyes.
“No,” he corrects. “I’ll think you’re strong.”
Finally, you bring your gaze back up to his. Mistake. You can’t say no to those beautiful eyes.
“It started a while ago,” you begin. “I don’t even know why, but I started hating myself and my life. I stopped talking to my friends, I withdrew into myself. I stopped giving a fuck about anything.
And then the cutting started. At first it was one little cut. Then another. And then I started cutting whenever anything went wrong, because it was the only thing I knew I could do right.”
You pull hack the bracelets on your wrist and show him the scars. You can see his eyes change at the sight, but you can’t read the emotion in them. Sadness? Anger? Regardless, you plow on.
“My parents found out. They thought I was fucked up, thought I needed therapy. But when it didn’t work, it tore them apart. They got divorced last month and it’s all my fault, none of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for me. And the whole time my grades sucked because I just could bring myself to care about school and my boyfriend thought I was mental and broke up with me on my eighteenth birthday, and I just can’t do anything right, I’m stupid and useless and ugly and a monster and I just can’t take it anymore.”
By the end, tears are streaming down your cheeks again. Apparently you haven’t used them all up yet. Alex reaches over and pulls you close to him. He strokes you hair and says nothing, just holds you as you cry on his shoulder as quietly as you can.
Y/n,” he whispers fiercely. “You are not stupid. You are not useless. You are not a monster. And you are the most beautiful girl I have ever met. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Now, let me see your wrist.”
Mystified, you hold out your wrist to him. He takes it gently in both of his hands and kisses each and every one of the dozens of scars that crisscross your skin.
“I kissed the scars on her skin, I still think you’re beautiful, I don’t ever want to lose my best friend,” he murmurs. “Y/n, you aren’t my best friend now, but you will be. You said you’re 18, right?”
You nod.
“What would you say if I asked you to spend the rest of the summer on tour with us?”
——————————————————————————————
Title credit: All Time Low
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