Better Than This

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Emma muttered to herself as she slinked out of the crowd along with her two friends. It was her first concert and here she was, leaving before the final song was over just so they could complete a dare. A bloody dare! Sometimes she couldn't understand her friend's logic.

They made it out from the crowd and made their way out of the hall, trying to work out where they could find a way backstage in order to complete their dare. "I think it's that way," Rose, one of her friends, said while pointing to a corridor they were about to pass. They began to make their way down the corridor when they slowed significantly because they could see a flaw in their plan: a tour member sitting in the way to make sure no fan got backstage. But after a moment's contemplation, Rose decided to step forward and think on her feet in order to get him to move from his spot so both Emma and Lida could get passed.

As they ducked back round the corner, neither could hear what their friend was saying and after a few minutes had passed, they started to thinking they'd never get backstage when Rose rounded the corner with the tour member, going in the opposite direction to them so that they were not spotted. Quickly, they both rushed down the now deserted corridor and into the backstage area.

"Okay, we split up. If anyone sees you, run like the wind, okay?" Lida said, making sure that Emma agreed before they split up, hoping to see something worth telling their other friends when they got back to them at the car. The original dare had been to steal an item of clothing from backstage that belonged to the band, but after realising how difficult that would probably be, it was stripped down to just getting backstage and managing to stay there for ten full minutes. It was a stupid dare but then again, her friends were rather stupid people in her opinion. That's what made them amazing, too.

Checking her phone, she realised that the show was probably almost over with and soon this area was probably going to be flooded with people. It'd make it much harder for her to get round unspotted. As she looked around, she spotted what appeared to be a small room which she figured would be a great place to hide for the ten minutes so that she could tell her friends that she made it for the entire ten minutes, but keeping the fact that she hid to herself because they never said that she couldn't hide to make it easier on herself.

Making sure no one was watching, she slipped over to the room and ducked into it, closing the door swiftly and turning around only to be greeted by Alex Gaskarth sitting on a chair with a notepad and pen in his hands.

"Oh my gosh," she squeaked as he looked up to see who was in the room.

Frowning because he didn't recognise the girl, he asked, "Can I help you?"

Emma couldn't believe that this was happening. Sitting in front of her was her one and only idol whom she never thought she'd ever meet in a million years. Not even a billion flippin' years! She could feel herself struggling for words as she tried to answer the question. "Y-you're," she breathed out, eyes wide as ever, "you're Alex Gaskarth! You're my idol!"

A smile appeared on his face at the girl's words, and because of how he loved connecting with his fans, he placed his notepad on his lap and gave the girl his attention. "That's very flattering," he said, "but it's hard to be an idol when you don't do anything special."

"Are you kidding?" she exclaimed, throwing her arms up in shock. "Your lyrics and music make everything feel alright – they speak to fans – me – and they completely change our lives because these four amazing guys decided to make something beautiful and help a bunch of teenagers that need an escape." She was passionate with her words and couldn't understand how someone so amazing couldn't see that they were so special.

Alex gave a chuckle. "I take it you're a big fan?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "You have no idea how much your band means to me."

Knocking some items from the chair next to him, Alex patted the seat at her. "Tell me all about it," he prompted, giving her a smile which just soothed all her nerves and allowed her to walk over to him and sit in the seat freely. "Do you have a story? I get a lot of them in letters."

Slowly, she nodded. She did have a story but she didn't like sharing it because, well, why would she? She was never an entirely happy girl and social stigma said that her way of coping with not being able to cope with the growing pressures of getting older was wrong and bad and disgusting.

"Do you want to talk about your story?"

"I...I don't know," she confessed, even though he made her feel less nervous than she was which was something that not a lot of people managed to do. "You're my idol – I don't want you to judge me."

He placed a hand on hers. "There's nothing wrong with being a bit messed up, we all are in one way or another."

It was that sentence that allowed her to break down her barriers and tell this man who was practically a stranger something that she could never tell her parents. It was probably because of the fact that he was a stranger and her idol that made her feel comfortable enough to open up to him. "It started when I was about fourteen when my parents moved us from our hometown to a place I didn't know. I was so alone and we were all dealing with my sister's death that I guess my parents didn't notice that I was hurting too. Nothing really mattered for a while and I...I guess I needed to do something to cope with it so I picked up a razor," she said, her voice getting lighter and lighter as she remembered the past. "I don't know what it was but when I put that razor to my arm...it helped in a way that crying didn't. So I continued."

Alex held out his hand, silently asking for her arm which she reluctantly gave him. The sleeve was rolled up and small cuts that lined her arm appeared, showing that she hadn't stopped with that coping method.

"And then I got friends and I thought that everything would be alright because I wasn't alone any more, right? Wrong because I still felt alone and as time went on I was missing my sister more and more, until one day...I had a "breakdown" in a class, in my teacher's terms, and my parents took me to a doctor and I was diagnosed with depression and the three of us were put into grief therapy, which did help, but what helped the most was one of your songs, "Therapy", because it just spoke to me in ways that no other song had before and almost seemed to be telling me personally a message, something which has stuck to me since," she continued on, tears forming in her eyes as she did. "And then I started growing older and older and the prospect of fully growing up hit me and I didn't know how to react, which is why I started with the razor again because I can't think about the future or growing up because it's too daunting and how am I supposed to grow older and live my life when my sister will never do the same thing?"

When she'd finished, Alex reached over and wiped the tears that had fallen off of her cheeks. "It's never easy to get over losing a family member," he admitted, "because you never truly will do."

Emma sniffed and wiped the few remaining tears away, looking at Alex. "I'm sorry, I never meant to tell you all my problems," she apologised, feeling somewhat embarrassed now that she'd felt so comfortable with him that she had spilt her guts to him.

"No need to apologise, I'm glad I was able to hear it," he assured her before gesturing to her arm, "but this needs to stop because you're better than this. You're a beautiful person on the inside and out, and you went through something that no one should, but you made it through the other side and that's what you have to focus on because you're strong enough to live through the pain."

She nodded, taking in his words. They were speaking to her in such a way she no other words ever had done. He seemed so sincere and that's what brought more tears to her eyes.

"Hey, don't cry," he said, and in a quick moment, pressed his lips gently to hers to soothe and calm her. And it was in that one moment when Emma felt everything bad in her life just suddenly disappear.