Self Destruction Is Such a Pretty Little Thing

When we got back from the hotel, and settled in, Ben ushered me into our room and pulled out an acoustic guitar, locking the door behind us and grabbing a pen and paper.

"Look, I have the first verse down pat, but I'm still not sure about the chorus," He mumbled and cleared his throat, beginning the first verse.

"If the world went crashing down,

And the oceans all to dust

Air is my heaven, and I swear it's a drug

This life was a hallucination, an unfortunate creation," He paused, and stopped playing the guitar. His voice had been absolutely beautiful, and he was amazing at guitar. "The chorus is iffy...," He cleared his throat again and sang,

"With your smile my heart pumps

You're all I want to see," I stopped him quickly by waving my hand in front of his face. The chorus didn't fit the verse, and was much to deep. He needed to go higher! He looked up, and I shook my head. "What then?" He asked.

"Something much more beautiful," I explained on my board.

"Like?" He cocked his head and I thought hard.

"With your breath my heart beats, you're all my eyes can see," He read what I wrote, and a smile slowly crept across his face.

"How will it go?" His smile turned to a smirk.

"I'm not singing it," I shook my head.

"Well, the next lyrics I had were," He began again, too sing.

"You're eyes are grey as long as oceans shine," He smiled back at me.

I waved my arms in a switching motion. "Flip eyes and oceans," I wrote

"Ocean's are grey as long as your eyes shine?" He grinned. "What next?"

"Your voice is my song that sings me to sleep," I wrote with a huge grin. The was much more fun than I'd expected. Ben smiled and ushered for me to go on. I shook my head. I wanted him to write the last line of the chorus.

He rolled his eyes. "What about...'The world is colorless for you'?" He cocked his head and I nodded.

"It'll be beautiful," I wrote.

"Sing it so I know what I'm doing. I'll never make you do it again! I won't tell anyone and it'll be our secret," Ben was pleading now. His eyes grew large and his lower lip trembled.

I thought hard on how the song should go. This would be the only time Ben would ever hear me sing.

"With your breath my heart beats, you're all my eyes can see. Oceans are grey as long as your eyes shine. Your voice is the song that sings me to sleep. The world is colorless for you," My face burned like a mother fucker. I hadn't sung in months, or even talked. Ben was blushing too, and grinning at me.

"You have a beautiful voice," Ben leaned over and pressed his lips to my cheek.

"Ben! We have to get to the grocery store mate!" I heard Cameron-the-cock-block yell.

"I'll be out in a sec!" Ben screamed back. "You said you wanted to check the internet right? Computer's over there. See you in a bit, we'll be back soon," Ben smiled at me and rushed out of the room.

I smiled to myself as I heard their cars drive away. It had felt nice to sing again, especially for Ben. And he kissed my cheek! The butterflies in my stomach are overwhelming! I'd never actually been so happy to be around a person before. I'd hate to admit it, but I think I like Ben.

I walked to the lap top, and sat down with it, turning it on and signing into internet explorer. I clicked on the Facebook icon that was in the favorites bar, and signed into my account for the first time in almost a year. I had been banned from it, when I signed into the mental hospital.

When the page loaded, I had over 20 messages, 12 friend requests, and 73 notifications. I smiled a little. Had people actually missed me or something? I grinned and opened the messages first. It was probably a mistake to do so, but it was too late. A few were picture messages, which I checked first. Two of the photo's were the same one of my face cropped onto a picture of a skeleton, one was of my face cropped onto a girl puking over a toilet, and there were many different photos of my face cropped with girls who had cuts on their body.

My spare hand automatically flew to my mouth to keep myself from screaming or crying. My heart sunk to the ground and my body became numb. At least ten of the messages I scrolled through, were either death threats from Gunnar's friends, taunts about the hospital, or people requesting that I kill myself. Some of the messages went into depth about why I should die, or how I should do it. Others were kids giving me reasons too.

"You have nothing left to live for"

"No one will ever love you"

"The yearbook voted you ugliest out of senior year"

"You're fat"

"Scars are ugly"

"You're wasting air"

"You'll never go anywhere in life"

And the worst was the one from my sister, that read; "Lucy, I don't know what to do. I'm actually fucking embarrassed to say you're my sister. Die so we can all pretend you never happened. You're ruining your own family's life! DON'T come home when you get out of that stupid rehab!"

I'm now in tears. They were all fucking right. I felt at the scars on my stomach. Who's to fucking say cutting isn't the answer? Death isn't cowardly. Nothing was worth it anymore. My mind was completely blank, except for the thought of the razor I'd smuggled here from home, that lay deep in the stuffing of my pillow.

I heard a beep, and a notification of an email popped up. I didn't mean to click it so that I could snoop, but the title intrigued me, through my tears; Lyric change!!!

I knew that these would be Ben's or Danny's lyrics, so I hoped they might cheer me up and get me off the track I felt myself slipping down. I was fucking wrong. I clicked on the message, which was a reply to an outgoing message from Ben.

"I've changed some of the lyrics for a song!

It hurts to cry when tears run dry

and all the thoughts escape my head

I can't force my heart to beat

While I watch you fucking fry.

So cut out your soul like you've cut out your smile

What'dya think?! I'm excited about this one! Lot's of inspirtation went into that!!!!!!"

I sobbed even fucking harder. Was he fucking talking about me? I had absolutely no idea that Ben was so fake, so horrible and so...I can't even put words into my mind now. I was completely done. I hated my life, and there was nothing left to it. Ben hated me, and so did my family. Even James doesn't care. He's only pitying me.

***

***Ben's POV***

As we walked through the door into the house, my arms hurt like fucking hell from carrying the grocery's. We'd been gone for at least an hour, and I felt really bad for leaving Lucy home alone. I was still giddy with happiness from getting to hear her beautiful singing voice.

"Remind me to never go shopping with you guys again. You filled a whole cart with boxes of mac and cheese!" I screamed to Danny.

"I know I did!" Danny yelled back with a huge smile across his face.

Sam grimaced and pulled his face in. "AHCHOO!" He let out a yelp and sighed.

"Bless you," I waved him away and walked to the counter, placing all the bags there.

"Hey wait!" Danny yelled.

"What?" James groaned as he too dropped his bags onto the kitchen table.

"MAC AND SNEEZE!" Danny burst into tearful laughter and released his grocery's onto the floor, while Cam followed me, Sam and James's actions to the kitchen.

"Lucy, we're home!" James yelled down the hall. No answer, obviously.

"Guy's I finished the song, with Lucy's help," I hit Sam's shoulder.

"Sweet! Now we just have to rerecord, because you added lyrics, right?" Sam piped up.

"Yeah man! I can't wait to release this album," I sighed, and leaned my hand on the table.

"Did Lucy say she was going to jump in the shower or something?" Asked James, looking a little worried. "Did she say she was heading out?"

"No, why?" I cocked my head.

"She hasn't come out here. She usually comes right out," James shrugged.

"I'll go check on her, she might be sleeping," I stretched my arms, and headed down the hall towards our room.

I knocked on the door lightly, and it moved a little. "Lu? Do you hear me?" I snuck in, to find an empty room. The laptop still laid on the bed, and was open a bit, but asleep. She hadn't been touching it for a while then. I stepped towards it and hit the keys, opening up to her Facebook page.

All I could see were rude messages. I couldn't bare to look, so I logged off quickly and shut down the computer. I didn't even take time to read that bullshit. I peeked into the closet, which was also empty, and looked to find her pillow taken from it's pillow case and actually cut open with scissors lying on the couch. I cocked my head and picked up the pillow. She must've cut it open and fished around for something physically in the stuffing.

I knitted my eyebrows together in confusion, and stepped into the hallway. I called down to the guys "She's not in the room, but something weird went on," I laughed a little, but it was a nervous laugh.

"Check the bathroom," Cameron shrugged, with a piece of mysterious pizza hanging from his mouth.

"I'll check the basement," James called, and grabbed his trusty flashlight.

"Okay," I nodded and walked to the bathroom door. I could hear running water, but it wasn't rushing. It was really faint, so I could assume it was from the sink. I sighed in relief, because I had been actually scared that she'd run away.

"Hey Lu! Hurry it up in there! We're home and we wanted to catch a movie later, ya know. Something funny," I laughed and knocked on the door. I didn't expect a reply, because she was never going to talk. "Knock twice if you can hear me," I laughed.

There was no knocks. "Hey, Lu? This isn't really funny. Knock if you're there," I said loudly, laughing with extremely high nerves. My heart started racing and the whole house got a horrible vibe that something bad has happened.

"Lucy! Fucking answer me!" I screamed now, and my throat burned. My hands were shaking, and they grabbed for the door knob. It was locked shut though, and I wiggled it in panic. "LUCY FUCKING CASSELLS ANSWER ME PLEASE!" I screamed in a high pitched screech and shook the knob much more violently.

"Ben! Calm down!" Cameron yelled with concern. Him, Sam and Danny all peeked there heads down the hall.

"No! She's not fucking answering at all, and I know she's in there!" I yelled at them furiously. They didn't fucking understand! I was extremely frustrated and I knew for a fact that something was really wrong.

"Lucy!" I screamed again, and hit the door with all my might with my shoulder and side. I did this three times before the door burst open.

"Nonononononono!" The only thing I could mutter was no. I couldn't cry right now, because I was in a state of shock. Lucy was lying in the bath, with blood on the stomach of her shirt. One hand lay out of the tub, with a small razor resting in her limp hand.

"CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE!" I yelled to the guys, and I heard them rushing around and freaking out. I wasn't concerned with them right now.

My first reaction was to climb into the bath and wrap my arms around her. I whimpered, and heaved like I was crying but I couldn't feel the tears fall. My whole body felt cold, and numb. I placed my hand over her wound and applied the pressure, and could sadly feel her warm blood soak in my hand through her thin shirt.

I put my face against hers and cried loud, screaming for her to hear me by any stroke of luck. I felt her pulse with my free hand. It was weak, but it was still there.

"Lucy I know you can make it. Please don't die on me, please," I cried into her ear. Now I could feel the hot tears soaking down my cheeks, and the beat of my heart pound against my chest with great pain.

"Ben, what is going---," James stopped at the door, dropped the flashlight to the ground and covered his mouth with his hand. His eyes widened with sadness and he staggered back, having to grab onto the door frame to keep himself up.

"Help me!" I screamed as loud as I could, but I knew it wasn't loud over my sobs. I was sitting in a bath with a hand full of Lucy's blood, and her body laying across me. I tried to hold her, and almost coax her, although she didn't know.

"What happened," James held a hand over his eyes. "Is someone contacting the hospital?"

"She's dying James," I stammered.

"Did someone call a fucking hospital Benjamin?!" James screamed at me.

I nodded, because I couldn't force any words out. She can't die. She just can't. I needed her.

***