A/N: Warnings: Trigger warnings. Talks of suicide and cutting and alcoholism.
Sorry for hurting the feels but this hit home and the song hit me and I had to write this, even if I should be sleeping since I have to be up in four hours for work. Please read and review. This lowly author is begging for lovely reviews.
She took the razor blade to her thigh and let the blade sink into the skin, watched the little droplets of blood well up. The pain in her heart instantly eased a little as the slight pain from the new cut she made kicked in.
She listened to the noises coming from the main floor of her family's farm house. Clinks of a bottle of booze, probably Jack Daniels, hitting the rim of a glass. Her daddy was refilling his glass for what was probably the twentieth time in two hours. Why he bothered pouring it into a glass, she didn't know. He was going to finish that bottle off before the end of the night and start into another one before he passed out in the chair in the family room with his bible open in his lap.
She couldn't listen to the sounds of his glass any more. Or the lack of sounds in the rest of the house. Her older sister, Maggie was off at college, blissfully unaware of how far gone their daddy is. Her brother had been gone for a few years now, died in his first deployment after enlisting in the army, right after he turned 18. And her mama, her sweet, loving mama, died of cancer six long months ago.
She was in a downward spiral. Stuck in high school, taking care of her family's farm, dealing with the loss of her mother, her father's drinking and a couple years later still mourning the loss of her big brother.
She couldn't find a way to release all the pain in her heart. She lost all love for singing and creating music when her mama died and her daddy started drinking again. She turned, as a last resort to cutting. It wasn't helping as much as she needed, as much as she wanted it to. She wanted all the pain in her heart to just go away. She had wanted it to go away for a long time now. She had thought about it before, taking the razor blade and going a little deeper, letting it hit something major, let the blood seep out and let her pain just end. Yeah, it would hurt but in the end the pain would fade away and she wouldn't hurt any more.
She wiped the blood away and hid the blade, a ritual at this point rather than a need for secrecy. The moment her daddy picked the bottle up again all thoughts to his barely seventeen year old daughter went out the door. There was no reason to hide the blade anymore, he never came into her room, didn't even check to make sure she was going to school or anything of the sort. When her blade was put away she got up and went down the hall to the closed door and carefully opened it, making sure the hardly used door didn't squeak from lack off use.
She flipped the light switch and looked in anguish at the barely touched room, covered in layers of dust. Shawn's room looked the same as he had left it when he left for the army. Her mama and daddy hadn't been able to change even a single thing in the room after his loss. She crossed the room and sat on Shawn's bed, let her fingers rub across his blanket and inhaled deeply. Even after all these years his room still smelled like he did. Like Irish Spring soap and Black Ice car refresher. He always had one or two open in his room. After a little while of just sitting there she went to one of the shelves in his room and pulled down a dust covered CD case. Shawn was always burning CD's and listening to them nonstop for a week before burning a new one and forgetting about the last one. The CD case was filled with nothing but mix tapes, all labeled "Mix one," "Mix two," and so on. She grabbed the first one in the book and carried it to her room, locking up his room as if she'd never been in there.
She put the CD into her CD player and pressed play. She wasn't sure what she was expecting when she pressed play. All she cared about was something was playing to drown out the contradicting silence and loudness of her home. Her brother was a strange one, when it came to music. He always listened to a variety of things, sometimes it was country, sometimes it was jazz, sometimes it was screamo, and sometimes it was classic rock. Usually it was a bit of it all, all at once.
"I heard that you've been
Self-medicating in the quiet of your room,
Your sweet, suburban tomb.
And if you need a friend,
I'll help you stitch up your wounds.
I heard that you've been
Having some trouble finding your place in the world.
I know how much that hurts,
But if you need a friend
Then please just say the word..."
Beth's breath caught in her throat as she heard the first couple of lines of the first song on the CD.
"You've come this far,
You're all cleaned up,
You've made a mess again,
There's no more trying,
Time to sort yourself out...
Hold on tight,
This ride is a wild one,
Make no mistake,
The day will come when you can't cover up what you've done,
Now don't lose your fight, kid,
It only takes a little push to pull on through,
With so much left to do;
You'll be missing out, and we'll be missing you.
I heard that you've been
Having some trouble finding your place in the world.
I know how much that hurts,
And if you need a friend
Then please just say the word...
You've come this far,
You're all cleaned up,
You've made a mess again,
There's no more trying,
Time to sort yourself out..."
The words to the song were speaking to her on so many levels. They hit home in a way that nothing had in months. She hadn't connected to anything in any way since shortly before her mama passed on. This song, this song talking about holding on and not giving up was like a slap in the face.
"Hold on tight,
This ride is a wild one,
Make no mistake,
The day will come when you can't cover up what you've done,
Now don't lose your fight, kid,
It only takes a little push to pull on through,
With so much left to do;
You'll be missing out, and we'll be missing you.
Grit your teeth, pull your hair,
Paint the walls black and scream, "Fuck the world
'Cause it's my life, I'm gonna take it back,"
And never for a second blame yourself.
Hold on tight,
This ride is a wild one,
Make no mistake,
The day will come when you can't cover up what you've done,
(no, you can't cover up)
(one, two, three, four!)
Hold on tight,
This ride is a wild one (this ride is a wild one),
Make no mistake,
The day will come when you can't cover up what you've done,
Now don't lose your fight, kid (don't lose your fight, kid),
It only takes a little push to pull on through (push to pull on through),
With so much left to do;
You'll be missing out, and we'll be missing you"
It was like Shawn made this CD just for her, knew she'd listen to it in her lowest moment. She felt as if he was looking down on her right that moment and this was a message from him. It was like he was saying, "It's alright, little sister. I'm watching over you, and it's okay to hurt, but please, Bethy, please find a way to be okay, because I'm not ready for you to join me up here yet."
She didn't make it a third of the way through the song before tears were streaming down her face, the first time she'd cried in ten months. She hadn't cried since her mama came home from the doctor, sat her down and said she only had a few months to live. She couldn't cry when her mama passed on. She cried in that moment, harder than she'd ever cried. She cried for the loss of her mama, for the loss of her brother who even dead managed to look out for her, cried for her daddy downstairs drinking his own pain away. She let the flood gates open and let the words from the song help to cleanse her soul.
When the song ended she turned it back on and listened to it again. Then again. She repeated it for another hour and made a decision after the second time through that she was going to live, she wasn't going to hurt herself anymore, she wasn't going to let her daddy break her heart. She was going to live for the memory of her brother and mama.
She also knew she needed help and the only one that could even possibly help her was her big sister, the only other person she could count on. It was time to let someone in and get the help she needed.
She turned the volume to barely audible on her CD player and dialed her phone, not caring that it was near one in the morning. "Maggie, I know it's late, but I need ya to come home. I can't do this alone an' I need you."
She'd barely finished speaking before her sister told her she was on her way.
With Shawn looking down and watching over her, and Maggie on her way, Beth knew she'd find a way to be okay.
A/n: I'm going to go hide over there *points vaguely*