Okay...here comes the warnig. It is really angsty and has sad themes incluidng child abuse. It has some Ooc and it doesn´t have anypairngs. BUt I hope you read it and then review.

Damian heard everyone telling their insecurities feeling like a liar. He hadn´t said the whole truth about his vulnerability and he felt guilt and a horrible person. Why he had to be so weak, why he couldn´t talk about his insecurity like a man? The story that had hit him the most was Emily´s; and it was because he felt identified with it.

When they were at last alone they hugged each other for a long moment and then everyone started to talk about from where did they insecurities came from. Damian used that moment to escape to the boy´s bedroom. He had told everyone that his word was numb but it wasn´t because the reason they thought. That word meant so much more and it had a very painful meaning behind it.

"Damian, are you okay?" asked Cameron as he ran following him. Damian turned around and gave him a sad smile. He didn´t want to worry his best friend and he was holding his tears the best he could. Cameron reached him and hugged him as hard as he could. Damian burst into tears.

"What´s wrong buddy?" Cameron could feel Damian shaking and sobbing. He just wanted to make him better but what he needed to know first what was bothering Damian. Damian pushed Cameron a side and wiped his tears with his jacket´s sleeve.

"I just got emotional." He lied.

"But wasn´t you word numb?" Cameron was confused know.

"Well I´m not a rock." joked Damian; Cameron faked a smile and put his arm on Damian´s shoulders.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Damian shook his head.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Damian entered to the recording room and read his lines. I find it kind of funny; I find it kind of sad. He couldn´t find anything funny about this assignment. He had kept his word for the next several days and tried to avoid always the subject of the vulnerability. Lindsay had asked him several times why of his word but Damian always avoid the subject by changing the conversation.

When he saw Nikki suddenly he felt like he was about to break down.

"So what´s your word Damian?" asked him after he had finished recording his lines.

"Numb" He answered not so sure anymore. He felt like the tears were about to start falling.

"Why is that?" Nikki wasn´t sure he bought that word to Damian.

"Well because I feel like I go pass the life feeling…nothing at all" that wasn´t true, he felt a lot. He felt pain and fear everyday of his life and he couldn´t tell anyone. He felt alone and scared every night he woke up after a nightmare.

"Well that is a very dangerous way of living." said Nikki still not buying it. "But I don´t think that´s the truth Damian. I don´t see you like a numb person." Damian looked away nervous, he didn´t liked to be readen like that, like if everyone could look right through him. It was too dangerous to let them know about him.

"So if you didn´t chose this word. What other world would you have chosen?" Nikki observed how the expression of Damian´s face changed.

The guy took a big breath and then he collapsed to his knees. He was crying like he had never before and he couldn´t speak anymore. Nikki entered to the room and started consoling Damian a little bit confused.

"I can´t." he said as he covered his face in his hand. He felt so lost and…broken. That was the word he should have used.

"It´s okay" said Nikki almost in a whisper as she hugged the heartbroken guy.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

They were shooting the video clip on Universal City Walk with their signs ready and everyone not so metalized about what they were about to do. Damian was looking at his sign not so sure of how to wear it. He felt so little with it and it was because that word didn´t showed how he felt. He had heard how Marissa wanted to change her sign and he felt like doing it to. But something told him not and now the director was asking everyone if they wanted to change their signs. It was their last chance.

Damian looked around and he could see that Marissa was still crying but she had a pure smiled on her face. She looked happy of her decision. The guy hugged himself with his arms knowing that if he changed his sign he would have to respond to all the questions about his word.

"Are you sure you don´t want to change anything?" asked the director again as he looked around. Damian raised his hand doubly but at last he stood it straight.

"Damian? To which word you want to change?" Damian looked around and he felt like if he was being judged by his teammates. The guy looked up and gasped for some air. He didn´t wanted to break again like he had done with Nikki.

"I don´t know if it´s the right word." Of course it was the right word. He had it in his mind since the first day assignment. "But I want to change the word to…broken."

Everyone looked at him puzzled; none could understand what Damian tried to say behind that word. Cameron bit his bottom lip trying to find something that Damian could have said before that could justify his word. No; there wasn´t anything. In fact; the moment he had heard that Damian had chosen the word "numb" he thought it was perfect for him.

"And what does that word means?" asked the director a little bit more curious than he should have. Damian closed his eyes and tried to find the perfect words to describe it. But how you could describe that kind of fear that kind of emptiness that he suffered every day?

"Well, when I was little I…" Damian couldn´t manage to find the words. "My dad…he was, not like others."

Damian felt so little again, he remembered the pain and the fear he felt every time he returned home. It was a living hell and he realized that it hadn´t changed. He still felt fear and pain.

"It started when I was around 10…"

…When he had got bored of hitting the crap out of his mother maybe. The first times he didn´t hurt him physically. He would scream at him and insult him. The point was making him feel like he was nothing. The first thing was to vanish his self-esteem.

"He used to be angry all the time and he…"

He would hit him all the time. He would take him the hair and make him fall or punched him when he felt angry or frustrated. Damian couldn´t defend himself or tell anybody. It was his fault after all, it was always his fault.

"He would turn aggressive with me and he would hit me."

Everyone gasped shocked. Cameron looked at him feeling guilty. Why Damian hadn´t told him before? Damian was crying now but he kept talking.

"Sometimes he burned me with his cigarettes or he just hit me with his belt. And the only time my mom stand for me…it was horrible." He bent himself remembering that night; it was when he was 14 years old.

*Flashback*

"Dad, please stop it. Please!" the young boy cried as the older man hit him with his belt. That night his dad was punishing him because he had dropped the milk at dinner. He deserved what he was doing to him but that was too painful.

"MOM!" he screamed as he begged her for help. He thought that she would ignor him as she always did but that night it was different. His mom entered to the room and pushed his husband aside.

Damian was crying and he couldn´t stand up but he felt relieved. Maybe this time he would stop hurting them, maybe it would all stop. Suddenly he heard his mom screaming and then several punches. Damian tried to stand up but his back ached too much and he felt again. His mom kept screaming and he prayed that some neighbor would call the police or come to help him. Nothing of that happened.

After some minutes that felt like eternity his dad stopped hitting his mom and grabbed him by the arm. He was holding a weapon.

"Real men don´t call their moms for a help." said his dad almost screaming as he pointed the gun to the bleeding and unconscious woman. Damian was crying and his dad shocked him violently. "And the women should never stand against his husband's right?"

"Please don´t hurt her." Damian screamed scared. But his dad didn´t listened. He never did.

"She is going to pay for your mistake." Damian tried to free himself but he was too weak. His dad took of the secure of the gun.

"NO!"

*End of Flashback*

"He killed her," All of the girls were crying and some of the guys too. "in front of me."

Damian covered his face with his hands and kept crying. Cameron reached him and hugged him tightly. He wanted to take all his pain away. He wanted him to be happy and he wanted to make Damian forget everything he had passed. Damian hugged Cameron and he kept shaking.

"Damian." said the director after some uncomfortable minutes. "We could change your sign with no problem and I really appreciate you are being honest with all of us."

Damian grabbed Cameron by his t-shirt like he did with the social worker that picked him up that night. He had been lucky; a policeman had heard the shoot and entered to the house a moment before his dad could shoot him. He had stopped that mad man and had protected him. He had never told anyone before but he was the one that took him as a stepson after that incident. He had adopted him legally and he wasn´t ashamed to tell everyone he was his real dad. It made things easier. Cover his past and pretend it didn´t happened.

Maybe he had told that he was numb because that was the way he wanted everyone to see him. He had learned on those four years of abuse that it was the only way of avoiding the pain in front of people. It was the only way he could find to pretend everything was okay.

"I´ll leave you alone for a moment so you could talk." said the director before leaving. When he left nobody said anything. They stood there, thinking and processing what had just happened.

Lindsay couldn´t think of how Emily and Damian could live with those kinds of secrets. For her it seemed like it was too much for a guy of 18 and a girl of 22 to keep this secrets and never tell anyone. Samuel, Alex and Matheus just looked at Damian trying to find the right words to say. They felt as uncomfortable as when Emily had told her secret. The three girls left just stood up and hugged Damian still with tears in their eyes. Damian didn´t like to feel the pity of other people but he felt secure around those people. He felt protected and warm. For those minutes he was aware that he wasn´t alone.

"Do you think you are going to make it through the video?" asked Cameron kind of worried as he wiped some tears away of Damian´s eyes. Damian leaned his head on Cameron´s shoulder and nodded.

"I have made it all my life."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

After he was saved of the bottom three he entered to a lonely room and took his cell-phone. He dialed the first number he had and then he put it in speaker. After some beeps the voice of an old man sounded.

"Hello?" Damian smiled as he heard his Ray, his real dad answering the phone.

"Hi dad; it´s Damian."

"Damian, I´m so glad you call. How are you doing my boy?" Damian wiped some tears and he started laughing, he knew he would be proud of Damian after he heard what he had just done.

"Do you remember when you told me to be true with my real friends?" Damian remembered how when he turned 16 years old Ray had told him to tell about his past to the person he wanted to know him best. And also that the moment he told someone he really cared he would be free again. "About my past?"

"Of course Damian."

"Well I did it."

"And how do you feel?" Ray was obviously happy but he also sounded worried. Unlike his biological dad, he really cared about him.

"Good." Damian laughed again and hugged himself. He should hava made this phone-call earlier. He loved to talk with his dad. "Really, finally things are going good again."