Welcome to this one-shot I randomly decided to make instead of the next chapter to Keeping Balance! I hope you guys enjoy this, and yeah!

I stare into the mirror, and I hate what I see.

Messy brown hair and dull brown eyes meet me. The bags under my eyes haunt me and the tears start falling again. I turn away before my self confidence is lowered any further. I don't even bother looking at the scars. I know where they are and exactly how long each one is. I rush up to the bathroom and take out my ex-girlfriend's makeup kit. We used to joke all the time that we had the same skin tone, so we were perfect for each other. Things didn't work out, but us having the same skin tone ended up working. I used the makeup to cover my scars. If anyone found out about the scars, I'd never forgive myself.

I walk downstairs, where everyone else is eating breakfast. Mitch and Jerome are absorbed in a conversation about their latest Hunger Games while Rob, Lachlan, and Vikk are in a conversation of their own. I go over to the kitchen, grab a cereal box, and pour it into a bowl. It was my idea to move into the house together. The point was to create a bond with the members of the Pack, but the move bonded everyone together except for me. I instead preferred to Skype with my girlfriend, but after the breakup, I hound myself more lonely than ever. And I haven't told anyone about the break up yet. Not even Rob.

I ate my cereal at the table for about five minutes before Vikk looked up and recognized my existence. He waved at me and I waved back. After I finished my cereal, I went upstairs again, with no one else noticing me. I am now a ghost except when recording videos with the Pack. During recordings, Rob and I may joke about Poofless love, but we don't speak to each other outside of recordings even though we live in the same house. Now, only Vikk notices my existence.

My days are like this everyday, so I don't know why it hurts so much. I sit on my bed and cry. Might as well let go of the bottled emotions inside of me before I record, so the toll of recording is easier on me. I think of how my life went downhill, from the break up to the lack of attention to my mom getting mad at me, and especially the loneliness of my existence. I block everything else out and just have a moment to myself while the others are downstairs socializing. It's not like they care. I guess I never realized how alone I was until now. I continued sobbing into my pillow and thought about everything that had happened to me that was bad. That bully in sixth grade, my family's disappointment in my grades in ninth grade, and all of the ways my ex-girlfriends have ever hurt me. Someone knocks on my door, and I jump up, startled. It's not past 9 yet, so no one should be upstairs. I wipe the tears from my eyes and am surprised to see Lachlan at the door. I hadn't properly talked to him ever since a week after I we had all moved in.

"What do you want?" I ask him.

"Why were you crying, Preston?" Lachlan asks me. "Is it something I did?"

My muscles freeze. I'm not sure how to respond to this. It's been so long since someone had asked me if I was okay. Sara and I broke up three months ago, and since we had broken up, no one was there for me. But I've gotten so used to being alone, I don't know how to respond to this. Different emotions swarm through me at once. Happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, and other emotions I can't describe. I don't know whether to turn Lachlan away or collapse in his arms. If he cared, why didn't he acknowledge my presence while we weren't recording before now.

I turn away from Lachlan, shutting the door. "It's nothing."

Lachlan holds the door open and looks at me. "People don't cry because of nothing, Preston. There's always a reason. It's okay to open up about how you feel."

I once again try to close the door. "There's nothing wrong, Lachlan."

Lachlan keeps the door open and reaches for my arm. He grabs it, but I pull it away, smearing the makeup in the process to reveal one of the scars. We both freeze. We both know how that scar was formed. Lachlan now knows that I cut, but he only sees one of the scars. I know where all of them are, even though the exact number of cuts is too much to count. I muster the courage to look into Lachlan's eyes, and when I do, I see that there are tears forming. Not disappointment or anger, but sadness. The tears threaten to fall from my eyes again, but I hold them back.

"Preston," Lachlan says, his voice cracking. "Why?"

I leave the door to my room open and sit on my bed. Lachlan follows me in, closing the door. He looks around at my room. All the pictures I used to have of Sara and I are no longer there. Now, there's only one family picture of all of us together smiling when pictures of my family used to be everywhere around my room. There are also some pictures of The Pack together, but more than there were before the break up, mostly because I have more room. I even have a picture of the Sideman all together. Before the break up, the two top priorities in my life were my family and Sara. But now, Sara and I aren't dating and pictures of my family constantly remind me of when Sara and I were together because of how involved they were with my relationship with Sara. It's funny how one event can change everything in your life.

"What happened?" Lachlan asks me.

"Well..." I say, but instead of telling him what happened, I lean on him and begin to cry into his shirt. Lachlan holds me tight and lets me cry. I feel like a baby, but I don't care. I need to put more trust into my friends. Maybe that's why my friends are most of the pictures that are on my wall. Until now, I never realized how important friends are to your life. But looking at pictures of Rob, Vikk, Mitch, Jerome, and Lachlan, I smile at what I do have. Friends, who if I give them a chance, will be there for me when I need them. I guess before, I was pushing them away. But I don't want to do that anymore.

"Things with Sara and I didn't exactly work out," I tell Lachlan. "We broke up three months ago. And my family supports Sara, so they weren't exactly happy with me, so I felt alone. And then I think of everything that ever made me feel sad and my emotions do downhill to the point where everything seems empty. Love feels like a joke, and happiness a fantasy."

"Almost like life isn't worth living," Lachlan says. "And everything and everyone is against you. So then the cuts begin because you want to feel better. But then you only feel worse and worse. So you continue and get to a point where you can't stop what is happening to you. And everything tumbles downhill from there. And you're waiting for the day when you will be brave enough to make it all stop."

"Yeah. Kind of like that."

Both of us sit in silence for a while. How did Lachlan know how I felt about myself? He described it so perfectly while I was trying to find the words to express my feelings. I feel raw and exposed. I just vented everything out to Lachlan. He knows I've been cutting, but yet he's still talking to me and making sure I'm okay. I don't quite know how I feel now. I kind of feel like a huge weight was lifted off of my chest, but now another weight was put back on my chest, although I don't know if this one is lighter or heavier than my previous one. I don't know what is going to happen next.

Lachlan cuts the tension in the air. "The guys are planning on doing a IRL skit for YouTube. Want to join us?"

"Sure."

(One Week Later...)

I go downstairs to see the other members of The Pack minus Lachlan arguing about who out of Mitch, Jerome, and I would no longer be with their girlfriends the soonest, either person breaking up with the other. Jerome insists that it would be Mitch, Mitch insists it would be me, while Rob and Vikk insist it would be Jerome. Lachlan is sitting there awkwardly, most likely because he knows that Sara and I broke up three months ago. I walk down the stairs, grab some cereal, and sit down while listening to the conversation. Rob and Vikk are convinced that Jerome's relationship with Louise isn't very strong, but I know it's better than my relationship with Sara. After a while, Jerome notices my presence.

"Hey Preston," Jerome says. It's the first time in the past three months that someone other than Vikk or Lachlan has said anything to me outside of planning and doing recordings. "What do you think? Who of Mitch, you, and I are most likely to no longer have a girlfriend the soonest?"

I decide to throw all caution out the window and say the truth. "Well, considering that I've been single for the past three months, probably me."

Everyone freeze and looks at me, even Lachlan, who already knew my relationship status. Then the questions come pouring out of everyone's mouths. I do my best to answer all of them, but it's hard to when four people are asking you stuff all at once. I joke around a little, and soon everyone is engaged in conversation, with Mitch boasting about how he was right, and Rob, Jerome, and Vikk accusing him of cheating. I find myself smiling and laughing more than I had been in the past three months and realize that no matter how annoying your friends are, if they truly are your friend, they'll always be there for you.

After breakfast I go up to my room and sit on my bed, this time not to cry about how unfair life is. I look around my room and look at all of the fun times I had with my friends. I go to my desk and look at all the photos of my family and my girlfriend that I took down. I take out a picture of my family, my girlfriend, and I at an amusement park and put it back on my wall to remind me of the memories I had with them. I look at the picture, and although there is a longing in my heart, it doesn't dominate my emotions like it used to. I look into my mirror, and I see someone who wasn't there last week. I see a man who's been through some tough times, but I also see a survivor. This survivor has messy brown hair and shining brown eyes. I guess some things change, while other things don't.