A/N: TRIGGER WARNING: THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE, CUTTING, EATING DISORDER MENTIONS.
So yeah, this is what I do at three o'clock in the morning when I get scared and my mind starts to wander. I know Ally's ooc here, but yeah whatever. Logan told me that if I didn't post this he'd chop off my hands, and I rather like my hands, so...
Review (:
/
Ally Dawson was a cheerful, happy person to everyone, whether they deserved it or not. Austin knew this very well.
When said boyfriend Carson disrupted this process, Austin was the first to notice. The only one to notice, rather.
Sure, she smiled. Just…too often to be real. The bags collected under her eyes. Her kindness was only to select people. She wasn't rude to others, she just didn't take the outstretch of being polite, like Ally always did.
The songs were more mellow, and had little to no meaning behind them. Flowy skirts were replaced by cargo pants, and sweatshirts took over her petite figure.
At night, she lied in bed. She doesn't sleep, like the normal Ally would. She reflects on everything in her life. Where she's going, what she's doing. And it hurts, because she can't stand what she sees, in the mirror and in her head.
All her positive thoughts were practically draining. Being ripped from her head, only to grow back negatively. And when she was alone, the fake smile was ripped as well. The energy to pretend being happy wears out as soon as she steps into her room.
/
The little things don't make her happy anymore, the ones that used to bring the ginger smile to her face. Barefoot dance across warm grass, jeans fresh out of the dryer, waking up early and having hours left to fall back asleep. They're looked upon as tiny breaks from reality. She doesn't remember how to make herself happy.
And that's what kills her the most.
/
Austin's noticed she doesn't cry anymore. If she does, he's not around.
She used to come running to him, big or little problem, because he asked her to.
He liked cheering her up, whether she was crying over failed grades, her father's lack of presence, even stupid things, like the idiot boys she dated, or sad movies. Whatever hurt she has now she's bottling in. He thinks it's all because of Carson, but she won't admit to it.
Unbeknownst to him, Ally does cry. In her room, alone. When it's dark, and no one's home, and it just might be four in the morning. Insecure and scared. She clings to her pillows and the sheets, trying to find an answer for a question she's not sure of. But she's not sure of anything these days - certainly not herself. Things that never bothered her before now lingered in the back of her head. Body image, grades, perfection, and whatever else kind of shit that Carson put into her head taunted her, keeping her awake at night.
Seeing her like this, in a state where she not only couldn't trust him but herself as well, damn near killed him.
He'd be lying if he said he was sleeping any better than her.
/
The first time he noticed something wrong with her, they were in Mini's. Her hands kept flinching, almost every movement she made was to conceal her arms which were hidden by the sleeves of the hoodie.
"Austin, have you ever wondered what would happen if you didn't talk?" she asked, pushing the stem of her smoothie through her teeth.
"What do you mean?"
"If you just…stopped talking. Kept everything to yourself, and was always silent," she said. He noticed how her eyes never met directly with his, instead, looking off somewhere like she was expecting someone else.
"No, have you?"
She left the question unanswered.
/
She's spending a lot more time writing in her book. Instead of lyrics, stories freshly written in ink stain the page. Third person stories, about being broken, about facing problems and not knowing what to do.
They're all unfinished. Incomplete. She's not sure how to solve problems or come to a conclusion.
The lines of her stories and her own life are becoming blurrier and blurrier.
/
She cried last night. Not like she normally does, alone in her room where no one can see her or hear her.
Carson got mad and struck her once before leaving the park. It didn't hurt as bad as it looked, but it looked pretty damn awful when she checked in the park bathrooms.
Unfortunately she neglected to bring her oil based concealer, or any make-up for that matter, with her to what she thought of as a date.
So she pulled her hoodie up over her head, the edges coming up just enough to block any bruise from the sides, and she laid down on the bench.
The tears continued to fall as sleep evaded her.
/
Carson tried to come into her room. It didn't work out very well. She did her best to keep him out of it.
It was her room. Where she could cry and scream and be as insane as she wanted to be, without judgment from anyone. Her room and the walls in it kept her secrets.
Carson wasn't very fond of secrets though, and when she denied him access, he accused her of infidelity.
Only he phrased it in a much harsher, less appropriate manner.
After he'd took out all his anger on her, she ran into her room, locking the door behind her furiously and sinking down the door.
It was safe.
She was safe.
/
Carson didn't text her after their most recent blow out. For some reason beyond her, she didn't quite care like she would have.
Austin, on the other hand, hadn't texted her either. For a reason she refused to admit, she cared all too much.
It never occurred to her before that there was any correlation in the two.
Frankly, she wanted to keep their paths from crossing as much as she could.
/
Ally had snapped.
She ripped pages rapidly from her book, tossing them away on the floor, not even bothering to go the extra step to the wastebasket.
There's a crack in her mirror, a hole in her heart, and several torn pages from her book, but nobody knows what really happened except for the walls in her room.
And they've been pretty good at keeping her secrets so far.
She's traced the root of her problems back to Carson. Every hit, every insult, every taunt has drove her to this.
She can't blame him for all of it, though. He just unlocked everything, expanding her thoughts into darker places. She's more aware of everything.
Everything negative, anyway.
/
Carson broke up with her today. She assumes he got sick of dealing with her, but the black eye from Austin he has says otherwise.
Maybe Austin had good intentions, but the break-up has literally broken her. If she's not even good enough for an abuser, who is she good for?
She's found a way to end her stories, no sunshine or problem solving needed. The protagonist finds safe haven with a razor or some other sharp object. It's the only way she can see to end a story.
"Hey Ally, you want to go see a movie this weekend?" Trish asked cheerfully.
She put on her best pseudo smile she had. "No thanks, I've got a lot of work to do. Maybe some other time."
Trish just smiled even wider and trotted off to whatever job she was bound to get fired from.
Ally ran up to her room, slamming the door behind her and grabbing her book.
The blurrier the lines got, the less she cared about them.
/
Austin was the first person to ask her if she was okay.
She was starting to think she was really good at hiding it. (Or that no one cared, period.)
"I'm fine, why?"
I'm fine.
It was a lot easier to say that than to put it into words. She honestly couldn't explain it. The only thing she could explain was that she was not fine.
He merely shrugged and went back to discussing video games with Dez.
When the mandatory Team Austin meeting was over, again, she ran to her room.
She hopped in her bed and, book clutched to her chest, fell asleep.
The problems melted away. Darkness overtook her and she couldn't feel anything anymore. It scared her.
She liked the feeling.
/
She experimented today.
After finishing her most recent story, she went to the bathroom. Her reflection killed her. The razor was the object closest to her and she grabbed it.
A bit of her old personality came back as her hand trembled going to use it. She was almost hesitant for a second. It vanished just as quick as the blade going through her skin.
It burned and it stung, but upon seeing the blood, the pain stopped. And she brought into realization what she had just done.
And the fact that it didn't scare her.
/
Her not-eating diet wasn't going so well. At three in the morning, barely keeping herself together, she crept in the kitchen and found a can of ravioli.
She overcooked it, and when she took the bowl out, the sauce spilled on her, scalding her thigh.
If she wasn't so hungry, she would've poured the entire bowl on her leg.
/
She experimented again today.
Only at school, there's no razors. So she broke the clip off a lead pencil and scratched at her arm.
It left ugly scratches on her arms, and it gave her another reason to keep wearing long sleeves, but for some reason, she didn't care.
It wasn't scary anymore. It wasn't her anymore.
When she got home, upon entering her room, she realized the bags piling up under her eyes, and the way her skin was starting to turn pale. She looked skeleton thin.
And no one looked for long enough to notice.
If they did notice, would they care?
/
She looked in the mirror this morning before school in her room just long enough to apply her make-up. The bruises from Carson are starting to fade away.
She's covering up bags and ugly, now.
She's not sure why she bothers to cover it up.
Nobody would look long enough to see.
/
She thought about suicide today.
It's unbelievably the first time it crossed her mind.
Leaving. Not having to wake up or do anything.
It made her smile. Not the fake, hidden smiles that she uses for protection.
A genuine smile that sent chills down her spine.
The old Ally popped into her head, reminding her that's an insane thing to do and that she still has friends.
New Ally reminded her that she's already insane, and those so-called friends haven't said a damn thing about her condition.
She lied on the floor, the coolness of it making the blood rush to her head. Her room was her safe haven.
/
She woke up in the middle of the night. Still in her room.
She was shaking in cold sweats and on the verge of crying, so she took out her book. Rather than writing a story, she tried to explain how she felt.
She couldn't.
The words "alone", "weak", "scared", "sad", "mad", and "nothing" were scattered across the pages, but nothing was making sense.
She finally lost it and ripped the pages out, snapping the pen in half.
She was insane.
/
Her mind drifted to Austin as she vulnerably sat in the bath.
If he ever thought about her, or cared.
Then she wondered if there were others like her.
That couldn't explain what was wrong with them, or why they were that way.
The water began to overflow and she almost tried to drown herself in it.
The shampoo in the water forced her to pull her head up.
/
Austin came over today. He's the first person that's been in her room since she started changing.
He took a seat on her bed and wasted no time with the awkwardness.
"What's happened to you?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" she said, putting a big smile on her face that made her stomach churn.
"Don't smile," he said, voice firm but soft at the same time. She flinched, but didn't allow the false smile to drop from her face.
"Why not?" she asked, the happiest voice she could manage being displayed.
"You're not happy. I can see it in your eyes. You're scared. You want to cry, even when you're smiling or laughing," Austin said.
"You're destroying yourself and I'm not going to watch you do it anymore," he said.
The smile fell and she dropped to her knees, clasping her hands to her face.
"Couldn't you have left it alone? I was happy," she said, burying her face in her lap.
"You weren't happy. You had everyone else fooled but me, Ally. You bottle it up to make it seem like you're fine, but you're not fine," he said.
"I am fine!" she screamed.
He was slightly taken aback by her screaming at him, but not enough. Austin drew closer to her, grabbing her wrist and rolling up her sleeves.
He examined the purple and red scars that sickly trailed down her wrist and forearm. "This is not fine, Ally!" he yelled back.
"Get out," she whispered, tears drawing in her eyes.
"You need help, Ally!" he yelled.
"I said GET OUT!" she screamed, getting up and pushing him out the door.
Shutting and locking it, she collapsed into tears on the ground.
He felt tears brimming in his when he heard her cry.
/
She woke up on the floor.
And for just a split second, she didn't remember anything. The fight, Carson, who she'd become.
Then it came flooding back and hit her the second she pulled her head up and looked in the mirror. She was in her room.
She was in mortal hell.
She grabbed her phone to check for something from her dad, only to find 27 missed calls from Austin. Whatever Ally she still had left in her refused to let herself put down the phone without checking voicemail.
"Ally, please. Talk to me. I'm worried about you."
"Ally, are you okay? I'm sorry."
"Ally? Please don't do anything stupid."
"You need to stop. I need to hear your voice. The real one, not the fake one."
"Ally? Please talk to me."
"Please talk to me."
"Ally?"
He hadn't cared this much when she was going through this shit.
He hadn't cared this much when Carson was abusing her.
He only cares after.
She screamed, throwing her phone straight into the mirror and letting it crack the glass.
/
It's raining, but he doesn't care. He shows up at her doorstep and when he knocks, she knows exactly who it is.
The decision to open the door or not was the hardest one of her life. She opened it, but only slightly.
"Ally. We need to talk."
She folded her arms and leaned back against the edge of the doorframe. "We're talking."
"Dammit Ally, I'm worried about you," Austin said, grabbing her hands. She pulled them away.
"Now you're worried?! Where were you two months ago?!" she screamed, ignoring the fact it was 12 in the morning.
"Watching you destroy yourself in the background, but I'm not going to fucking do that again! Not you!" Austin yelled back.
"Why do you care?" she asked. "Why…?"
"Because I'm in god damn love with you Ally, and you're hanging by a thread. I wake up not even knowing if you've killed yourself or not. Do you know how much that hurts?"
She stood speechless. Instead of saying anything else, he cupped her face with his hands and kissed her.
For the first time in two months, she felt she had a reason to live.