AN/ I wrote this while listening to Lana Del Rey's Young and Beautiful. I didn't really got inspired by the words, but by the sound of it and by the mood that the song creates. So if you want you can listen the song while reading this, but it's not essential part of the story. I hope you like it!
Young and Beautiful
Somehow Nick has always known that she's messed up. Maybe it's because he sees the way her eyes twitch every time someone makes joke about food or the way she tends to have really really good days when she's all hyper and jumping around annoying the shit out of everyone, and the days that aren't good she's acting only so sightly less giddy that most people don't even notice, but Nick always does. Nick has always felt this way about her, even though he'll never admit it out loud but there is a reason why he notices all these things. It's not like he really means it to happen, but somehow he always finds himself watching her. Watching her fall too in love with the wrong people and always ending up brokenhearted sooner than later. Sometimes Nick thinks shes doing it on purpose. Like she knows what she's putting herself through and doing it still and he can't figure out why she's doing it. And he knows it's so wrong, but he feels this happy twitch in his heart every time she comes to him and spends the night at his tour buss crying herself asleep next to him, Nick kinda looks forward to those nights which is so wrong and he knows it. It's not that he likes to see her so broken and small, but it's then that he's the one she chooses, and he really wishes she'd choose him.
They weren't always that close but he had always been amazed by her. The way her eyes crinkled when she laughed her loud and obnoxious laugh, and the way she'd blush afterwards embarrassed by it. He used to watch her from far away trying to figure her out, but never quite succeeding. He always wondered what she hides under those bangs that cover her eyes that was filled up with dark makeup that she always wore when they weren't shooting Camp Rock. First time she spend a night with him they both were sixteen and he couldn't understand how someone could be so beautiful but so broken at the same time. Over time Nick found out there was more to her that she let on. The conversations throughout the night about life and her hundreds of songs that no one ever really heard, but Nick once found her sheets of music and it was then he realized, that she really wasn't happy at all. She was really good fooling everyone around her. The way she always seemed to be so happy and full of life, how she was friends with everyone on set and had an ability to make everyone laugh. She just brought everyone together with her beam of happiness, which Nick had found out, was just an act. Sometimes Nick thinks maybe there was times she was happy with them, that maybe she forgot everything that's haunted her even for a moment, at least he hopes so.
It was only years later when he found about what she did to herself. He wasn't even supposed to be in her trailer, but he was sure he left his favorite guitar there when they wrote songs the night before. When he went and picked up his baby from where it was laying on the ground, something in her bathroom caught his eye. He didn't want to intrude, but he just couldn't help his curious nature that came out at all the wrong places and times. But there, next to the dirty garbage can, was a razor blade wrapper in a paper that was covered in blood. Her blood. Nick felt sick to the stomach by the sight. How could she do that to herself, she was so perfect to him. How couldn't she see that. Nick left her trailer, forgetting completely his guitar there, the one thing he actually came to look for in the first place. And the rest of the day went in a daze for him, but maybe it was just because he might have forgotten to eat and his blood-sugar was too low, he wasn't sure. The following night was maybe the worst nights of his life, at least one of them.
He came to her trailer straight after the show, it had now become a tradition. He doesn't even need to bring new clothes because somehow he always finds different pairs of shirts and college pants in her wardrobe. Not that he minds at all. Everything is same as always, but at same time it isn't. Nick couldn't stop thinking about what he had found just a few hours before when he last was in her trailer. And she's smart and he knows she'll pick up soon something isn't right. He isn't that good of an actor. And this is something he hadn't prepared in all the acting lessons he took. Nick was only slightly afraid that she'd throw him out of the moving buss they were in. The night was filled up with lot of screaming insults about privacy and hateful words directed towards Nick. Her crying turned into a painful sobbing that didn't end until early hours of morning when she finally fell asleep exhausted. Nick didn't really sleep at all that night. He watched her sleep curled up next to him her makeup now messed up and the frown still on her face with the dried tears. They didn't really mention her cutting the morning after when the awkwardness flooded around them nearly suffocating them. The next days were not the same for them at all, but she was only one who managed to get him laugh and he was only one she trusted on that tour, so it was bound to bounce back normal soon, and much to Nick's resistance her scars weren't mentioned again in a long time.
The first time they kissed was kind of an accident. Neither of them didn't mean it to happen, especially now that she was dating his brother. Nick has always been the kinda guy who's sworn to never cheat on anyone let along his own brother, but it's not like he could have helped it. He has been in love with her years at that point. Too long ignoring the feelings that makes him wanna just hold her and never let her go. He's feeling too much at once and he just kisses her at back of her tour buss, right where they spend their first night on tour, writing love song to no one particular, except maybe he secretly wrote them to her. Their first kiss is clumsy and soft and innocent and definitively awkward, but not as awkward as the silence after it. And no way near as awkward as the moment Joe bursts through the door swooping her into hug and going on how amazing the days show is gonna be. And then they're gone leaving Nick stand there feeling way too much for his own good. The guilt and the jealousy and hurt when he sees them together is killing him. Why didn't he kiss her like two years ago when his older brother, who he has always looked up to, wasn't dating the love of his life, who he might never have the way he wants. Or any other way, now that he ruined everything by kissing her. Stupid, stupid Nick. Always screwing everything up. Later that day, when show had ended and everyone was asleep, Nick might have gotten his guitar and played until the early hours of the next arising morning. And if someone would have known about the secret book of songs that Nick kept, there would've been couple songs more after that night, but no one knew so it didn't really count.
After the kiss they weren't like they used to be. Every time Nick looked at her he could almost feel her lips against his, her hot breathing hitting his face with every time she breathed out. He didn't spend nights at her trailer anymore and they didn't write songs together at night like they used to and no one didn't seem to notice anything. Nick felt quite lonely because she was the way she's always been. Running away from trouble, trying so hard to avoid it for some unknown reason, and Nick couldn't really bear spending time with Joe because of her and them and his selfishness. He wrote a lot of songs then and most of them were so depressing that Kevin had to drag him out his trailer to do something, anything, because apparently the songs were making everyone miserable.
It wasn't until when his jerk of a brother broke up with her, that he found himself in front of her tour buss pacing back and forth contemplating whether to go in or not. After good fifteen minutes she barged out of her buss annoyed by him and telling him to come inside or go pace in front of somewhere else's trailer. Of course he followed her inside glad that she didn't tell him to go fuck himself like she had told his brother very loudly only few hours ago. She threw herself on her bed and landed with small thump her black hair flying everywhere and Nick couldn't stop looking at her, and when she gripped his hand pulling him next to her, it was only then he broke his gaze now staring at the ceiling trying to think what to say. Nothing really happened that night they laid next to each other for a long time listening to the sound of the now moving buss. They might have played some guitar that night and she might have cried a little when she played her new song to him, he couldn't be sure because in morning the last night was so fussy that it could have easily been a dream.
It was then when she really went out of the rails. She'd disappear at night God knows where and with who, and the nights she didn't disappear Nick would find her drunken and high on what ever she had gotten that night, laying in her bathroom floor with cuts in her wrists and thighs and everywhere and he just couldn't bare the sight. It didn't happen that often, but he still feared for her and prayed and pegged her to let him help. She never really listened. She would promise and swear every time that, this would be the last time, that he didn't have to tell anyone because there wouldn't be anything to tell, but still the exact same thing kept repeating itself. She was like a ghost of what she used to be. It didn't take long that she finally snapped and hit her rock bottom and it was then when her parents really decided that the only option was treatment. She didn't go all crazy on them like he thought she would. She didn't really even cry, she just nodded her head, kept her head down, sniffed once and went packing her stuff.
Nick wanted so bad to say goodbye to her then and hug her for eternity, but somehow he just couldn't do it. Instead he went to his trailer, picked up his guitar and played the first song he ever wrote for her at the set of Camp Rock when he had first heard her laugh and thought how awesome it sounded. He thought about all the times they had spend together on the tour. All the songs they created, all the nightly talks they had, all the times they just laid next to each other listening to the sound of moving buss. And then, suddenly she burst inside his trailer startling him so bad, that he fell off his bed with a loud thump followed by a groan that escaped his lips the moment his head hit the floor. The silence that came afterwards was broken by her loud and obnoxious laugh that he loved so much and he help but laugh with her. She laid herself next to him on the floor taking his hand and holding it tightly in her small but firm grip. They laid on the dirty floor quietly just listening each others breathing and every now and then squishing their intertwined hands. After a very long moment she whispered something to him and Nick wasn't sure if he heard right. He slowly turned his head to her and saw her slightly smiling while staring at the sealing. "You heard me right Jick Nonas" She had said after that. "I totally wish I had realized it earlier you know this isn't the best timing of all times." She had chuckled lightly. Nick couldn't answer to her, he only stared her face his heart beating too fast and too loud. "And I know you like me too. I've known long time and I'm really stupid and ugh..." She turned on her side now looking at him and gripped his shoulders bringing him to his side too. "Can I just.. like.. I need to.. before... God I'm rambling..." She laughed nervously. "I just need to kiss you before I go, you know. I need to just do it right this time" She put her cold hands on his cheeks and Nick new this might be the last time he could see her and that he'll need to make it worth so he just pulled her lips to his and God he was in heaven. She was like an angel. A fallen angel, too perfect to adjust in the cruel life on the earth, too fragile to survive alone but so beautiful and he wished that they'd meet again, 'cause when she pulled away from his lips, rose from the floor and finally left the tour buss, last thing Nick heard was quiet "I love you too Nick" and the slight rosy color on her cheeks that came right after that made him fall in love with all over again. And then he was alone and she was gone only her words echoing in his head and he had never felt so empty in his life. And he just hoped so bad that they'll see again, 'cause he didn't know if he'll ever love someone as much as he loves her at that moment laying on the dirty floor trying to memorize her smell and her smile and the way her lips felt against his.