It takes a few days for Chloe to pull herself as together as she could manage and gather her courage. She debated whether she should call or text, but fear of her voice falling her left Chloe typing and retyping her message to Sabrina for an entire day.

As much as she wants to throw her phone to the other side of her room and ignore it again, as much as she wants to stop stressing and let herself waste the summer away in isolation, the conversation with Chat Noir lingers in the dregs of her memory, pushing itself to the forefront of her mind whenever she falters and tries to fall back into old habits. The stricken expression on Chat's face turns into the pain on Adrien's, and reminds Chloe all too much of how she's messed everything up. Of how she's pushed away all the people who've tried to help her, despite how much she knows she needs it. Of how she can't bear to push Sabrina away too, so she'll work to keep her close.

Taking a deep breath, Chloe looks over her message one more time, hits send, and tries not to throw up from nerves.

To Sabrina: You wanna hang out? I'm bored and we haven't really done anything this summer.

From Sabrina: Of course! What do you wanna do? I know a few boutiques that put up new summer collections if you don't have any plans!

To Sabrina: It's too hot to go out. Why do you come over and we can do whatever?

From Sabrina: Sounds good! Oh! Could I sleep over?

To Sabrina: Sure. Stay as many nights as you want.

From Sabrina: I'd never leave then, haha! Is three days okay?

To Sabrina: Sure. Come over whenever you want tomorrow.

And that's that, it seems. Chloe let out a long exhale, suddenly tired from the stress of sounding as normal as possible. Chloe collapses onto her bed, throwing an arm over her eyes. Everything went fine. Right? Everything has to be fine.

She looks around her room.

Everything is not fine.

The staff know not to enter her room when she's in it, and for the past week, Chloe hasn't go anywhere else. The dress from the gala is thrown and crumpled in a corner, and various pieces of clothing from when she tried to force herself to go out lay scattered on the floor. Chloe curses herself and stumbles off her bed to start gathering up her clothes. She'd throw them into the closet without care if she wasn't so paranoid of Sabrina seeing that too, so she hangs them up as neatly as she can manage.

It takes a good hour to get the floor cleaned up; the constant bending down and standing back up has Chloe tired and her muscles beginning to ache. She looks down at her hand, already so much thinner than before, and hates herself just a little more - the bones of her hand show a little too clearly and it's so noticable Chloe wonders how she missed it before. It's not surprising, what with how little she's been eating, but to get this bad?

Chloe drops her hand and turns her gaze away.

She really needs help. She just doesn't know how to get it.

Her desk is covered in torn out pages of notebooks and pens. The notebooks themselves are tossed onto the floor around the desk, left there after she swept them off the desk in a fit of frustration.

Many of the pages are bend and wrinkled, but it's not so bad that she can't use them. Chloe smoothes them out best she can, and slowly gathers all the notebooks in her arms. She moves to put them on the desk, but freezes when she sees what a mess it is, and sets the notebooks down on the chair instead.

She begins to grab all the papers, eyes skimming over the words she's written.

Is the only way to hold someone's heart

to cut it out of their chest?

And what of my heart? What will you do for it?

Even in a thousand different universes I'd never deserve you.,

But the selfishness that consumes me won't let you go.

It'll take death to tear us apart, if only because my claws are too deep in your chest.

Nights last too long for me.

Sleep never comes easy, but the dreams last long after I wake.

Dream: I am happy.

Truth: I don't deserve happiness.

"Wow," Chloe says out loud as she looks through her messy handwriting and 3AM poems, "These are awful." But her eyes drag along the lines of smudged ink again and she can't bring herself to ball up the paper and throw them away, so she shoves them into a drawer and tries to make herself forget the words that spilled out of her when she was barely conscious. "I can make them into something better later," she reasons with herself as she slams the drawer shut and tries not to think about who she was writing about, who sleepy mind immediately thought of.

Which, of course, brought to the forefront of her mind Sabrina.

"Oh my god, I can't do this," Chloe says, dragging her hands down her face and sinking to the floor in despair. There were thousands of ways she could mess everything up with Sabrina, push her away and lose her forever. Each possibility races through her mind, making her more and more anxious.

The most dominant thought was of how Sabrina would somehow find out what Chloe felt about her, find out that Chloe is gay and looks at her as more than a friend. She's already stupidly blurted out her thoughts to Chat, surely it would happen again with Sabrina.

Chloe pushes herself off the floor and stumbles across the room only to collapse face down onto her bed. She takes a moment to scream into the comforter, letting the thick fabric muffle her voice, then reaches out blindly to grab her phone. She turns her head to look at the screen and open her texts. She hits the second name (there are only five contacts in her entire phone: Sabrina, Adrien, her father, the hotel's number, and her father's work phone. Chloe tries not to think about how little the world cares for her. She tries not to think about how only three people would actually bother to speak to her even when she's away.)

To Adrien: Help i can't do this

From Adrien: ?!

From Adrien: Chloe are you okay?!

'What am I doing?' Chloe thinks staring at her impulsive message in horror. She stares at Adrien's name, his contact photo (the one where he's cross-eyed and sticking his tongue out; the one that shows the Adrien she loves like a brother), and remembers the sadness on his face at the gala, how she'd hurt him and pushed him away.

He probably hates her now; he really should hate her by now.

To Adrien: Nevermind, it's fine. I figured out what to do.

From Adrien: Are you sure? If you need help I can help you.

From Adrien: No matter what it is.

From Adrien: Chloe?

She tosses the phone back onto the bed and throws an arm over her face. She takes a few moments there, just breathing, closing her eyes against the tell tale burning of tears.

Sabrina is coming over tomorrow. All Chloe has to do is last three days with her, act as normal as possible, and prove that she's not broken in any way.

Sucking in a lungful of air, Chloe sits up. She takes out her ponytail and reties it. She smoothes out all the wrinkles in her clothes. She actually goes to her closet and grabs something else to wear besides pajamas, and puts them on. Chloe puts on her makeup with a steady hand, blends everything until she looks healthy and the dark circles under her eyes are barely visible. And when she feels she's presentable, feels like she's the picture perfect copy of the Chloe from before everything changed, and leaves her room.

There's a brief moment of fear that almost sends her back into her room to hide, but Chloe pushes it aside and purposefully strides down the hallway to the elevator.

'There,' she thinks, 'I can do it. I can be normal.'

When she eats, that day, she's able to swallow everything down. It still tastes dull, but the nausea has faded away into nothingness and Chloe can convince herself that she's getting better.

The bones of her hands and wrists still poke out too much. She looks away from them, hides them under her blanket that night and shuts her eyes. She's even almost able to stop herself from wishing she'd wake up in a grave.

Almost.