A/N: I've been writing (not really writing, more like sketching, so it's a little rough, okay, bear with me please) this chapter for close to a month now. I got really caught up with my own personal writing, and school, and applying to colleges. But my application stress is over because I was accepted to my DREAM SCHOOL with a full-tuition scholarship on Early Decision and I literally can't even believe it.

Anyway, I'm obviously taking Cam's "all of my days are bad" statement to heart still. I wrote this on my phone, so please bear with awkward punctuation or autocorrect... I've got like cataracts when it comes to Microsoft Word.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday season!

"Campbell, can you please come inside?" Jane poked her head out the sliding glass door for the hundredth time since she'd been awake, her hair now washed, brushed, and dry, her pajamas replaced by a long-sleeved dress and a headband—he couldn't remember where she was supposed to be, but he knew he was holding her up and that was enough to make his stomach churn. His eyes remained transfixed on the sheets of freezing rain pelting the wet soil lining their back deck; stray drops rebounded from the rapidly forming slush-puddles, jumping, leaping for his bare toes. Jane had told him earlier not to leave the deck, that he'd get sick—like it mattered, he thought—but somehow he found himself inching closer and closer to the edge; his white knuckles within reach of the railing. He had almost made it; just a few inches over the railing—God knows he could get over that one—and then a few more to get out from underneath the roof and he was there and he could almost feel it—almost.

He didn't turn around, but he could hear her light steps tracing the wooden planks, her own bare feet tip-toed over to him. "You feeling okay?" Her feather fingers felt his cheeks, his forehead, any patch of skin she could get her hands on, like she expected to feel a fever beneath the blood blush permanently staining his skin. But crazy isn't an ibuprofen thing, and she dropped her hands to his shoulders. He looked away, uncomfortably tensing the fingers on his bad arm, forcing spasms of pain up to his elbow. It had been four days since he hit the atrium floor, five since his lungs were lungs and not incinerators; his body a body and not lead; his heart and live, beating heart, and not a badly backfiring car, spitting black exhaust and debris. It was getting harder to stand on his feet, harder to swallow—it was supposed to be better, he was supposed to be better. Eliminating stressors—namely hockey and his team—was supposed make him happy, let him breathe.

He still couldn't breathe.

After the week he had put them through, she had every reason to worry about him. He had all but lost his privacy privileges; the bedroom door had to be open, he wasn't allowed to go out alone, he wasn't allowed to be home alone. It was all pretty overwhelming, pretty humiliating, pretty suffocating; Justin promised it was Dad's orders, that he just didn't understand, no matter how hard he tried to explain that he was going to drown faster under supervision. It had become common knowledge he didn't fall off the catwalk rather quickly—so fast he didn't even know how it happened. He did know, however, that any trust that had been rebuilt between he and his parents, even between he and his psychiatrist had been destroyed the second he let go of the railing. But he couldn't go home—no, of course not. Saunders's always finish what they start, and he was to stay out there, support his team, and do well in school, considering he damn-near fell catatonic at the very beginning of the school year when he had to start at his old high school.

Dr. Szczelaszczyk mentioned something about new medication, but he didn't think that was the problem. He, himself, was the problem, and he just needed to learn how to keep his head above water. And then he'd be okay.

Seth joined Jane on the deck, a spatula in hand. "Cam, it's cold," he coughed, "you need to come inside and eat something." He shook his head; did defiance violate his terms and conditions? Did defiance signify a mental collapse or validate a hospital trip? He couldn't remember, but his bottom few ribs met each other in the center, puncturing whatever organ stood in their way.

"Why not?" Seth craned, folding his arms across his chest, prepared to argue. But he didn't want to tell them why not. He didn't want to tell them he couldn't breathe inside or that the walls were too close inside or that it was too hot inside—like all of the oxygen was being cooked up and there was going to be nothing left to breathe soon and he needed to conserve it. He pulled away from Jane, unsure of where the sudden burst of ice under his skin had come from.

What were you thinking? Justin had screamed, his eyes red and puffy through the poor webcam quality. Justin didn't cry, Justin was strong, normal.

What were you thinking? He insisted, yelling and crying and demanding until Cam lost it.

I was thinking I wouldn't have to play hockey anymore. He had growled, trying his hardest to sound stolid and rational through the pains in his chest and tremors in his limbs. I was thinking I wouldn't feel so anxious and terrified and stressed out; that's what I was thinking.

Now he didn't know what he was thinking—maybe he didn't even really remember. He'd been blacking out left and right, chunks kept going missing. He couldn't remember falling anymore, or hitting the floor, or the hospital—just throwing up outside, but after that he doesn't remember either. He couldn't remember what he had done in school on Thursday, but he knew he didn't go to class. And forgetting was even worse than knowing what had happened—he was losing his footing in reality, and perhaps that was even more terrifying than what his parents thought, or the Clarksons thought.

"I just need five minutes," he huffed, tugging at the over-stretched fabric crawling over the cast. "Please."

His billet parents conceded, drawing back into the cozy house. His body slumped over the railing, his armpits hugging the curvature of the wood. Strangled and forced, wet air filtered through his nose; he focused on the steady fall of sleet droplets. He needed more than five minutes. The football-sized bruise stretching from his ribcage to hip bone throbbed against the banister; he did nothing to relieve the pressure—instead he pushed harder. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He kept messing up, kept ruining everyone's days and weeks and months.

You don't understand, he had heaved into the Guidance Office Private Room phone during yesterday's study period. I can't have everyone being disappointed in me. No one had voiced disappointment, but he had created it himself, looking for it in every face that crossed his. He was disappointed in himself, but mostly horrified, and even more humiliated.

His father had cleared his throat and told him he needed not take things for granted all the time; he needed to stop lying and get serious.

Cam couldn't fathom anything more serious than not wanting to be alive anymore.

Seth told him he was proud of him for going to all of the day's classes over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches during lunch, ruffled his hair, and assured him everything was only going to get better.

In a matter of three days, others had gone from being proud of him for scoring winning goals to simply being proud he got out of bed without having a nervous breakdown. He wanted to laugh, but guilt and terror and shame slashed his vocal cords.

He lifted himself from the banister, his unequal palms running over and over the front of his sweatpants. Everything hurt, his entire body sore and resistant to any kind of movement or touch. The force of the impact of his body slamming into the linoleum tile had done more than split the bones in his right arm—stupid. If he had heard how much worse he could have done to himself one more time—if he had heard how much easier his mom could breathe knowing it was just an arm—

He still couldn't breathe.

He still couldn't breathe.

He still couldn't—

"Five minutes is up, kiddo," Seth poked his head out the sliding glass door, all glasses and messy hair and height. He jumped, his back sliding down the fence posts, his knees crunching into his sternum. He couldn't go back inside, not yet. Not while he was barred from his bedroom during the day and crowded in the living room with all of the elephants he couldn't bear to clear out. He couldn't talk and he couldn't breathe and he couldn't go back in the house.

"Hey," he squeezed through the opening, his movements awkward and rushed. "What's this about?" He folded himself into some intricate origami shape, his long legs bent, his long arms braced on the planks. Cam shook his head, his eyes locked on Seth's glasses, not quite meeting his eyes; there really wasn't a direct answer. He didn't really know what this was about. Seth's long fingers grazed his knees, as if to coax him into spilling some deep confession.

He dropped his chin to his folded arms, his eyes level with Seth's fingers.

"I can't help if you don't let me, Cam," Seth urged, his words resounding at least twenty-five times. He didn't want help; he sure as hell needed it, but he didn't want it. He needed to deal with it on his own. He needed his father to see him dealing with it on his own.

"I'm helping myself," he huffed, picking at the white fluff sheltering his broken bones from direct impact. In some places, he had ripped it clear out of the plaster, leaving bare patches to cut into his skin.

"By doing what? Ensuring you catch pneumonia? What's that going to help?"

"Well, I wouldn't have to go to school then, or the hockey game tonight."

Seth pursed his lips, his eyes wide—-surprise. Cam wasn't outwardly panicky or dizzying; he sat appearing oddly calm, his facial features twisted into something a few straws short of pensive. Inwardly, his chest screamed, his stomach kicking itself, doing the dirty work for whoever was next in line.

"It doesn't work that fast, Campbell... Did the team bother you in school on Friday? You didn't say anything," his eyebrows knitted themselves together. But they didn't; if they had, he would have had some kind of validation for the ball of nerves twisting his insides inside out at the thought of sitting on the bench in dress clothes beside his teammates. He wasn't even playing; he had gotten what he wanted, he should have felt relieved, calm, happy.

"I just don't want to go, Seth, I don't have a reason," he groaned, easing his eyelids shut. "Not a good one."

"Is that why you won't come inside? You just don't want to?"

"I can't go inside, Seth!" He snapped, though it sounded more like an aching whine. He pulled his knees in closer until he was sure he felt blood shooting up to just underneath his skin over the pulsating bruise; his good fingers kept picking. He couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't.

"Why can't you? Cam, it's cold and wet, please," he begged, his hands bracing Cam's upper arms. Instinctively, he flinched away from him.

"Because I can't breathe, Seth! I can't take you and Jane watching me and Ms. Sauvé calling me down to her office to talk and everyone hanging over me like I'm in the hospital and they're worried I'm going to try to kill myself with the bed sheets or my tooth brush!

"And I'm terrified I'm going to make a mistake and you're going to call my mom and tell her I'm really losing it and she'll tell my dad and I'll end up back in Mott's or in group therapy where they'll make me talk about how stupid and pathetic I am and how I can't leave my room or answer my brother's text messages without feeling like my chest is going to explode or like I have to lay down or throw up or die!

"And Justin keeps saying my dad just wants me to be supervised because he doesn't want me to get really bad again, but he didn't care last year whether or not I was alone after my PopPop died and he blamed me for panicking and not being able to call 911 to save him and he didn't care whether or not I was alone when he and Mom left for two weeks to stay away from me and he didn't care whether or not I was alone when he sent me to my room to calm down when I was really bad, like bad-bad Seth, really, really bad and confused and crazy and waking up from blackouts with blood all over my hands and face and clothes and no idea how I had done that without even realizing. And he didn't care about me being alone when he made me try out for the Ice Hounds even when he knew—"

"Campbell," Seth's hands tightened around his arms, jarring him back and forth. "Campbell stop," his eyes looked even wider than before, bulging spheres ready to lick the lenses of his glasses. All at once, he stopped, and the world fell back around him.

His nervous system was screaming; every neuron stood on high-alert, firing, firing, firing. The sleet droplets hit the puddles like torpedoes, the breeze howling through the fence posts and trees and rammed the house siding like a freight train disaster. His face was wet, but so was his neck, and he wasn't sure if he was crying or sweating but his eyes were burning, and God, his arm hurt.

And then there was that choking sensation in his throat and Seth's continued staring and—Oh god, he wasn't breathing!

His jaw slid forward, his lips parting slightly, dragging in fruitless gasps of wet, circulating air. This didn't feel like a panic attack-an aggravated assault on himself, every system in his body working against the instincts telling his lungs to take the next breath and his heart to remain constant and his body temperature to drop to homeostasis.

"Breathe, Cam!" He screamed; Jane appeared out of thin air, her red hair setting fire to the black creeping into his line of sight. He had become only vaguely aware of Seth's hands on his arms until he was suddenly pulled from the deck railing and slammed back against it, his chest swelling with dewy atmosphere, like the impact had knocked the wind into him instead of out.

"Shit," Seth dropped his face into his palms, breathless and pained. Jane dropped beside him, leaving her rush to leave the house above her head. "Jesus Christ, Cam, Jesus Christ, you can't do that!"

The apology already habitually perched on his tongue refused to come.

"I thought I saw you walk out," Maya slid to the floor beside him, her knees tucked like his, her hands clasped in front of her ankles. His eyes wandered to every visible object in sight, anything to deter feeling the expression nailed to her face like a death warning. He caught her eye as he walked in with the team, her sister attached to her side. He was confused as to why she was even there—she hated hockey.

He hated hockey.

He didn't have to go to the game at all; Jane and Seth had quit their encouragements and subtle pushes after the morning's collapse, suggesting he just stay home and "work on himself" without "having to deal with hockey and pressure." He couldn't stay home. He couldn't sit on the couch and pretend to watch television. He couldn't even look at his billet parents, and this time it wasn't a passing storm, readily blowing over until the next tempest. This time, it was a precursor, a flag on fire. And he'd never redeem himself.

Though he regretted coming to the game. There was no winning. There never is.

It was too loud in the stadium, too crowded. The group sitting behind him were too close, their breaths dive-bombing his neck, their uncontrollable bodies looming and swaying above him after every close save, every goal—too close, too close. He left half way through the first period, resolving to pull himself together and go back in—make his father proud.

Now it was three-quarters of the way through the second period, and the dull roar behind the doors still felt like too much.

"Just thought you'd want some company," Maya beamed, her hand on his arm.

He swallowed, slipping his hand into hers. "Thanks," he murmured, taken aback by the smile inching across his lips. The butterflies she never ceased to bring about pumped their wings at the base of his ribs, the gentle heat of her body next to his sending shivers down his spine. Even in the poor, fluorescent lighting of the entrance hallway, she was beautiful.

And he was ruining her life.

"I missed you in school this week… how's the arm?" She rested her head on his shoulder; he stole a glance in her direction.

"It's, um, it's fine. Should be better in no time." He held his breaths longer than he should have, the image of oxygen combustion ripe in his mind.

"What about you?" Maya nudged, her blue eyes coercing information from his teeth.

"Me too," he breathed, tugging the corners of mouth into something convincing. He would be, he had to be.

"You know, some people are saying you jumped off the catwalk, Cam." She puffed her cheeks, holding his eyes.

He stiffened, his neck bobbing his head for the greater part of his conscious mind that wanted to tell the truth. "Yeah," his voice cracked.

"So it's true?" She didn't sound accusatory. Not yet.

"Yeah," he repeated, the butterflies catching fire and spinning death circles in his belly. He couldn't look away, like her reaction was the determining factor in his fate.

"Cam, why didn't you just talk to me?" She sounded pained, her eyes swimming behind her lenses. "You could have gotten really hurt, like wheelchair hurt! Do you want to talk to my mom about not being able to move her legs like she wants to? Why would you ever think throwing yourself off the catwalk would be an okay thing to do?"

He winced, unable to look away. "I— I don't—It's like my head isn't screwed on right, Maya! I keep trying and trying and it's not getting easier!" She held his stare. "I just want to be happy."

Her thumb traced a cyclical path above his thumb, her eyebrows arching. "Then be happy, Cam," murmured and garbled, but there. Be happy? He was trying. He was trying so hard to be happy, and normal, and sane. And his brain was working against him, and he was fightingfightingfighting. Did she think he wanted to feel like this? But Maya was only fourteen and unadulterated. How could he expect her to understand something she had never experienced, never come in contact with?

"I just feel like I'm alone," he whimpered, dropping his gaze to their hands.

"You have me," all at once, the words brushed his cheek, and then something else. "And I'm always here for you, to talk or watch movies or go out for a walk or hot chocolate at The Dot, anything," Warm and vaguely sticky, his cheek caught fire; Maya's lips lingered on his skin even after they left. "Always." What would they feel like on his lips?

He turned into her, and she into him. Their eyes shared a private conversation for a few moments, his brown one muddying her blue, her blue cleansing his brown. And then he took a breath, leaned in, and went for it.

P/N: Rough, right? There's probably not even a diamond somewhere in there! I really wanted to put out a new chapter to feel like I'm doing something, but I really didn't put in the energy this deserved. Just to clear things up a little bit, when Cam mentioned Mott's—-that's a pediatric psychiatric care unit. Thank you for reading :)