((A/N: Happy early birthday IronDiamond! I saw your comment last chappie :D))
Things felt like they were looking up for me. I was still struggling to keep clean, but I felt like I was recovering. Vik and I had gotten closer, if that was possible. Everything was doing well on the YouTube side of things. The only thing that still gave me a heavy feeling was the fact that Preston and I were still on bad terms.
Vik could easily replace the friendship of all other members of the Pack. I could admit that, but it wouldn't necessarily be the same. It was weird to think that I was starting to stop considering Preston as a friend. We had been through so much together. He meant so much to me, even though our friendship was falling apart. The thought of him out of my life made me feel empty, even though I had Vik with me. It seemed like Preston was the only one there for me when everyone had been blinded by the fact that I was an attention whore. Nothing had changed, I still was.
Preston definitely was still important to me, but losing him as a person wasn't what scared me most. In my eyes, it felt like I was letting go of all my memories associated with him when I accepted that we were growing apart. It felt like I was losing that portion of my life, the portion that involved Preston. It scared me.
I couldn't record for the whole day. I kept getting distracted, and the fact that I couldn't focus and just hit record made me extremely frustrated. The more time I wasted, unable to get my videos for the day done, the less time Vik had to record for his own channels. My mind wasn't able to think straight, so every time I tried to do the intro to Crazy Craft, I stumbled on my words. When I was finally able to get through with the episode, I had to find out that I wasn't even recording. After just sitting silent for ten minutes and taking deep breaths, I was able to redo the recording. With my luck, I accidentally deleted the recording and wasn't able to recover it. I literally screamed at the top of the lungs.
"Lachlan! Lachlan!" Vik shouted over me. He was just laying on my bed on his phone, and hadn't questioned what I was doing until then. I stopped and took a deep breath.
"Sorry, Vik," I sighed, running my hands through my hair.
"What happened?" he asked, coming over to the desk to look at my monitor. "Lachlan, there's nothing on your screen."
"I know, that's the problem. Were you listening to what I was saying when I was doing the intro?" I responded, blowing away a strand of hair that was falling into my eye.
"Not really, I just heard that you were on the Crazy Craft server," he answered.
"I just did two episodes of Crazy Craft that aren't on recording. The first recording wasn't even recording and I managed to permanently delete the second one," I explained. I looked up at my screen in hopes of magically seeing the file for the second recording, but all I saw was my screensaver.
"Are you serious? How did you even do that?" he questioned, staring at me with a confused expression.
"I don't know! That's why I'm so frustrated," I whined, letting my forehead hit against my desk.
"Don't do that," Vik mumbled, pushing my head back against the back of my chair. "Okay, what about this: you take a little break from recording and we can do something in the mean time." I shrugged and nodded my head. He moved to sit on my bed again and I followed him.
"Sorry, again," I repeated. He probably found it very annoying that I was being so obnoxious about what happened with my recordings. I overreacted.
"Don't worry about it. I probably would've broken your desk or my hand if that happened to me," he admitted. That made me crack a smile. I'd seen him play X-Run before, and that was bad enough as it was. "Hey, get rid of that cheeky smile." He lightly pushed my shoulder.
"Nah, I don't think so," I joked, pushing him back.
"You're such a dick," he jokingly pouted. A smirk made its way onto my face.
"Well, I've been told that I have a big one," I joked, staring him dead in the eyes. His eyes widened and he covered his face in his hands.
"Oh my god," he breathed. "You did not just say that."
"Well, I did. So… deal with it," I continued.
"Geez, Lachlan. You don't…" he murmured, shaking his head in disapproval. I shrugged.
"You're awfully adorable when you're embarrassed and flustered," I told him. I regretted being so straightforward, but hopefully he wouldn't overthink what I had said. He got even more embarrassed.
"Okay, nevermind that. What's up? I've seen you get mad about recordings and stuff like that. You seem really irritated," he said, changing the subject. The smile dropped from my face.
"It just took a good amount of time to even do the intro because I kept getting lost in my own head. I probably wouldn't have been as frustrated if I hadn't done two full recordings. I wouldn't have minded if they were shitty recordings either," I replied.
"This seems to be happening a lot, recently," he pointed out. I nodded. It definitely was.
"Yeah, and I hate it. You'd think by now I would have started being more observant," I complained.
"Is something bothering you?" he wondered, looking at me as if something was hiding on my face. I shrugged.
"I mean, not really-" I started.
"What is it?" he cut in.
"It's just- I'm not… It's Preston," I stuttered out. He thought carefully about what to say next.
"Did he do something else? Anything involving speaking to you like you're shit?" he asked, his eyebrows scrunched up in worry.
"No, no. Nothing like that. I'm just having a hard time… It's just hard to accept that Preston and I aren't really… friends anymore, I guess. I don't know, I think I'm just being overdramatic about this whole situation," I mumbled, looking at my hands.
"I don't think that you're being overdramatic. Preston was the one person who stuck with you last year, wasn't he?" he told me. I glanced up at him to see a bitter smile on his face. "You know… I almost forgot that it's mainly my fault for you cutting that first time. Almost."
"I don't blame you for that! It wasn't just you, it was the fact that everyone turned against me," I lied. I did still partially blame him for it. I blamed Rob along with him, but I almost felt guilty about it.
"But everyone turned against you because of what I had said. No one ever had the heart to tell you this - especially not me - but I was the one who brought up the topic in the first place. You'll probably go ape shit any second now. It's all my fault…" he confessed. His eyes started watering, but he kept on trying to blink away the tears.
I was angry at him. I'd admit that. I wasn't angry with Rob for telling me that he didn't know whether I should kill myself or not, but I was infuriated with Vik now that I knew that he was the single person to blame for the start of my cutting habit. Never before had a wave of depression crashed over me and threatened to drown me. Not until then. It was all his fault. All of it. He brought it up, Rob agreed, everyone else agreed, and I was the biggest outcast of all my friends. I cut, they found out, and suddenly everyone cared again. I temporarily recovered, relapsed, and the only reason Vik came was to try to fix the mess he had made.
Vik didn't even care, did he? People don't change. Rob certainly didn't. I had every reason to believe that Vik hadn't. Vik was only there for me out of guilt. He knew that it was his fault. He knew that it was his fault that cutting was my go to coping mechanism. Guilt and pity. That seemed to be the only way I'd ever be able to get noticed.
I had questioned whether Vik had ever truly loved me before, but I never thought too much about it because I had started to rely on the thought that he did. The fact that someone loved me who wasn't required to (like my family) made me happy. Did he only ever say that to fix his own problems? Did he ever mean anything he ever said?
"Please say something," he whispered, no longer fighting off the tears.
"Fuck you. FUCK YOU! I hate you…" I spat at him. I glared at the sight of him full out sobbing.
"I'm sorry, Lachlan. I really am," he gasped, in between uneven breaths.
"Sure you are," I snapped. I got off of the bed and made my way towards the door.
"Please, just let me talk this out-" he started.
"No. I've had enough of your goddamn lies! Did you even come here because you actually care? Or did you just want to fix some problem you created last year? Was this all for you? Did you ever have any genuine concern for me, as a person?" I shouted.
"Lachlan, let me explain-" he tried again. I left the room and made sure to slam the door shut. I ran downstairs and into my car. I didn't know where I was going, but I was leaving. I started my car and started driving.
The most ironic thing was that I was leaving my house. I left Vik all alone in my own house. It wasn't like he could go anywhere. He wouldn't be able to follow me. He'd either have to stay there or get a plane ticket back. Either way, he wouldn't be able to get me.
I wanted him as far away from me as possible.
I somehow ended up in Sydney. I was only half paying attention to where I was going, but of all places I could've ended up, I didn't expect that I'd land in Sydney. That meant that I was driving for at least ten hours. I wasn't really keeping track of time. It was definitely night, though.
I knew I wouldn't be able to get home before I passed out of exhaustion, considering I was a bit tired already, so I searched up the hotels that were near my area. I eventually found a considerably nice one and got directions for it.
After booking a single room for three nights (which took a considerable amount of time), I went to my room. I didn't have any luggage like I usually would, so I got to my room twice as fast as normal. All I had with me was my phone, my blade, and my wallet (which I usually kept in my car for some weird reason that I didn't bother questioning). The room was pretty nice considering I had gotten it so last minute and for such a cheap price, but I didn't really care. The only thing I could focus on was what had just happened. Vik was sobbing when I just left the room, and despite all of that, I only had a single text from Vik. He was the type of person to spam me. Just showed that he never really cared.
Instead of reading the text, I just shoved my phone in my hoodie pocket and flopped onto the hotel bed. I'd have to buy some new clothes tomorrow. Maybe a phone charger too, unless I had one in my car. Whatever, it wouldn't be much.
As I let my eyes drop close, I desperately wished that sleep could kill.