"Yeah, she is," I sighed in relief once I felt a pulse.

"Andie," said Steve sternly. "Get up."

He shook her hard enough to get her to open her eyes.

She mumbled something inaudible.

"Come on, you gotta get up," he ordered, pulling her arm until she came to a sitting position.

"I just want to sleep," she mumbled.

"Well tough shit, you should've thought of that before you got yourself into this mess. Stand up," he told her.

Steve led her to the bathroom while I cleaned up the room before anyone else came home. The aspirin bottle had fallen to the ground and spilled its remnants onto the floor.

"How much did you take?" I heard Steve ask her in the bathroom.
I couldn't catch her answer.

Once I finished cleaning the room and throwing away the aspirin I went to the bathroom. Andie was hunched over the toilet while Steve was attempting to make her throw up whatever she consumed.

"I don't like throwing up," she said dazed.

"Well I don't like seeing you being so pathetic, but it's something we have to suffer through, so just do it," Steve said bitterly.

Steve doesn't have the best bedside manners, but at this point it was better to have him order her around than me. I would've been too compassionate and right now what Andie needed was some command, someone to make her do something for herself. She needed someone to be the bad guy.

"I want to go to sleep," she said with her eyes closed.

"You can, as soon as you throw up," I told her. "Come on Andie, this is important. You have to do this."

She nodded her head no.

"This is taking too long, the longer we wait the worse she's going to get!" said an exasperated Steve.

He held Andie's nose to force her to breath out her mouth. As soon as her mouth opened he stuck his fingers down her throat, causing her to gag enough to make her throw up. She mainly threw up bile, but about a dozen pills came up as well.

"Ugh," said Steve once he pulled his fingers out of her mouth. They were covered in saliva and bile. He thoroughly washed his hands twice, before he was satisfied.

"How many did you take?" I asked Andie.

She shrugged her shoulders, "Sixteen? Eighteen? Idunno I lost count."

I threw Steve a worried glance; he shrugged.

"Wash your mouth out," Steve told her.

She complied without protest.

"I want to go to sleep," she repeated.

I sighed, "Alright, you can take the bed."

"Don't think you're getting off this easily," warned Steve. "We're having an intervention with you when you wake up."

"Yeah, yeah," she murmured. Andie curled into a ball, burrowed under the sheets, pulled the blanket over her head and fell fast asleep.

I heard the bedroom door open and knew that Andie was awake. Boy was she in for a surprise once she comes into the living room. After her incident, I called Darry and told him what happened and Steve told Two-Bit and Dally. Everyone agreed to confront her about this once she was awake, although Dally was so pissed he almost went in and killed Andie himself for doing something that was, in his words, "fucking crazyass bullshit."

"Andie," said Darry in a stern, but soft voice. "Please come to the living room."

Andie obliged Darry and came in to find me, Darry, and Steve there. We thought it best to confront with as little people as possible. Seeing how it was me and Steve who found her and Darry being the only "adult" it made sense for us to intervene. However, once Andie saw it was the three of us in the room she hesitated coming in and started to slowly back out of the room.

"Stop trying to run away and take a seat," said Steve.

Andie studied him for a bit before complying.

"Well, there's no easy way to put this but, Andie, we're worried about you. The whole gang is worried about you," started Darry. "I can understand why you're withdrawing into yourself, but you don't need to push us away. We're family, Andie and we care about you."

Andie was silent.

"Seeing you last night scared me. I thought you were dead," I confessed. "If one little comment from Steve could push you over the edge and do something like that, what's going to happen when something else that's bigger happens? You're frightening me."

"I'm fine guys. It was just one incident. I just had a headache and accidentally took too much. Aspirin barely does anything for me," she attempted to explain.

"Bull shit," said Steve. "That was no accident. No one accidentally takes eighteen aspirins in one sitting. What'd you do lose count?! You're so selfish you know that Andie. Doing a stupid stunt like that. What if you died, huh? Do you know who that'd hurt? Us. But obviously you don't care enough about us to suck it up and toughen out the hard parts of life; you just want to take the easy way out."

This took Andie aback, she was clearly not expecting this. I could tell she was starting to get pissed at Steve.

"You know what Steve, don't you dare comment about my actions. You don't fucking know what my life has been like. I live through hell everyday. My parents hate me and wish I were dead, they barely acknowledge my existence and don't care. My step-father used me as a fucking fuck buddy since I was twelve and beats me for no goddamn reason. Then, I was gang raped and attacked by those crazy ass socs. Do NOT tell me to suck it up. I've been sucking it up and toughing it out for the past sixteen years of life and trust me from where I'm standing it doesn't look like my life has a silver lining!" she screamed.

By this point she was so emotionally worked up that she started to hyperventilate. She couldn't catch her breath and kept breathing harder until she completely broke down into tears.

Shocked, Steve looked at me. This was probably the second or third time I'd seen Andie cry. For her to cry things were deeply upsetting her. I went over to her and wrapped an arm around her, embracing her tightly trying to soothe her and calm her down.

"Andie," said Darry. "We just want you back. We want to make sure you're okay. The whole gang is here for you."

"Yeah, we are. You should know that by now. Even though we forget you're a girl half the time, you're still our sister," Steve reminded her.

"We love you," I told her. "And if you were to leave us, it would kill all of us. We'd miss you so much; I'd miss you so much. Please, Andie, just promise me you won't mask these emotions with drugs or anything else anymore. We just want to get you back to your old self. We miss you."

And then I saw it, the hint of sadness, disgust, hate, and shame in her eyes. I could tell she hated herself.

"I promise," she barely whispered.

I smiled happy she was at least willing to attempt to try.

"I don't know if I'll be able to keep that promise though," she confessed. "I just, I just hate the fact that I allowed it to happen and I couldn't stop it. Any of it."

"What're you talking about Andie? None of these things were your fault! You were the victim!" said Steve, trying to get her to see the events as we saw them. "Why would you hate yourself and beat yourself up over it? That's stupid."

Andie looked at the ground and shrugged, her lips moved to the right side of her face.

"Idunno. Look, I have a massive headache, are we done? I want to go back to bed," she said.

Darry sighed, "Go ahead."

I guess Darry knew that we weren't going to get anywhere with this conversation today. But at least we were able to tell Andie how we felt and hopefully that will eventually settle in with her. I hope she realizes just how much we all care about her and love her. I just hope we weren't too late in seeing the devastating effects everything that has happened to Andie had on her and her self worth. I don't know what I'd do without her in my life.

Almost done with the story all. Thanks for bearing with me and sorry for the lack of updates.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter - review if you feel led to!