-Lost and broken

Hopeless and lonely

Smiling on the outside

Hurt beneath my skin

My eyes are fading

My soul is bleeding

I'll try to make it seem okay

But my faith is wearing thin

So help me heal these wounds

They've been open for way too long

Help me fill this soul

Even though this is not your fault

But I'm open

And I'm bleeding

All over your brand new rug

And I need someone to help me sew them up-

"I don't think its alive.." Brooke says, half to herself, have to Lucas who's sitting on her bed across the room as she's taping on the glass of the fish tank. "Mr. waffles" she calls in a sing-song type of voice, as if to wake him up.

Suddenly the fish moves slightly down and then floats back to the top and remains there, but moves his fin slightly so that Brooke knows its alive.

"Cudda swore that thing was gonna be dead by this morning" she says again, half to herself, half to Lucas.

Lucas sits on her bed careful not to move, careful not to talk, or even breath to heavy. He sits with his hands clamped tight under his legs as his feet dangle from the side and not quite touch the floor.

She spins around to see him... he looks terrified. She rests her eyes on his tired face. He hurts her so much- she hurts so much to see him like this.

"Lucas I told you I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it. Its not because of you I swear." She says, making it so that her face is of concern, not pain. She's good at hiding that kinda thing; no one really knows how to read her eyes.

"Brooke im scared for you I really am. Why would you do that to yourself anyway." Lucas said, he cant look up at her, he just cant.

"I don't know why I cut myself, a lot of times people don't." She cant look at him either, she knows he will never be able to read her eyes, but she's still worried he will find out that she's lying to him, she cant risk that.

She wonders why he doesn't figure it out for himself; yeah there are cuts on her arms- well, not cuts, more of gashes. But they're on both- and its not like she's ambidextrous. And plus there's also bruises... and it would be pretty hard to bruise yourself. I suppose though if you wanted to bad enough you could.. but in a hand shape?

She turns around real quick as to push memories of that night far behind her, because now all she can see is her father flinging open her closet door, and its not Lucas sitting on the bed anymore, its her dad. And is not Lucas's voice calling her name... its her fathers harsh voice looking for blood.

She grabs the knob on her stereo and flicks it so the volume goes as far up as it can go and she put her hands over her ears and just started screaming...

ANYTHING to get rid of her father- anything to get rid of Lucas's burning eyes.

She clamps her eyes shut tight and wishes her memories away, wishes her pain away- she counts to ten in her head and pretends she's somewhere else, not here, anywhere but here.

Just wishing she was someone else.

Then it all went black- and it was all quiet, and Lucas wasn't there anymore and there wasn't any music blaring in the background and she couldn't see if her fishy was still alive, or if it had gone belly up, there was nothing-

next morning
Etta James sing loud on her alarm clock when she woke up. She clamped her hands on her forehead, as if she had a hangover...

But she didn't.

She looked over at the clock... 5:45am... as usual. She pressed the bottom on top of the clock and Etta James stopped singing at last.

Though she didn't have a hangover, her head felt like shattered glass when she sat up. She felt dizzy and fell back on her bed. She couldn't move- it was like her whole body was weighed down by pounds and pounds of sand.

Her arms ached and she winced when she went to move them. She didn't want to look at them, but she decided she should, to make sure nothings bleeding.

They weren't, but they had been, all over the bed, and the gashes were fresh, they weren't scabs like last night, but there weren't any new additions. She knew her father hadn't come home last night.

But when she saw the bloody gauze bandages, she knew someone tried to help, someone tried- but she must not have let them.

She heard the garage door make sounds as they slightly vibrate her floor. She tensed her whole body because she didn't know if it was opening or closing and she covered her head, she didn't want to take any chances if it was her dad... and she couldn't move to the closet if her life depended on it-, which it very well could.

It wasn't.

It was her mother. She found out because soon she mother appeared at her door and threw her a granola bar and told her to eat and that shed call the school if Brooke didn't want to go to school.

Brooke nodded and didn't remove her arms from under the blanket.

"Don't think that im going to stay home just because you're probably either high, drunk, or having a hangover, either that or your pregnant." Her mother reminded her.

Brooke sighed in deep, deep so it would hurt her lungs, deep so that it would burn on the way down.

So deep.

-good charlotte... "wounded" (hidden track)