Nick P.O.V

Well it had been a month since Demi and I had started this friend with benefits thing and man was it going good. We'd been acting like we normally would except from the few hook up's in school and the many out of school, I don't think I've ever thought of such a good idea, to the person who ever made up the idea of having a friend with benefits, I salute you, majorly. We had kept up with all of our rules, none of us had got involved with anyone else, I'm not sure if that's because Demi didn't want to or, because the boys were too afraid to hook up with her, knowing that me and her were 'dating'. I had learned a lot about Demi over the past month thanks to our second rule about sharing something with the other about you. I've learnt that she hates peanut butter, she has this little cute obsession with Kelly Clarkson and her secret love is rock music, and her celebrity crush is Zac Efron, really the dude from High School Musical? She still hasn't told me anything major, as in the idea that Danny told me there's some bad things about Demi's life that I need to protect her from. I don't want to pressure her but I need to know, because if I do know then there's no way I'll let her get hurt.

Demi P.O.V

This past month with Nick has been so good; I don't think I've ever been happier. I haven't cut in a month, if I'm having a bad day, without even knowing he's doing it, he makes me forget about it all, and it just goes away. Behind this whole popular, hot jock there's this guitar playing, hot nerd. He loves comics; I think it's so cute. I caught him reading one the other day and he had his little reading glasses on, I'd never seen anything so cute in my life. Yes, and he plays the guitar, I begged him to play me a song but he wouldn't play one, I asked him if he could sing and he completely brushed off my question. I'll get him to sing for me, one way or another.

It was last lesson on a Friday, thank god. Can you guess what lesson I was in? P.E. What a great way to end the week, could you sense my sarcasm? The only upside of being in P.E. is that Nick's in P.E. and I get to see him all hot and sweaty, not that I already don't see him hot and sweaty every night but I just love seeing Emily's face when he winks at me. Oh it's great.

"Hey, you."

"Yeah?" I turned and there was Emily, glaring right through me.

"I know what you're doing."

"Excuse me?"

"You're using Nick, to make me jealous, and sweety it's not working." She crossed her arms.

"Is this bitch serious?" Lacey stepped out in front of me laughing.

"Lace, hold up." Lacey stepped back shaking her head, cackling lightly. "Why would you think that I'm using Nick to make you jealous?"

"Whenever I'm in your class, you always talk about Nick and kiss Nick."

"Errr, because he's my boyfriend, and I'm allowed to?"

"Well bitch, I can see right through this whole good girl act, and I swear if you hurt Nick-"

"Oh what, hurt him like you already did? Well bitch, I'm still helping him get through the pain you and his so called 'best friend' caused. So don't come over to me and start saying all this shit, when you're the motherfucking hypocrite." There were a few whistles and gasps; I don't know who she thinks she is.

"See, she's not the so called 'good girl' everybody thinks she is."

"Emily, you're just making yourself look stupid, I've never said I'm a good girl, so what if I drink, and have sex and curse? I just respect people and they respect me, but I won't act nice to someone who insults me and my boyfriend to my face."

"Woo, you go Demi!" One of the boys shouted, I'm guessing a little crowd had formed.

"In the end Demi, you're just a little cheerleader slut like your mum was."

"What did you just say?"

"Just think Demi where's your mum now? What do they say? Once a slut always a slut?" She grinned evilly. I slapped her so hard; she fell to the ground, holding her cheek.

"Lovato, principal's office now!" Miss Reynolds shouted.

"Never say anything about my mum, ever." I growled at the lifeless piece of shit on the ground.

No way was I going to the principal's office, he'll just call my dad, there's no need. I turned my back, the tears threatening to fall, pushing through the crowd and out of the door. I heard Nick shout my name, but there was no way I could stop now, I just needed to get home. I pushed through the entrance doors and walked out of the school just like that, no looking back.

"Demi, get back here!" I recognised it as Megan's voice, I turned slightly to see her on the phone, and I'm guessing that would be my sister on the other end of the call.

I ran, I ran away from the school, from Emily, from Megan, from Miss Reynolds and from Nick. I didn't want to leave Nick, I wanted to tell him about my mum but I couldn't not there. How did she even know about my mum, no one knows but my family? I didn't even know who she was before she started dating Nick. I barged into my house and ran up to the bathroom in my room; there it was the thing I'd been missing for the past two weeks. I grabbed it, twirling the shining, silver blade around in my hand. God I'd missed this, I hadn't been using this because I had a different pain reliever, Nick. What would he say if he knew what I was about to do? Would he leave me? I knew exactly what he would say; 'No way am I sleeping with an emo.' My heart clenched tight in my chest, I would lose everybody, everybody including Nick. I couldn't lose Nick, not after all we've been through and how close we are now. The blade moved closer to my skin, now resting above it, the coldness of it send shivers of worry around my body. I didn't need to do this, I had Nick, and he would help me through it, wouldn't he? No of course he wouldn't, he just thinks of you as an easy fuck, just like Danny said, he would drop you like that, he's got other commitments, why would he spend all his time looking after you? My subconscious was right, he wouldn't look after me. I tightened the grip on the blade as I was about to make the painful, yet relieving cuts to my skin.

"Don't, don't do it Demi." Was he crying? His eyes were full of tears and his face was trembling.

"Nick-"

"Just please drop the razor, I can help you get through this, you know I can."

"How do I know that Nick?" I sobbed; knowing that he was crying because of me killed me.

"Because you haven't picked that up in a month?" Did I say that part out loud?

"How did you know?"

"I've seen the scars Dem and I know how many there were when we first started this thing, and there's still the same amount there now." He walked towards the sink, standing next to me.

"I don't want to do this anymore."

"I know baby, just let me in, take down your walls for me."

"I want to Nick, I do, but it's so hard to let other people in." I trembled, dropping the razor. Nick's hand swiped across the floor in search of the razor and chucked it in the bin.

"That's a start, if you let me help you, you won't have to do that anymore." He pointed to my wrists; I pulled them back away in shame. "Don't do that Dem, everything about you is perfect, and taking these away would change you." He rubbed his thumb over the ridged scars, his face completely stern. "I think we should stop this friend with benefits thing for a while and focus on getting you better."

"Nick, no, that's the only thing that's been keeping me away from it."

"No Dem, sex isn't what's been keeping you from it, I have."

"Nick, please, I need you to make me feel wanted, that's the only way." I sobbed, grabbing onto his shirt.

"Dems, you don't know hard this is for me to hear, let's just take a break from it for a week and see how it goes-"

"But you can't leave me-"

"Who said I was leaving? I wouldn't want to be anywhere else?"

"But people always leave, why aren't you?"

"Because I care about you a lot and I need you to get better."

"Just because you care, doesn't mean you'll stay."

"It does Dem, I'm not going anywhere, and if I do, you'll be coming with me."

"Can we get out of this room? I hate it in here?" I asked, before walking out and sitting down onto my bed silently, not waiting for his reply.

Nick P.O.V

I shook my head and followed Demi out of the bathroom and onto her bed. She sat silently, scanning the room looking for something to stare at while she told me everything.

"Nick, I don't know where to start?" Her voice broke as she finished the sentence.

"Why don't you start with your mom?" She brought her hands together and started playing with her fingernails. "Demi?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to your mom?"

"She...died when I was seven." I reached for her, but she shook her head, pushing me away with her hands. "She was...raped and then murdered...by a gang...she was err walking home from dropping me off at a friend's house...it was my fault." This time I ignored her hands and just grabbed her, pulling her towards me, sitting her on my lap.

"It wasn't your fault Dems-"

"Don't say that Nick, she would still be here if I didn't go to my friend's house, she would be here, with me."

"Demi, you can't live in the past like that, it's not healthy."

"You know my dad blames me."

"He doesn't Demi."

"He does, Nick how many times have you seen my dad in these past two weeks, or better yet the nine years I've lived here?" She was right, I hadn't seen him at all, the least being five or six times over the nine years she's lived next door to me.

"It doesn't mean he blames you-"

"Nick, he's told me it's my fault, every time he sees me he tells me, he reminds me of what I caused." I could now see all of the hurt she'd been carrying around with her all along, and I hadn't even noticed the tiniest bit of it. "He can't even look at me anymore without getting angry or upset because I look like her, I haven't seen my dad in two years. I don't even know what he looks like, my older sister Dallas keeps him updated with what's going on with me. I don't even get a card for my birthday; I just get money posted through the post. He doesn't want me Nick and he never will." The anger was now revealing itself in her voice, telling the story out loud must have made something click in that brain of hers.

"Well you know what Dem? He doesn't deserve you, and he never should. You're his daughter whatever's gone down should have been forgotten, you shouldn't blame yourself and he shouldn't blame you, nobody could have stopped that from happening with your mom. So what if she was walking home from dropping you off from a friend's house, she should be allowed to, she should be able to walk down any street in this town and not get hurt or whatever. Just please, you need to stop blaming yourself because it's not good for you and it means that the men who done that to your mum win, they win by making you feel as if it was your fault, and well Demi it wasn't your fault and you need to start believing it."

"Thank you Nick, for the first time in nine years I feel almost better, I almost feel like myself again."

"And you should be, is there anything else you want to tell me?" She took in a big breath and nodded.

"When my dad started to leave regularly I would be all alone and after a while the house parties and the drinking just got boring. And being alone for long periods of time made me think, it made me question if my mom dying was my fault, it made me question if my dad leaving was also my fault. All these things just constantly running through my mind finally got to me. Over one summer I went to this party out on the lake, there was this really cute guy there; Harry. We spent the whole night together and well the whole summer. It was perfect and I thought he was to. He started staying at my place after summer was over so he would be closer to me and my dad was never here so why did it matter? I had school so he would just stay at the house all day or go out; it worked fine for like the first month. This was around the time when people started noticing me and I suppose when I gained everyone's respect and got popular or whatever. Harry didn't like the people who I had started to hang out with-"

"Was that like all us lot?"

"Yeah, he accused me of cheating on him and said that one of his mates had seen me making out with someone, that wasn't true. He suddenly got really angry and started throwing things around the house, he was punching things, I asked him to stop. And he did, he stopped punching the wall and chucking things but instead he started to hit me. He stormed out that night and I didn't see him for a week. I thought that we were over, so I moved all of his things out of the house and texted him to come pick it all up. He came over with a few of his mates and stole every valuable thing in the house, smashing pictures of my family, and hitting me because I was screaming at him, even when I couldn't make any more noise possible he would still stand there with all his friends kicking me and then he lit a cigarette and started smoking it." She swallowed painfully, reliving the next part of the story before sharing it with me. "When he was finished with the cigarette he put it out by pressing it as hard as he could against my wrist. He left and I never saw him again, I had to explain to my dad that there was a robbery and that it was my fault because I had left the door unlocked. My dad went mad at me, started calling me all these names, and saying how mom would be so disappointed in me that really hurt. He stopped speaking to me completely after that, not even a phone call once a week, all I would get is a text every three months making sure everything was in check, I was still only sixteen, and I didn't even have my dad here to take care of me and tell me that everything will be alright. That's when I started to take all of the hatred and shame and disappointment I had caused my family on myself, I used to come home from school and go straight to the bathroom and just cut my wrists. Nobody ever cared or showed me they cared, they didn't even notice. Well until Danny did. He stopped me you know? He told me that I was better than all of this; he helped me through it all. That's when I thought I was in love with him but he was right, I'm not in love with him, I'm in love with the idea of him. I hadn't cut in a year, I thought everything was better, Danny and I were together secretly, we'd been dating for about five months when Lacey let it slip that he'd been going out with someone called Charlie. When I asked him about it he denied it and asked me to let him explain, I didn't and I broke up with him. The morning you came round and saw us making out, that's when he came over and told me everything."

"Everything being?"

"That he dated Charlie because he needed me to hate him, so that when he went off to college I wouldn't miss him, and that he promised to me that he would never leave and he broke that promise. I didn't kiss Danny to say goodbye, well I did, but the real reason I kissed him was too make sure that he would remember what he would miss. I wanted him to miss me so much that he would go crazy, because he broke my heart, at the time I thought he was the one but he wasn't, and in a way I'm happy he's gone to college, it gives me some freedom I never thought I'd have again." She sighed. "Thank you Nick, for coming after me, if you wouldn't of came, I would have gone back to my old habits and I don't want to, not now seeing what amazing friends I have around me who can help me battle this, I would miss everybody so much if anything ever happened to me, but most of all I would miss you."

"I love you."

Demi P.O.V

I love you.

"What?"

"I...love you."

"Nick, no you can't...we're not even in a relationship-"

"I don't care, I love you, I just realised it now."

"How...would you realise that now?"

"Whenever you talk about what you and Danny were it kills me and I get jealous. At first I thought it was strange but then I just went along with it, I thought that it was because we we're such good friends but it's not, I get jealous because I wish it was me that you were speaking so highly of, I wish it was me who you'd depend on-"

"Nick, you're not in love with me, you can't be in love with me."

"Why?"

"Because I don't deserve to be loved."

"Stop okay? You deserve to be loved; you deserve it more than anyone else in this town, in this country even in the damn whole world. You don't realise how special you are and how much you mean to people, this town loves you Demi, the people in it love you, I love you."

"Nick, I think you should leave."

"Demi, you can't be serious-"

"Nick, please."

"Demi, why are you doing this? I know you love me-"

"No Nick, I don't love you and I will never love you."

"Stop denying it, I see the way you look at me, everyone in school knows it too, just for once in your life, put your walls down and let yourself love again."

"Nick, you've got to deep, I never intended this to happen...I only wanted sex out of you, the only reason I stayed around was because you gave it to me like that, I never cared about our rules, I lied about saying how much of a good friend you are, it was all a lie Nick."

"You're lying, why are you doing this? Do you want to intentionally hurt me is that it?"

"Nick, just go, you mean nothing to me." He nodded and stood up from the bed.

"You know, I thought you were different. I thought that you weren't like every other girl, you said you weren't like Emily, well you're wrong because you are."

"Nick." He turned a glimmer of hope in his eyes, optimism evident in his dilated pupils.

"Yeah?" He stepped towards me, smiling slightly.

"Can you like...not tell anyone...about what we...you know...talked about?" I fiddled with my fingers, picking off the stray bits of nail.

"What?" He stepped back, hurt written all over his face. "You'd really think that low of me?" He furrowed his eyebrows, shaking his head in disbelief.

"I don't know what to think." I stated clearly, looking at the floor.

"Do you know how much that hurts, hearing you say that?" I didn't answer, I just kept staring at the floor, isn't it amazing how an irrelevant object can become so interesting at awkward times like these? "Jheez, you must hate me, you can't even look at me. Well don't worry Demi, your secrets are safe with me, I won't bother you anymore, sorry for wasting your precious time all along." He turned and left the room, slamming the door after him.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, I knew he wouldn't hear it but I needed to say it.

That was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do, he loves me and I just let him leave like that. No you forced him to leave. My stupid pride, the pain on Nick's face when I told him that he never meant anything to me was permanently running laps around in my brain. Why can't I just do what Nick says and let myself love again? Because you'll get hurt dumbass, you'll get hurt like you always do. Why was my subconscious always right? My heart wanted me to run out of that door and chase after him and tell him everything that he meant to me but once again I sided with my mind to stay put in my room and not do anything, I'll stay here and let the pain eventually kill me.