A/N: Self-harm included. Some assembly required. :P

Delusion
by purplewowies

"Would it make you feel better to watch me while I bleed?" - Demi Lovato, Skyscraper

Cody sat in his room thinking about the day.

It was the same as all the others.

No one hung around with him. No one cared about him. Nobody liked having him around.

Nobody wanted him.

He thought about what his brother had said earlier that morning.

"Why don't you jump off the deck and find out?"

If only he knew just how much Cody thought about doing that almost every day, maybe he wouldn't have said that.

Zack never cared how Cody felt.

To him, Cody was the sister he never wanted. The nerdy one. His clone who had no personality.

He was not a person, but an object to be ridiculed. Something his brother could criticize and cut to his every whim.

Cut.

Zack didn't know about that, either.

It probably helped that Cody didn't do it in places where anyone could see. Wrists were for recreational cutters, the kind who were inexperienced, or those who did it to get attention.

He was more serious. He would never dream of cutting his wrists. Or anywhere else not covered by some sort of clothing.

No, he cut in hidden places, namely his upper legs.

And he did it in the bathroom. With the door locked. In the middle of the night. And afterward, he meticulously scrubbed the bathroom until it was sparkling. Even one drop of blood could let someone in on the secret.

He didn't want anyone to know.

Not that anyone looked at him long enough to be able to see scars anyway.

And he was experienced, too. He knew precisely when a cut became dangerous, and he never took it that far.

He had tried to stop cutting for a while.

He had worn a rubber band on his wrist.

He said he snapped it when he thought about Bailey.

But that was a lie. (He had managed to get rid of that annoying nose twitch, so no one knew.)

In reality, he was snapping it when he thought about himself.

And how pathetic

and worthless

he was.

How he hadn't deserved Bailey.

And at the end of the day, snapping his wrist hadn't been enough.

So he had given the rubber band to Zack and gone back to cutting.

But at the end of the week, cutting was never enough, either.

But he couldn't bring himself to do more harmful things like burning or choking himself.

So he turned to suicidal thoughts.

He planned it out several times. He knew exactly what he would do right down to the letter (though he blamed this more on his obsession with perfection than anything else).

He thought up methods where he felt no pain.

And when he was feeling particularly sadistic, he thought up methods where he felt a lot of pain.

Because he deserved to.

And he would inch closer

and closer

and closer to doing it.

Then, one day,

his entire life would change.

He felt better about himself. People cared about him.

And he was happy. Very happy.

Sometimes extremely happy.

And he loved every minute of it.

But it was short-lived.

And when he settled back into sadness, he wondered at the mirthfulness of it all.

Why had he been so happy?

What in his godforsaken life could have motivated him at all to be happy?

How could he possibly deserve to feel any sort of feeling remotely similar to joy?

He sincerely hoped Woody wouldn't feel the need to come to the room early this afternoon.

Because he was feeling immensely suicidal today.

It was times like this that he made detailed plans for how he would kill himself.

But today, he was too tired.

So he simply flopped onto his bed and fell into a deep sleep.

You open your eyes, expecting to see your bleak, dark room.

But that's not what you see.

You're on the Sky Deck.

It's dark.

And raining.

The tears from the sky mask the tears of your mind.

And you're all alone.

Like you always are.

Better that way, anyway.

No one understands you.

They don't want to be seen with you.

Or at least that's the way it seems.

They only come to you if they need something like homework.

Then they leave all too soon.

They'd be better off if you died.

You stand there as you let the sky's teardrops soak you to your core.

For some strange reason, you find yourself thinking about happiness.

Which is odd, because it's been quite a long time since you were happy, and you scarcely remember how it feels.

Perhaps the happiness was nothing but a dream. A fantasy. A mere figment of your imagination.

Dream or not, what you do remember about being happy is that you did a lot more. You took a million classes and passed them all with flying colors.

You had actual friends that actually hung out with you.

You had a girlfriend.

Now, you have nothing.

No matter how hard you work, you'll never amount to anything.

You are worthless, and you know it.

Thunder and lightning cascade from the dark cloud above your head and break your train of thought.

You cross the deck to look over the railing.

The sea is black and speckled with raindrops.

You think to yourself that storms always make the water look deeper than it is.

And you like that.

You try to consider not jumping in, but sweet death is all you want.

And you don't stop yourself from pulling your body onto the other side of the railing.

And then you're falling.

You thought you were dreaming.

But if you were dreaming, wouldn't you have woken up?

Your body hits the water, and you startle, expecting to feel the freezing abyss coat your body and suck the life out of you. But that's not what you feel.

The water's... hot.

You realize you're in the hot tub, and the cover is on top of you.

The tub is supposed to be empty, and you are not supposed to be inside.

But it isn't, and you are, and that's that.

You take a deep breath. You could die a nice, peaceful death in here, alone with your thoughts. You close your eyes.

And drops of unforgiving and unyielding depression like daggers descend upon you once again. You open your eyes.

You might as well have not wasted the energy. You see nothing but pitch-black. But you feel eyes on you.

Bailey walks into your line of vision. She looks at you with a look that could kill a small child as she circles you like a hungry vulture. She opens her mouth and begins to berate you.

"I don't know how I could've ever dated you. I let those stupid Hannah Montana tickets blind me to the truth. I never loved you. You don't deserve me. I would sooner go out with Zack, Woody, or even London before I'd ever even think about you again."

Her words slice through you like the things you use to cut yourself in the dark of night. Your spirit is carved open like the veins and arteries of your legs as the sweet fluid that contains your life pours out into the world.

Bailey disappears.

In her place, you now see London. She, like Bailey, glares at you as she walks around your pitiful form.

But just when you think she's going start digging her words into you, she instead takes her long, manicured nails and drags them down the length of your arms. She then does the same to your face. Your blood pours out, and for the first time in a long time, it doesn't feel good.

London is gone.

You have little more than a second to process what just happened before Zack descends before you, just inches from your face. He spews reams of insults at you.

"I hate you. Always have. I bet I even hated you in the womb. You didn't deserve to be made from my DNA." He pauses, then rolls his eyes and smirks before he continues. "'Specially since you're pretty much bipolar now. I wish you'd die a slow, painful death. In fact, I'd rather kill you than let you have the satisfaction of committing suicide. You'd like killing yourself too much. You are the worst thing that's ever happened to the world."

He stops.

You stand there, lugubrious, as you wait for him to disappear so you can cave in from this blow alone. But he doesn't disappear. Instead, his face contorts into a terrifying expression as he jumps at you.

You close your eyes.

Cody let in a small gasp as he opened his eyes. He hated having dreams like that. They were worse than suicide. After those dreams, he just wanted his life to be over.

And now, he was finally ready to actually end it all. He grabbed the pocketknife Dad had given to him for his 17th birthday. It had never been used. He figured now was as good a time as any. It would be more painful than a razor, yes, but it would also do more damage.

He brought the knife closer to his arm.

Then the door opened.

"Hey, Cody! I thought we could all—" Zack froze. Cody was holding the knife mere millimeters from his arm. He looked up at Zack with an indifferent expression on his face. He had been found out by the one person he wanted most to keep this secret from.

Zack struggled to regain his ability to speak. "What are you doing?" he said, his voice barely audible.

"I just want it all to end. I should just jump off the deck like you told me to this morning. I don't deserve to live," Cody said quietly as a lone tear slid down his cheek, the first emotion he had shown since Zack entered the room.

"Is that what this is about? You have to know I didn't mean it like that," he said, still not speaking any louder than a whisper.

"It's not just that."

Zack took a seat beside Cody on the bed and removed the knife from his hand. "Then what is it?"

Cody grabbed the leg of his shorts and pulled it up, revealing several scars on his upper leg. Some were old, others were very fresh. "I've felt this way a long time," he said succinctly with a sigh.

Zack stared at the scars in disbelief before speaking again. "Why?" he said, his voice breaking.

"No one wants to hang out with me. Nobody wants to do things with me. I'm constantly made fun of. People only want to be friends with me so they can use me for things like homework."

Zack's mind slumped over. He had done some of the very things that made his brother feel this way. Cody continued.

"And I'm never good enough. Not for Bailey, not for Dad, not for Mom... not for you." he finished.

"What are you talking about? Of course you're good enough. You're smart, good-looking—and that's not just because of me," Zack started, trying to make a joke, but he quickly moved on when Cody glared at him, "and you're funny when you want to be. And unlike me, you've managed to keep tons of girls for more than five days," he ended.

"That doesn't mean anything when no one wants to be friends or hang out with you," Cody replied.

"Well... I wanna hang out with you. In fact, I came over to ask you to come to the pool on the Lido Deck with me and Woody. I know you think pools are gross, but I figured we needed to have a little fun. You don't even have to swim if you don't want to."

Cody smiled. "Sure," he said.

He didn't feel any better.

"Why do we do that? Why do I do that? Why do I do that?" - P!nk, Perfect