No Good at Goodbyes

Chapter 6: Scott's Nine Months

Author's Note: Snow Daaaaay (I have a job I promise I contribute more to society than writing fanfiction about a cappella groups).

Wanted to give you all a little warning here. This one is heavy and deals with self-medication, overdose, rehabilitation and self-loathing in general... it isn't for everyone and I completely understand if you'd like to bow out! For those who choose to stay... hello!

Chapter 6: Scott's Nine Months

Day one was full of emptiness.

Have you ever been caught in a wave, tumbling beneath it, running out of breath? There is a moment of calm that occurs when you realize that your lungs are completely empty. It's a realization that it's all over, and a serene blackness takes over.

And then the wave spits you out, and you're gasping for air. Your lungs ache as they expand, and you're full of pain as you're thrown against the shore.

And you're left with a crippling new fear of the ocean.

That was day two.

Scott knew that Mark was terrified. He knew that his heart was breaking. But he just wanted to get back to that feeling, the serene blackness of being under that wave...

So he looked for it at the bottom of bottle after bottle in the upcoming weeks.

And when that stopped working, he found that Xanax worked just fine, too.

It was a prescription that had been given to him after a car accident two years prior. And when that ran out, well... living in LA was certainly good for something.

The combination of Xanax and alcohol was utter perfection.

So he sat beneath his wave, in and out of consciousness, enjoying the feeling of his empty lungs.

And the gaping hole in his heart didn't hurt so much anymore.

The comments on social media, the hatred from what seemed to be the entire world? It didn't matter.

The fearful look on Mark's face? Even that didn't matter, anymore.

He was numb, and this was the only way he could imagine surviving, at this point.

So when they landed in Arlington, Scott was extremely irritated.

Mark had confessed that he had spoken to Scott's mother, and he had sat down with Scott in an intervention of sorts. He explained that he loved him more than Scott could ever know, and that he would rather Scott be mad at him than to lose him entirely.

Scott scared himself when he almost walked away from Mark entirely in that moment, clutching his pills and a bottle of bourbon.

So he had agreed to pay a visit to his parents, in order to recover from the shock of being abandoned. It made sense to do so in a safer place, away from the public, and away from those who betrayed him.

But then on his tenth day home, he may or may not have accidentally overdosed on the dangerous concoction of pills and booze, and people may or may not have overreacted a touch.

Okay, okay... so he had been dying. Semantics.

After all, it wasn't intentional. So get off of his back, for heaven's sake.

He could still feel his mother's palms against his cheeks, he could hear her sobs and his father screaming his name, begging him to wake up through his tears.

His father never cried.

Must be serious.