N0 B0DY, N0 CRIM3 | Bang Chan

Cynosure

A/N: Trigger warning for a suicide attempt.

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By the time Kiera finally managed to get back to the hotel her family was staying in, she was exhausted. Blisters had bubbled up on the back of her heels and popped. Porcelain skin was stained red with blood. Torn skin had created agonizing pain.

And yet, she had to do it all over again tomorrow. She wanted to rip her hair out. There was no other way to describe the anger and annoyance that had been building up inside of her. On the way home, her mother had mentioned that she had gotten after her daughter because she stopped smiling on stage during her father's speech.

He had gotten pissed. The whole ride back to the hotel, he complained about how she should have been grateful for getting the chance to have such an experience. It wasn't every day that children had a parent become president.

"Think of all of the publicity we'll be getting. Don't you want that, Kiera? Don't you want the whole world to know your name? Think of all the opportunities that'll come towards you. You should be ashamed of yourself. We do so much for you, you know?"

His hands turned white as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. She had to bite her lip to prevent the tears from prickling up in her eyes. That was the exact opposite of what she wanted to do. She didn't want to be the center of attention, she wanted to run from it.

Her ideal life was, quite literally, somewhere far far away. A house that she could turn into a home. A place decorated with love and warm colors. No more of her parents' beige bullshit. She'd never own a house with minimalistic modern malarkey.

Photo album after photo album filled with fun memories. Walls covered in framed artwork and posters of her favorite bands. Life was supposed to be about living. It wasn't supposed to be about control and yet that's the life she lived.

She'd leave if she could. She craved freedom horribly, but she had no idea how to get it. She was always watched. If she managed to somehow escape, she didn't know where she'd go. She had nobody. No friends, no close family members besides her parents. They had cut her off from the outside world. There was a purpose behind their narcissism and she knew it.

Sometimes she wondered if she had ever meant to be born to become her own person. At some point, she stopped being a child and became an accessory for her parents. She felt like nothing more than a toy poodle. Her mother dolled her up, applied blush to her cheeks, and stained her lids with natural shadows. She picked out her clothes every time they went into public.

Her father was the one to show her off. He never missed out on the chance to talk about her. She hated it. Her father had only used her for political gain. It's not like she could fight back against it, she didn't know how. Even if she did, she had very little belief that she'd be able to get out of the situation.

At the ripe age of sixteen, the emotional neglect of her parents, and the burn out from portraying the perfect daughter had caught up with her. Depression had sunk its teeth into her. For once, she had stopped fighting back. She let it swallow her whole. She fell into the pit of darkness and let herself drown.

Everything became too much during that point. Eating. Drinking. Even getting up out of bed became an uphill battle. She couldn't brush her teeth without bursting into tears. The realization of the life she hated struck her like a knife in the chest. It's not like she hadn't tried to get help, she had.

She went to her mother and attempted to talk about her feelings. Her father had been too busy with work. In the middle of their conversation, her mother had sushed her. Told her to stop being so dramatic and to change into her practice clothes for soccer. The little flicker of hope she had died right then and there.

Realizing this, she walked back into her bathroom, grabbed all the medicine she could find in the medicine cabinet, and she swallowed it. She didn't bother to look at the labels. She didn't bother googling to see if the medicines she picked would actually kill her. She just believed that they would. No matter what she experienced after she died, she had to believe that it was better than this.

Two hours later, in the middle of a practice soccer game, she collapsed in the middle of the field. Everyone had seen it. An ambulance was called and her father was notified. He met her unconscious body right at the emergency room doors. He sprinted after the paramedics demanding to know what had happened to his precious daughter.

It took a while before the truth finally came out. The blood results test were skewed. Too much of this and not enough of that. Push some medicine through an IV while she was still unconscious. When her dad went out of the room to find himself some coffee, that's when she broke down in tears, and told the nurse what happened.

One thing led to another. The nurse told the doctor and her doctor told her dad. When they left to discuss some things with a few other nurses, that's when Willie Campbell shut the hospital room door and began yelling at his daughter.

White as a ghost, shaky, dizzy, and on the brink of death, he called her a slew of names. He told her how ungrateful she was. She was having the worst moment of her life and he had somehow made it worse.

Me. Me. Me. Me.

What about me?

That's what the incident always came back to. It wasn't about Kiera Campbell feeling miserable and awful. Her father didn't consider how he could learn and grow. Neither did her mom. They didn't consider thinking that they were the problem. It had been flipped. Kiera was sick in the head and needed to find a way to get attention.

Feeling thankful to have her own hotel room, she spread her arms out, and let herself fall back onto the bed. With her heels still aching, she closed her eyes, and let out a sigh. Rethinking the events of the day brought tears to her eyes.

She wished that single suicide attempt would have killed her all those years ago.