Her Secrets

31. Happiness

Asher pov in third person:

When Mia came home Asher noticed changes right away.

She was withdrawn, she spaced out a lot, she was sad. If her face didn't say enough, although there were no tears, sadness seeped out of her eyes, and it was written in her mannerisms. Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, he noticed she was rapidly losing weight. She was always thin but never this thin.

As time progressed, she only seemed to get worse and never once did she talk to him. She never spoke to anyone these days. Anyone that dared ask her if she was okay was met with deadly silence.

She hadn't spoken to her mother since the day she left the hospital. That day he was so sure Mia would heal. That something would switch in her and she'd recover and find happiness eventually. He was so sure she would've stayed in touch with the woman. The woman who gave birth to her and could give her what she longed for; a motherly figure. But she didn't try to reach out. Neither did Aniya.

She never made amends with Lily. He didn't know why, but he expected her to make amends with her after her near death experience but to be fair, this wasn't a movie. It was reality. Cold, hard, sad reality. Yep he'd never be able to forget it.

In the three weeks that she'd been home, she hadn't been to school. Which brought him to the day he was extremely worried about; Mia's Graduation day. He seemed to be the only one who cared. But he knew Mia worked hard for this day, he wanted her to pass, she deserved to. But he understood why she wasn't back in school yet.

Their family had been through so much trauma in the past year. Mia especially.

Which was most likely the reason why he wasn't so surprised when he finally heard Mia's cries from down the hall. It was the first time she had cried since she had been dropped off at home.

It had taken twenty days for her to snap.

Asher ran to her side as he took in the site in front of him; she was on the carpet, her hands over her face as she laid against her knees and sobbed.

"I can't do it anymore, Ash. I can't, I don't want to fucking be here anymore. I can't handle it but I don't want to die. How can someone want to disappear but not want to die all at the same time?" she cried.

He rushed to her side as he went to scoop her up in his arms but he came to an abrupt stop when he saw it.

The bottle was orange labeled with a white sticker. Another bottle was white labeled with a red sticker. And another orange bottle had the label ripped off. They were hidden under her leg but he caught sight of the bottles when he rushed to her side and moved her.

"Did you take anything?!" He asked urgently.

No answer.

"God dammit, Mia, did you take anything?!" This time he raised his voice.

With that, Christian came rushing into the room and pulled her into his arms.

"Answer me! Did you take anything." Asher repeated.

Nothing but strangled sobs came from her lips before she finally replied, "no. I wanted to but I can't. I can't bring myself to do it. I can't."