Turning Page

Demi Lovato was never a person who liked to base her happiness on other people. She had learned from every disappointment in her life, every death, every loved one leaving, every harsh word or touch, that a person could never make her happy. She had learned at such a young age, that it stuck with her. It stuck with her through the drugs, and the alcohol, and the hookups, and the treatment centers, and the self-harm. That lesson never left her, and she believed it with all of her heart, until someone stepped into her life and completely changed her mind.

It had started as something that couldn't even be categorized as a relationship. She would call, they would hookup, and then she would leave again in the morning. He would text her, she would send a one word reply, and unless either of them wanted something from the other, they didn't talk on regular basis. Maybe it all changed after the guy from the infamous boy band had his dad break up with her for him one morning, and then confess that the entire relationship had only been for publicity. Maybe it had changed when she was spending every night post-concert at a party drinking enough to get alcohol poisoning and taking enough drugs to overdose just to make herself feel better, just to make herself forget. Maybe it had changed when she had been forced to make the choice of going to a treatment center, or spending some time locked in a cell. Maybe it had changed when she finally checked out of said treatment center, and he was no longer forced to watch her hurt herself. Neither of them knew when their "relationship", or lack thereof, had shifted. And even though she had sworn never to base her happiness upon a person, she could look back at the past ten years of her life and honestly say that he had helped to make her happy.

Before the happiness came, before the real relationship really began to happen, a change had to occur in the both of them. She couldn't trust him. His reputation was disgusting and his track record was appalling. He revealed things to the world that should never leave the bedroom, and she didn't want to be next. She had enough sense inside of her troubled mind to know that she would never be able to keep a relationship with him if she couldn't trust him.

It wasn't that he didn't trust her...he just didn't trust the demons that tortured her mind and body. He couldn't take watching her starve or purge or self-harm or self-medicate. As soon as he found out about it, he had tried doing everything in his power to get her to stop, and to talk to him instead when she felt like doing those things. She had been so used to her little pattern, so used to doing things her own way and letting everyone sweep her problems underneath a rug that she had simply disregarded him, and continued to harm herself. It wasn't until she was checked into a treatment center that something sparked in the two of them, and the change began to happen.

The first month that she was in there, no one could visit her. She had released a video on Thanksgiving, thanking everyone for their support, but that was all that he had heard from her. She wasn't allowed to use her phone, she wasn't allowed to go out on the weekends like the other patients, and it was all because she refused to try to make progress. She didn't want to change. It wasn't until a therapy session a week after Thanksgiving, after everything was put into perspective for her, that she decided that if she really wanted her life to go the way that she wanted it to, she had no choice but to change.

He was finally allowed to visit during the second and third month. It was only for a measly two hours, and sometimes they weren't even allowed to leave the center, and when they had to stay there they were constantly monitored by the staff, but he didn't mind. He flew out every Friday, checked into a hotel, saw her on Saturday for an hour, and then another hour on Sunday, and then he flew back home. It was tiring, but seeing her every weekend like that, and seeing her gradually change, made him wanna change too. And so he did.

"I could check myself out if I wanted to," she had said to him one day, while they were sitting in the common area. She had gotten hot chocolate and cookies for the both of them, and he was proud to watch her eat one cookie and a half, and finish off two thirds of the hot drink.