Over and Over (Lashton)

Skin

‘Cuz they don’t even know you,
All they see is scars
They don’t see the angel
Living in your heart
Let them find the real you
Buried deep within
Let them know with all you’ve got
That you are not
Your skin.

~Sixx A.M., “Skin”

Ashton’s POV

When I wake up, everything is suspended.

The sunlight illuminates the hotel room, and I can see the dust particles in the air. Light falls onto Luke, lighting up his sleeping face and making his pale hair glow, aging him backwards. There’s no sound save for Luke, Calum, and Michael’s soft breathing, and I cling to Luke’s warmth comfortably.

But then I remember what today is, and it all comes crashing down.

Today’s the day I tell the people who are the most important after my family and my bandmates about everything.

Everything.

My depression, the cutting--the suicide.

I get up slowly and go to the kitchen, my stomach in a whirl and my hands already shaking, even though the twitcam isn’t until 4 and it’s barely 9:30. The coffee nearly slips in my hands a few times on the way to the table and I have to pause and steady myself.

Calm down, Ashton. They’re your family, the 5sosfam, remember? They’ll still love you. Luke will still love you.

Won’t he?

I sip at my coffee, absorbing the artificial strength and scrolling through tweets. Everything remains burned in the back of my mind, every single comment anyone has made to me, every time someone tried to take me down.

Every time they succeeded.

“You’re awake,” Calum states, going to grab himself some bread to toast.

“I couldn’t sleep.” But really, when can I ever?

“Michael kept kicking me, so I decided to get up,” he says, jamming it in the toaster. “You okay?”

I shrug. No, I’m not okay. And I may be less okay in the next 24 hours, but I have to take that risk, don’t I?

“Yeah. Just nervous.”

“It’ll be fine,” Calum says breezily. Easy for him to say. He’s never held a secret of this magnitude, and then had to tell everyone he cared about. He won’t get it, doesn’t have the capacity to. All Calum’s ever known is how to be happy.

I force my throat to take down the coffee. I feel like it’s closing up on me. It’s a familiar feeling, where I can’t eat, can’t talk, can’t breathe.

“Calum, stop getting up so early,” Michael grumbles as he walks into the kitchen to join us. “It’s starting to piss me off.”

“Then stop kicking me.”

“I don’t kick in my sleep.”

“I would know, since I’m the one getting kicked.”

I let them bicker and go to put my mug in the sink before slinking back into the room. I crawl back into the bed next to Luke. As I expected, he opens his eyes, his blue eyes large and innocent and disoriented from sleep.

“What time is it?” he says, sleepiness adding a rasp to his voice.

“About 10,” I say, smoothing down his hair. He smiles and shuts his eyes, turning onto his back.