The Runaway

7//: Its nothing but a bit of blood.

"We just want you to talk."

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK!" I scream back.

"Laila, this is serious! You need help!" My mother snaps at me. I finally turn around, letting the tears falling on my face reveal. Ashton's face contorts to one of pain.

"I..I don't need help. I'm fine. It happened years ago.. just... Just go away. I didn't asked to be looked for. I didn't ask to come back. And I'm sorry I'm such an inconveinence right now, just... Go. Why.. Why can't you let me run away?" I whisper the last part, questioning.

"Because we care." My dad says.

"Don't."

I turn back around. They keep trying, I stay frozen in my spot, that is until a new voice comes in after about maybe an hour.

"Laila."

"Danny?" I ask quietly. Remember the cop that basically turned me into my family? Well, here you go people, I hope you enjoy our background with each other.

"Laila.. this... This wasn't the deal."

"No shit." I reply, a sarcastic laugh floating from my lips. His hands grab my shoulders and he spins me around. His expression softens.

"I-I tried, Laila, but you didn't keep your end of the bargain. You knew this was coming. You knew I was going to send you back, from the moment I saw you in that alley in hysterics." He murmurs quietly.

Mutual hate, do you remember?

It was a joke.

"You didn't even bother to remind me. It'd been two fucking years, Danny, you think I'm going to just remember?!" I ask, my voice raising. "I almost.. I... I did but I didn't. I did write, I swear. There's a stack of papers in my closet right now for each and every one of them.. I just.. I never..."

"You never sent them, because you were too scared. You don't even look yourself in the mirror anymore." He says. "You couldn't bear to see yourself much less them see you." He murmurs.

"I.." A breath escapes my lips.

(A/N: this is so dramatic)

"I've seen it. That one day I picked you up to bring you to buy your bike. You told me to come in, and when I got in you where in your room shrugging on a leather jacket as always. You glanced at yourself in the mirror and I saw the disgust in your eyes. You hate yourself for drinking. You hate yourself for smoking. You hate yourself for having flings, but I understand that its just a distraction from your issues because you don't want to face the fact that you have PTSD."

Can all these bombs stop being dropped in front of my family.

"How..?"

"I looked through your records. You went to the doctors a few weeks after. Diagnosed. PTSD. Refused treatment."

I shut my eyes and lower my head as another tear falls from my eyes. My body starts shaking with silent sobs, ones that I don't let my mouth make a sound.

"Then we made the deal." He reminds me.

"The deal with the devil always winds up ruining you, doesn't it?" I ask more to myself than anyone else, keeping my head down.

"When you don't have something to distract you, you think about it. That night. That man, and his 5 year old daughter's faces as the man pulled out the gun. Remember how much detail you put into it, Laila? It took you three days to finally tell us, and when you did, it affected us all."

I shake my head.

"I.. can't.. I can't.. I can't deal with it anymore! She shouldn't have died! He shouldn't have died! Why couldn't it be me?"

I sink to the floor, curling into myself. I shut my eyes tightly. Familiar arms I haven't felt around me since the night I ran wrap around me, and Ashton pulls me to him.

"Lai, I'm reminding you, I'm telling you.. Your wasting your life. You survived, you didn't get shot, so why are you here doing this?" He asks.

The urge to harm myself explodes across my skin.

"I'm going to speak with your parents.. Just... Own up Lai."

My parents, my sisters and Danny walk out. I fall limp against Ashton's arms. He looks so pained. Ashton slowly helps me out of my leather jacket, to where I'm left in front of him in a tank top. He grabs my arm, and turns it so he can inspect the scars.

Stupid, cutting, I know... But.. Why does it help?

He lifts my arm slowly, and lightly, featherly kisses every single scar, every mark.

"You know... You start school tomorrow." He says softly in between kissing my arm, unknowingly sending strange tingles I'd never felt before through my body.

"Ashton, can I..?" I ask slowly. "I gotta go to the bathroom." I say in a normal tone, my face blank. He lets go, and I stand, quickly making my way in. I lock the door and grab a razor blade. I sit in the bathtub before cutting into my skin with only one second of hesitation.

I let out a sigh of relief, and cut into my other arm.

I let my arms go on either side of the tub, resting.

Why do I feel like Hannah Baker?

Blood drips from my wrist and onto the side of the tub, then slowly seeping into my clothes.

Three knocks sound at the door. "Laila? You've been in there for twenty miutes." Ashton's nervous voice comes through.

A strange noise comes out of the back of my throat. The door handle moves rapidly. "Laila, open the door!" His voice raises. Tears blur my eyes.

Why does he care so much?

Suddenly, the door bursts in, and Ashton's face instantly takes one of sarrow. I turn my head slowly, making it known my attention is on him. He leans down and scoops me up out of the tub, blood still dripping.

Damn.

I didn't realize how deep I cut

Of course we gain the attention of my sisters, who gasp and begin to bubble with tears as he carries me to my room. He sets me on my bed and grabs the first aid kit. I stare at the ceiling as he works on fixing my skin, fixing me, something that can't be done.

A very, very, very painful, more painful than the cuts, a sting goes through one of the cuts, and I wail.

"Shit! Wrong one!" Ashton scolds himself before picking up a different tube. I turn my head and look at him with tears flowing down my face. He starts putting that on my wrist with a broken expression, and relief goes through my skin at the feeling of whatever the stuff is. I sigh in relief, my expression clearing. As he continues, I begin to go off in my own little world.

"..Hey Ash?" I ask in a small voice. He looks up. "I'm Tate. I'm dead. Wanna hook up?"

"Is this your way of asking me to have sex with you?" He asks with a playful glare.

"Yes." I answer seriously. It is indeed.

He's silent. "Your serious?" He finally asks.

I shrug. "Instead of a stranger, I could have a distractor with someone.. Close." I whisper, my hand wobbily raising and resting on his shirt collar. I play with it.

"Go to bed."

"Join me."

"What for?"

"Just.. just hold me."

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haha i feel like im writing a telenovella. #JaneTheVirgin who?

xoxo

-Elisia