Can You Keep A Secret?

Chapter Thirty-Three

-Andy's POV-

It's the thoughts in the dark that are the most dangerous of them all. It's like your mind knows that the nighttime masks most everything, and all the fake-happy daytime thoughts are pushed to the side, and all there is is the fear and the sadness that you think you'll never escape. And nothing's clear, everything's draped in the veil of darkness, which makes it hard to distinguish between what is true, and what was left there by the demons that crawled around inside.

Maybe sleeping was a sort of survival mechanism, to save you from that kind of stuff. The thoughts that came to mind right before dawn, when you're at your best friend's house in her dad's pajamas because you couldn't hold your drinks after you got into a car crash and almost died, and you know that she almost died the other day and so did your other best friend, and he really wasn't doing so well – These thoughts were the worst of them all.

They were the ones that ran through your head in a split second decision to dive into the water and not come back up. They're the thoughts that tell you that you aren't good enough, that you never were and never will be. The ones that say you aren't an important part of the band, anyway – That fans don't care if you DM them, that they preferred when you stayed inside – But more than just thoughts, it was a feeling. It was like something heavy resting on your chest, slowly suffocating you – And it was something that, day in and day out, never went away.

I'd gone through a while, with the rest of Road Trip, where I had thought that I was over with it for good, but now it was back and heavier than ever. It tainted everything that I did. Followed my every move. I couldn't stand to just lie here, surrounded by it, by everything, every single mistake that I'd ever made playing on repeat in my head, so I got up, shuffled over towards the door, and turned the light on.

It took my eyes a second to adjust to it. I was suddenly brought back to the first time I'd stayed at a hotel with the boys – For the first stop of our first tour, starting in Glasgow. I blinked, shook myself out of it. I went over and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the sleeve of the pajama shirt between my fingers.

I remembered the time I'd hid in her parent's closet, thinking that they'd go frantic looking for me – But they never did, and the closet slowly became smaller and smaller until it made me claustrophobic, and I'd run out of it, crying – They had greeted me outside of it, hugged me and told me that they hadn't realized I was missing – I felt like my life was one big repeat of that, again and again and again, but instead of hiding inside a closet, I hid inside myself. And it wasn't as if nobody loved or cared about me, it was just...Hard to explain. I was nobody's favorite; everyone had somebody who they would choose before me.

I found a notebook in the room and tried to channel what I was feeling into lyrics, into music – Transform pain into beauty. But nothing came, nothing at all, and that was when I broke down.