A Fiery Red Summer (Jenna Mcdougall and Hayley Williams)

Hell and Back

Jenna:

I stayed closed up in my bunk when I didn't have a show or a signing. I didn't really want to see anyone especially not Tay, but I couldn't stop her from coming, she was my friend and she was worried about me. She showed up mid Sunday morning, the boys let her in. I tried to act like I was still sleeping, but that didn't stop her from sitting at the bottom of my bunk waiting for me to wake up. I let out a soft sigh and flipped over.

"Hi Tay."

"Hey Jenna, how are you?"

"Lousy, shitty, crappy, horrible." I groaned

"You're quite the optimist aren't you?" she asked sarcastically. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"You've got a lot to say today don't you?"

"And you aren't being sarcastic at all are you?" I responded with the same tone.

"You aren't going to feel better if you wallow in self pity all day. You can talk to me, you know that." Tay reached her arm out to pull me over closer to her, when she did her sleeve lifted just enough for me to see the cuts.

I started to panic, but tried to act calm."Tay...c-can I see your arm?"

Her eyes got wide, she looked away from me and she quickly moved her arm away from me to her side. "It's nothing, just a small relapse. It won't happen again, I've got it under control."

"If it's just a small relapse then I've probably already seen everything. Please will you let me see, just to reassure me." My voice was shaky and uncertain.

"No, I'm ashamed of it." she whispered

"Fine I can't force you to let me check your arms, just like you can't force me to talk."

"That's no fair, that's manipulation. I only want to help you." she spoke louder this time and looked me straight in the eye.

"Yeah. And I want to help you.".

Tay rolled the sleeve of the opposite arm up. "See there is my arm, it's all fine."

I looked at her, tears welling up in my eyes, to try to communicate what I couldn't say. She rolled up the other sleeve and my heart sunk; there were cuts all up the underside of her forearm. I closed my eyes hoping it was just a nightmare and when I opened them everything would be gone, but of course that didn't happen. They were still there. They looked pretty superficial, physically she wasn't too hurt, but that didn't hide the deep mental/emotional damage there.

"What happened?" I asked as soon as I had finally gotten my head wrapped around the situation.

"I'm not talking until you tell me what's going on."

I spoke quickly. "Hayley and I fought, I'm just scared that we are over. We haven't said it officially, but I said we needed a break and I don't know how she took it. I'll get over it. What happened Tay?"

"Well, the usual, I acted on impulse. I was still upset from all the drama of the week and the urges came back. It just kinda happened."

"Fuck Tay, why didn't you call me or something?"

"You had enough to deal with, I didn't want to burden you with more."

"I'd much rather be there for you before than have to feel guilty I wasn't with you later."

Tay was silent, she was done talking about it. I understood it wasn't a very pleasant topic and probably a hard one for her. We went on with our day, Tay hung out with me most of the day and I ended up asking her to stay the night on our bus. I cleaned off our storage bunk knowing it would do no good for my relationship with Hayley if she were to find that Tay and I had shared a bunk again.

I had another nightmare ridden sleep and woke up screaming, crying and sweating several times through the night. The boys slept through it all, but Tay each time would wake up and beg me to let her try to comfort me, but understood when I turned her offers down. Every time I closed my eyes they seemed to get worse, but I was determined to get some sleep so I didn't have a breakdown talking with Hayley.