secrets ↠ demi lovato / 5h

the may 2018 edit.

06/05/2018, 23:44

hello, you guys.

it has been more than four years since i first put this story on this website.

that in itself is wild - i started writing this in jan 2014, and it is now may 2018. yet i can remember writing all of this so clearly, it doesn't seem far away at all.

i took this fic down somewhere in 2016 because, to be honest, my writing has changed since then and i didn't like it as much as i used to. i thought that i could produce better things and that this was like a first time experiment using this site for fanfics. though grateful for having this book be part of my life for the time i spent writing it, i found especially the first chapters pretttty cringey. and i didn't think that anyone would notice or miss it, really.

but i was wrong, because i logged in the other day and was so so surprised to see people, you guys, who had messaged me and posted on my profile even up til recently, asking me to reupload it. i didn't ever think that this book could have had such an impact on people's lives, making them want to remember it let alone reread it. i was so shocked and everything that made me want to delete it in the first place sort of just disappeared, and i thought that if this book could make even one person happy - then i'd love to reupload it, though remembering some parts of the story made me cringe so hard my neck clicked. (sorry)

things have changed abysmally since i finished this book. shortly after i completed it, i did my gcses, spent a summer in bliss before starting the ib diploma in sixth form in september - and now, in a little more than a week, i will have finished that course too. i'm no longer as active on twitter as i used to be, or on here that often anymore - hence my disappearance for a couple of years. i sort of drifted away from stanning demi or 5h especially after they split and though i still follow their social media now, i don't keep up as much as i used to. all my saved accounts with pretty usernames also got suspended, haha. and i don't really talk much to the OG group of friends i had here anymore. i think we all sort of grew out of it at around the same time. sometimes, i still listen to old songs from reflection, and they make me smile.

tbh, i didn't think much of this book after i took it down. mya teased me for it for a while, as she does, but i moved away from it. it still existed and i remembered it sometimes, but it never really struck me as significant. up til two days ago, i considered it a trainwreck that i wrote when i was 14, 15, and was the product of me being completely obsessed with demi and 5h. when i reuploaded, i wanted to edit it to change lea's age and also to add trigger warnings because my insensitive ass didn't even consider it when i uploaded. (ironically, my mental health worsened and i developed a bunch of the conditions that lea struggled with, as soon as the book ended.) i thought reading through this would only be a case of spotting things and adding things and taking things out where necessary, but i wasn't prepared for the way skim reading through this entire journey made me feel. if it's any indication, stars by demi came on shuffle earlier and i couldn't bear listening to it.

i ended up editing through  1.5 years' worth of writing in 2 days, completely putting aside sleep and revising for my english final, which starts in about 10 hours. reading it took me back so intensely to the times i spent writing this, during those tumultuous formative teenage years. this story developed in my mind as a coping mechanism before i moved countries, when my own struggles with mental health began to develop. writing it also became a coping mechanism, and i projected so much of myself - especially my 14 year old self, insecurities and all - into lea, but had completely forgotten i did that. reading all of it took me back to the exact place, even, that i wrote these chapters, and i can feel the humid summer breeze or the bumpy car ride i remember writing in. i even remember channeling my frustrations with things that were happening in my life like friendships and instability into the situations i made up and things that lea went through as well. for example, i'm pretty sure i know what cued that massive fallout between lea and lauren at wango tango, and all the musings in between. these memories are so interwoven with my rather insane stan twitter life (which feels like a fever dream), peaking from summer 2014 to late 2015, which i admit i think about sometimes, especially this past weekend. it has stung a bit, realising that we all grew older and more apart, and realising that i've been missing it too.

and, i realised that this story isn't as horrible as i thought, especially towards the end. sure, there was a lot i need to tweak early on in the book and i was cringing at the way i wrote about things i knew nothing about. but that's a testament to the way we often catastrophise things we make, thinking that they're the worst, when in reality they're really not bad at all.

see, i do wish i had some wise parting words of wisdom to leave you with, but truthfully - i'm still figuring things out. when i ended this book just having turned 16, i thought i'd weathered the worst of teenage angst, not knowing what was coming in the next few months. i'm ending this note, now 18, having weathered a lot more than i ever bargained for, and feeling slightly sad that i feel so similarly to what my 14 year old self felt, and feeling slightly sad that my 14 year old self was so sad already. but you know? i never thought that i would make it thus far, but i have. and i never thought that i could use my silly little fantasies and enthusiasm for writing to touch people's hearts the way i have, which is just completely incredible.

this is probably going to be the last thing i ever write in this book, so i just wanted to say a final thank you, but this time 4 years later.

"but it's not that deep?"

well, to me... everything is. i feel too much. maybe it's a bad thing, but without it this book would never have happened.

thank you for encouraging my strange, nervous 14 year old self to write her little heart out, because this book has really helped me to improve my writing and i could really see the progression throughout the time i spent editing this. i have nothing else to credit for the way i'm able to write now. thank you for every vote, comment and for following along so closely. reading your comments then made me smile or made my day, but reading them now still do, too. thank you for sticking by this story through all the times i had no idea what i was writing but published it anyway. and even if you've only just read this story for the first time, now, in 2018, thank you for reading all the way to the end. thank you guys for being part of something that was so significant in my life, and, to be honest - still remains significant now. thank you for getting this story 310K+ reads and 10K votes which is a number i never thought i would see on any of my work?! thank you for caring about what i wrote, for caring enough to want me to reupload it even a year after i took it down with no explanation and disappeared into the void.

i doubt any of my old friends, who i met through this exact book and a couple of others', in that little kik group that started in early 2014 are reading this. we haven't spoken in years. but if you just so happen to... i'd love to say hello again.

for one last time, thank you for everything you have done to me. i'm addressing this to everyone who has read this fic, this story! it truly means the world, especially for someone like myself. YOU gave me a platform that allowed me to give you something you liked, whilst helping myself too. this story and everyone who has supported me will always hold a significant place in my heart. i TRULY mean it, endlessly, and forever.

thank you.

xoxo