no roads left

3

Brad's POV

As Mike finishes vomiting, my wife returns home from work. I had already texted her about Mike so she's aware and she's fine with Mike staying here. I had also just got off the phone to Rob, explaining what happened to him so that he can keep track of Mike's depressive episodes. The last time this happened, it lasted only for a week, so hopefully it won't last longer than that this time. These episodes usually last for at least two weeks.

"How was work?" I asked Elisa as she walks over to me. She's a chef at the local restaurant.

"Busy as hell, but it's summer, can't expect anything less." She tells me, wrapping her arms around my chest lovingly. Looking back over at Mike on the sofa, I can see he's silently crying, his hands shaking too. Chester must've gone to get rid of Mike's vomit. My wife also sees Mike's state and she lets go of me, walking over to Mike.

"Hey, would you like anything to eat or drink?" She asks him gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. He looks at her, tears still rolling down his cheeks, but doesn't reply. He then scratches at his wrist anxiously. A sign that he wants release. Or more specifically, he wants to cut. He knows we won't let him though.

"I... I don't wanna be a pain" he says quietly, bringing his hands to his face. Elisa sits next to him and Chester returns, standing by me.

"We want to help you, but we can't help you if you don't let us."

"I- I..." He stutters, sighing afterwards. I walk towards them and pick up Mike's empty glass.

"You don't have to explain anything, we understand and we care. Rest and go to sleep, yeah? Tomorrow we can go to the studio or do some art" Mike nods. Elisa leads Mike to the guest room, leaving me and Chester in the lounge.

"Have you checked social media?" Chester asks me, as he puts his phone down which is out of power.

"No, I'll check now." I reply, pulling my own phone out of my pocket. Anyone could've seen Mike on the cliff which is why we have to check social media. The fans are clueless to Mike's mental health, they don't know he suffers from major depression. I'm sure many fans still question how he doing though, when his dad was found dead it was all over the news. The headlines were "Mike Shinoda's father found dead just months after the death of Mrs Shinoda"

The fans know that Mike's mum died of a heart disease, and that his dad died by suicide not long after. But Mike never spoke about it publicly, he disappeared from social media, didn't post a single thing about it, and he wouldn't answer questions about it in interviews. So the fans don't know Mike's state or anything. It's not our place to say anything either, if Mike wants to open up to the fans, that's his choice, but we can't say anything for him.

As I scroll through twitter, I see a few tweets talking about whether they should be worried about Mike or not. Person A mentioned Mike's social media silence, but then person B talks about how 'happy' Mike seems onstage.

Sometimes I just want to tweet out to the fans, asking them to send out as much love and support to Mike as possible, like we did on the band account a year ago when his parents died. But it's not my job to reveal his current state.

"Anything?" Chester asks after a few minutes.

"No, all good for now." I reply, coming off of twitter.