"Broken"

Twenty Three

Shawn's POV:

Alexa and I hung out for the rest of the afternoon at my place. The power went out so we just laughed and played scrabble under an array of candles and flashlights we turned on as our sources of light.

After about an hour, the power came back on and we just sat on the floor by the couch and talked.

Shawn: "so..." I began

Alexa: "yeah?"

Shawn: "can we talk about what happened last night?"

Alexa: "okay...you might need to specify. Which part?" She said with a small chuckle.

Shawn: "you know which part I'm talking about" I said

She looked at me and sighed. I was of course referring to what happened in the car on the way to the carnival when she began to cry.

Alexa: "okay, um, before I say anything, just know that I've never really talked about this before...so just...be patient I guess" she pulled down her sleeves and held them in the palms of her hands. She only ever did that when she was either cold or nervous, and considering the summer weather outside and the candles all around us, it was safe to assume it was nerves.

Alexa: "before we met, I was very depressed. It started when a rumor was spread about me and I began losing friends. My best friends left me, and I felt so alone. People started calling me names and commenting rude things about my body as I passed them in the halls. I soon developed an eating disorder, and I had more insecurities than I could count. I felt like no one would ever love me unless I changed everything about myself. I had no friends, my mom was in a different country most of the time, my dad was at war, so if you think about it, I really was all alone. I began to have horrible anxiety, and would have anxiety attacks on a regular basis. I never told anyone about any of this, because I didn't think they would understand. One night, I just couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't bare to suffer through another day, another hour, another minute even. So I..." her words cut off. Instead of talking, she just wiped her eyes and pulled back her sleeves to reveal several cut scars on both wrists.

I gasped as I moved closer to her and took her wrists into my hands. It all made sense now. Come to think of it, I've never actually seen Alexa in a t shirt, or anything sleeveless for that matter. I always asked her why she would wear long sleeve shirts in the summer, and she just claimed that it was because she was always cold. This should've been obvious. I should've suspected something...but she was always happy when I was around. She never seemed sad, she never gave me a reason to believe something was wrong...

She pulled her sleeves back down and began speaking again.

Alexa: "I was ready to end it. I wanted to get it over with. I was about to cut more and let myself bleed out when I heard the doorbell ring. I ignored it at first, taking priority of the task I thought had to be done, but then the doorbell rang again. I put down the blades and went to go see what was so important that I had to pause what I was doing. I opened the door to see a package and a letter from my mother. I would've just tossed the package to the side and continued what I was doing, but I've always been one to let my curiosity get the better of me, so I decided to open it and read the letter before getting back to the blades I left on the counter by the sink. In the package was an album. A One Direction album. I read the letter my mom left with it. It basically just said that she knew how much I liked the song 'What Makes You Beautiful' since I used to listen to it on the radio all the time, and she saw the album in a bookstore and wanted to get it for me. She then apologized for not being able to be there, and she ended the letter with the words 'happy birthday.'" Alexa paused for a moment

I gave her a confused look before she tucked her hair behind her ears and continued talking.

Alexa: "I picked up my phone and checked the date. Sure enough it was November 28, my birthday. What really appalled me was that I was so depressed, so sad, so done with life to the point that I didn't even know what day it was anymore. I almost killed myself on my own birthday without even realizing it" she said, tears beginning to stream down her face.

I moved closer to her and held her hands while she continued her story.

Alexa: "at that moment though, I didn't even budge when I realized it was my birthday. I still believed everything people were telling me to be true. I believed I was worthless, I believed I was unloved, I believed I was ugly and unwanted." She took a deep breath. "I honestly don't know what encouraged me to do it, but I put the cd into my cd player and began listening. Although nothing could have pulled me out of the state that I was in, this surely helped. I listened to the whole thing, and I felt so much better by the end of the night. I was putting off suicide, but it was still in the back of my mind until a song called 'Same Mistakes, came on. Although that song was written about a relationship, it reminded me of something that made me stop dead in my tracks."

She paused her story, and went on her phone. She pulled up some lyrics from the song and asked me to read them aloud.

Shawn: "So we play, play, play all the same old games
And we wait, wait, wait for the end to change
And we take, take, take it for granted that we'll be the same
But we're making all the same mistakes
Yeah, yeah, that's what crazy is
When it's broken, you say there's nothing to fix
And you pray, pray, pray that everything will be okay
While you're making all the same mistakes"

When I finished reading, I looked back up at her. She was crying again. She wiped the tears from her eyes before explaining why she pulled up those lyrics.

Alexa: "when I heard that part of the song, I felt a pang in my chest because I remembered something that I tried so hard to forget about, and that I hadn't thought about in years...my aunt's suicide. My aunt and I were very close, but then one day out of nowhere, a few years before all this, she killed herself. In her suicide note, she talked about how she was depressed and anxious all time, and she just couldn't go on. What shocked me was how sudden it all was. Looking at her, you wouldn't be able to tell she was struggling because she was so good at hiding it. I remember how difficult her death was for my mother. She was her only sibling. She cried everyday for almost a year. That was when she decided to go teach abroad, because it was actually what my aunt used to do, and my mother wanted to continue her legacy. This song reminded me of that because if I went through with killing myself, I would have made the exact same mistake that she did. She thought her situation was unfixable, she felt broken. I felt all those things too, but after coming to this realization, and making this connection, I decided to get help. I wasn't going to put my mother through that again."

She sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees before continuing.

Alexa: "from then on, I went to therapy and I figured my shit out. I've been a huge fan of One Direction ever since, because although it may sound stupid, I do believe that they saved my life. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for their music. So sometimes I get emotional when I listen to their newer stuff, especially if it's a slower song because I think about how many thousands of people were possibly in situations similar to mine at some point down the line, and to think that the song I'm listening to on the radio right now might have just done to someone's life, what their older stuff did to mine makes me emotional"

***
Authors Note:
Thanks for reading chapter 23!!
I'm sorry this chapter took a while, it took some time to write it because it's quite personal to me because I can definitely relate to certain parts of it. It's much longer than usual, so hopefully that makes up for the late publish :)
If you want to follow me on my socials, my Instagram is @1d.mendes_updates
and my Twitter is @OneDirecShawn98
Love you guys! -ShawnsDirectionxx
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