𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙎𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙊 𝙔𝙊𝙐 ↣ 𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝘿𝙄𝙍𝙀𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉

twenty-seven - story of my life

[i'm not a whole person,
i fear i may never be.

parts of me died in the houses
i grew up in,
and i visit them in dreams.]

_________________________________

I woke up with a start, from a nightmare.

Someone was shaking my leg, trying to wake me up. I twisted and tried to pull myself off of the couch, away from who I thought would hurt me. "Hey, it's us, hey!" Zayn said. His hand rested on my leg and rubbed it gently. The action sent me panicking.

I swung my legs off of them and rolled of of Louis. He took both of my wrists in his hands to try to get me to slow down. I tore away from him. "Don't touch me, stop," I whimpered. I bolted from the living room, into the kitchen.

I leaned against the counter and sighed.

What's wrong with me? Why can't I just sleep? In the following moments, all of the boys shuffled into the kitchen.

"You alright, Mick?" Niall asked.

"No, I'm not! Is that what you want me to say? I'm not," I spit back. The boys faces morphed into looks of shock. "I'm not okay," I said, more quietly.

And that was the truth. I really wasn't. I felt like I should have been dead a couple times over and all of a sudden things were good, they were better, but for some reason I was still scared and I still felt alone.

"You can talk to us about it," Liam said gently. He was looking at me with big eyes.

"What do you want me to say? What can I possibly say that's going to explain why I'm so fucked up and unstable?"

"You're not fucked up, love," Louis argued. He took a small step towards me and I stepped back. My legs knocked into the cabinet behind me.

The five had me cornered in the kitchen. My hips were pressed into the counter as I stood in the corner. "I don't know what you want me to say," I repeated.

"Maybe it's time you tell us what happened, darling. You can't dodge it forever," Harry said. My eyes shifted to the clock on the stove. 2:39 AM. It was way too early, or way too late, to tell them anything.

"There is nothing I'll tell you that you want to know," I said. I had said the same thing to Liam a few days ago. "The nightmares are just things that happened to me! They don't matter."

"They do when you scream our names in your sleep!" Zayn argued. What was I dreaming about? I flinched at his volume.

"Living with you is like walking on eggshells! We can't yell, we can't ask you what's wrong, we can run our hands through of hair without you flinching like we're going to hit you! We should know why," Harry reasoned.

"I'm sorry that living with me has been so terrible," I mumbled. I pushed between Harry and Niall, and started walking away.

"You know that's not what he meant, love. We're worried sick about you," Louis said. I paused to look back at them. Their faces were, in fact, pulled into looks of confusion and concern.

"You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine," I said. My voice shook when I spoke. My eyes started to well up with tears. "I'm fine," I repeated. My voice cracked and a helpless sob fell from my lips.

"No, you're not," Niall whispered, pulling me into a hug. I froze and pushed him back at first, but he didn't budge. So instead, I wrapped my arms around him and fell completely apart. "Let it out, Mick. I'm right here. I've got you."