Dirty Little Secret // C.H.

Forty-four

"Did you and Niall talk?" Calum asked quietly, mindlessly playing with a lock of Sienna's hair as they lay facing each other in Sienna's bunk.

Sienna gave him a hum and a nod, taking a deep breath as she once again realized Niall would be leaving in the morning.

"Is everything alright?" Calum wondered, studying her expression.

"Yeah." Sienna nodded again. She hesitated before speaking again. "It's just..." She began but quickly paused. "We talked about something that I think you and I need to talk about as well."

"Okay..." Calum said cautiously, unease rising in him due to Sienna's serious and nervous words. "Have I done something-"

"No." Sienna told him quickly with a chuckle, but her anxious tone remained. "Niall wanted to make sure I would be okay without him. You know with..." She raised her hands, glancing down to her wrists.

Calum's attention followed hers and he knew instantly what she meant.

"Oh." Was all Calum could think to say.

"I didn't do it to punish myself, you know." Sienna told him after a moment.

Calum gave her a puzzled look.

"I didn't believe I deserved to be in pain or want to punish myself. That's what most people assume and that's how it is for some people..." She continued, tugging nervously at her fingertips. "But it was never like that for me." She added quickly. "One day, I was just so tired of feeling so fucking empty." Her eyes fell shut as memories of her life before played through her mind. Tears stung her eyes. "Sure, the pain wasn't a good feeling, but at least I felt something. Anything, even pain, was less terrifying than feeling nothing." She explained, hoping to make Calum see what she saw. "Losing Luke, my parents marriage dying more and more each day, being completely alone. I felt nothing. Just...numbness."

"Enna, you don't have to..." Calum said quietly, taken aback at her sudden openness about her history with self-harm.

They had spoken of it before, but never in such detail. Calum had never been sure his heart could take it if he knew the exact details of her past. The thought of what Sienna had gone through alone was often too much for him to bear and he would push it from his mind to save the heartache.

That didn't matter now. Ready or not, Sienna wanted to talk about it and he would listen to her every word.

"I just want-need you to know." She told him quickly, her eyes pleading for him to listen to what she had to say. "I need to get this off my chest."

Talking with Niall, being reminded people still worried about her harming herself, made Sienna realize she needed to talk to Calum about it as well. She didn't want him to worry, but more importantly she wanted him to understand. She wanted him to know everything, to have everything out in the open between them, to lift the weight off her chest she had nearly forgotten was there. If she talked to him about it, if she said the things she needed to say even though it might be difficult, she could have closure and move on from it knowing Calum accepts her entirely.

They held each other's eyes. Calum saw the nervousness behind Sienna's. He took one of her hands in his and brought it to his chest. He held it there and gave Sienna a nod to continue.

Sienna took a breath and appreciated the steadiness of his heartbeat beneath her palm on his chest.

"Before, I was just going through the motions. Listening to my parents constantly fighting when they thought I couldn't hear, never being a part of any crowd, keeping everything bottled up inside all the time." Sienna resumed her story. "The only time anyone spoke to me was to ask for concert tickets to see you lads because Luke and I are related." She admitted sadly, sounding as if she expected her words to hurt or offend Calum. "This," She looked to her wrists again. "It was the only thing in my life I felt like I had control of." She confessed. "I'm not making excuses or blaming anyone but myself for what I've done. I'm just trying to let you see what kind of life I was leading at that point. To show you why I made the choices I did." She told him, a slight quiver to her voice. She fought the urge to look at her wrists again. "All I wanted was to feel something, anything." Her voice broke at the end of her words and the first tears escaped her eyes. "I just wanted to be somebody, not just a shell of the person I had been before."