"You could have told me."

I looked up at him in surprise. In all the weeks it's been since that night happened, since the news broke and the rumours circled, he hadn't mentioned it. He hadn't mentioned anything about it at all.

The only time we've gotten close to the subject was when I told him about the pills. It was the guilt that made me tell him. It's guilt now, that rules me. Instead of fear. Don't get me wrong, the fear is still there. It's lessened now, though. The threat has been contained. Well, kind of. Enough.

The guilt feels uncontainable. There's a lot for me to feel guilty about.

They all say the same thing, though. They say I don't need to feel guilty. My therapist. My dad. Austin. They tell me that I was acting out of trauma. Trauma responses can not be used to gage who you are as a person, they say.

It makes sense. Yet I can't ease these feelings of guilt.

"I couldn't." I said as I shook my head, smiling softly.

"I know. You couldn't." Austin agreed.

Even though he's been visiting me almost every day, ever since he found out, he still looks out of place in my room. His large body stuffed onto my pale pink chair, his hands gently running over the fabric of the throw pillow, his fingers picking at the white sequins.

My dad hadn't been keen on letting him in the house the first time that Austin rang the doorbell. It was surprising, actually, that my dad had been acting like... well, a dad. Though he didn't understand, he tried. Not that I could blame him for not understanding. How could he? I couldn't even understand my own actions. I couldn't understand what happened. I couldn't understand Jax, I couldn't understand any of it.

Though I was trying to. I was.

My mind had been like a tightly wound ball of elastic bands. All of them mismatched, and different colours. Wrapped tightly around each other, intertwining and forming knots. I had been barricaded in my room, leaving only for the three hours a week I met with my therapist, trying desperately to unravel them.

Each time I was able to snap one of those elastics bands, breaking it free from the tangled mess, it was another thought, another action, another reaction that I was able to smooth out in my mind and try to begin to understand it. I had hope, that eventually I would be able to snap all of those elastic bands and smooth them all out, laying them neatly in a straight line, and understand them all.

And then, just maybe, I could use the leftover rubber to make a waterproof raft, and I could sail on top of the ocean wave. It might be rocky, it might be a fucking horrible ride, but hopefully I wouldn't be dragged down into the currents again.

The problem was, the ball of elastic bands was just so big.

"How's it going with the therapist?" Austin asked me, and I knew he noticed the way I had fallen into my thoughts again. He was trying to bring me back.

"Slow." I sighed out. "I don't know. The things she says- they make sense, but at the same time they don't."

"It's not going to happen overnight, Seren. It hasn't even been a month." Austin threw the pillow onto the floor. He glanced at it for a second, as if he thought about picking it up, but he didn't. He got off the chair and walked over to my bed, sitting down beside me. Austin wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me into him. I leaned my head on his shoulder, exhaling calmly. I knew he was right. It's one of the first thing my therapist had told me, that this was going to be a long journey. It might not ever end, she said. I knew she was right too, but I wished she wasn't.

"It's been better, though, hasn't it? It's been easier?" Austin asked me gently.

"It's been better." I confirmed for him. "It's just, there's so much to work through. Not even, just you know... Jax, but all the things before. My mom, my dad..."

"I know. I know." Austin leaned his head into mine, pressing a quick kiss onto my hair. "And the cravings?"

"Still there." I grimaced as I remembered just last week, Austin had come over one evening as he usually did. It had been a bad day. My mind had been lying to me again. Trying to trick me. I had begged him, pleaded with him, used every manipulative trick I had learned in my long resume of experience in deceiving people, for anything to take my mind away from my body. Vodka, weed, pills, I didn't even care what it was. I just wanted the distraction. Austin hadn't indulged me, though. He just held me as I cried.

It might have been the most difficult thing my therapist has ever said to me. After she had skillfully unravelled my less than truthful answers about using mind altering substances for relief from the mess in my head. She told me I wouldn't heal if I continued to do that. She said it would only make it worse, in the long run.

I knew she was right. I had already seen the proof of her words. But, that didn't mean I wanted to hear it. It didn't mean it was any easier to do.

It had been one of the most terrifying truths to confront. It was terrifying because if I wasn't able to take a break from my own mind, if I wasn't able to escape from it, if I wasn't able to numb the pain, to forget it all just for a night, what did that mean for me?

"How's school?" I asked Austin, trying to change the subject.

"School is school. It's all died down. I know that's what you're really asking." Austin chuckled, and I felt the vibrations from his body against my own. He was right, but there was another reason I was asking too. "It's better now that Jax stopped coming. Any updates on that, anyways?"

"No word, yet." I grumbled. I had hoped to hear by now. Every time my dad's phone rang I felt my body tense.

I remember the moment I realized he wasn't going to stay locked up in jail. It was a bleak realization. Yet, it was obvious. The charges against him didn't warrant the judge granting no bail. That was only in extreme cases, as my dad reminded me. We were waiting to hear news on what was going to happen next.

"It will all be okay, love." Austin squeezed my shoulder, pulling me into him tighter.

I don't know what I would have done without Austin. I really don't. He's been my rock. He's been the only thing in my mind that hasn't budged as I snapped all the rest of those elastic bands. I don't think he even realizes how much he's helped me.

The first time he came over, I didn't think he was going to come back. It was only three days after Jax had been arrested. My mind was still the ocean wave that had taken me down. It was restless. Untamed. I had locked myself in my room, trying to escape the tears and outrage from my dad. I had thrown my phone into my toilet. I had attempted to flush it down, joining my surely now dissolved pills in their unretrievable place.

I was standing in the middle of my room, when he knocked. I had just finished tearing down every decoration that had been falsifying my walls for so long, leaving them in a messy pile on my floor. I had thrown the door open at his knock, expecting it to be my dad. I'm not sure what went through his mind when he saw me, but whatever it was caused him to look at me in a way he's never looked at me before. We barely spoke for the hour he stayed. He just stared at me, shaking his head and sighing every now and then.

"Where did you disappear to? Just now?" Austin pushed his shoulder against mine, nudging me back to reality.

"I was just thinking about you." I smiled up at him.

"Don't inflate my ego too much. It's already pretty big." Austin joked with me, but then the smile dropped from his mouth, and his face looked serious. "Is there... anyone else you've been thinking about lately?"

I closed my eyes as I moved my body away from Austin, collapsing face down onto the bed. He doesn't need to ask that question. He already knows the answer.

"You could just call him." Austin said, gently patting my back.

"No, I can't." I told him.

What was I supposed to say? Hey Zane, sorry I ignored all your calls and messages for the last month. Oh, by the way, I was about to kill myself even though I knew how much it would destroy you. Even though I knew you've already lost your best friend to suicide. I just couldn't see past my own selfishness.

Zane had called me almost nonstop the first couple of days after it happened. He even came to the house, and I had to tell my dad to not let him in before I ran up the stairs.

It's not like I didn't want to see him. It's not like I didn't want to talk to him. Of course I did.

But, how could I ever tell him what really happened? He would never forgive me. He would never look at me the same way.

And apart from that, Zane was a rubber band in the ball that I was struggling to unravel. He was just so entwined with everything that has happened. Every part of what happened that I tried to dissect, Zane was right there with it.

I needed to dissect it, though. I needed to remove Zane from Jax, in my mind.

Zane had known all along, after all. He had told me himself. He was right. I was confused.

I did need Zane. But I had to figured out why I needed him. It wasn't fair, to either of us, if I couldn't.

Did I need Zane because he made me feel better? What if at some point, I actually do get better. Will I still need him?

Or did I need Zane because around him I am better? A better person, a better friend, a better Seren.