The first thing I felt was the screaming pain in my skull. It felt like my brain was too big for my school, it was pressing against the edges and dying to break through; I felt like I was dying. Even without opening my eyes I knew the world was spinning, and when I finally did open my eyes, I felt like I was on the Tilt- A- Whirl, it was disgusting. The light made me groan in pain as I felt like it was burning through the retinas; I let out a loud groan of pain and flipped over, burying my faces in the pillows again.

“Good morning!” Matt shouted from somewhere within the room.

“Why are you yelling?” I whined, slapping my hands over my ears.

“Oh darling, I’m not yelling, you just have a raging hangover.”

“No, I’m pretty sure you’re yelling.” I told him, completely aware that I officially have my very first hangover.

“You see, that’s the half bottle of Jack you drank last night,” he laughed out. “I brought you coffee,” he told me, making me instantly perk up and sit up at the word. Though I moved too fast and my stomach instantly started churning, without a seconds notice, I stood up and bolted to the bathroom, not bothering to close the door as I ran over to the toilet and buried my face deep inside it, emptying out my already empty stomach. I was still retching when I felt two hands pull my hair back from my face, rubbing soothing circles on my back. I had never felt worse in my life, I had never thrown up so much in one sitting before, and it was terrible. With shaking hands, I sat back on my knees and wiped my mouth, letting out a shaky breath. I wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to stand uneasily. The world was still spinning, but less so, it had calmed. Matt wrapped an arm around my waist and led me back to his bed, laying me down and bringing my blankets up, under my chin. He then turned around and walked back into the bathroom, flushing the toilet and re-emerging with a bottle of Tylenol and Gravol. He shook some out of the bottles and handed them to me with a glass of water, which I gulped down eagerly, my mouth feeling so dry.

“I’m never drinking again,” I cried out softly, turning on my side and bringing my knees up to my chest.

“Awe, honey, they all say that, you’ll get used to it, don’t worry,” He assured me as he stood up and left the room, closing the door behind him and leaving me in peace, though peace was the farthest thing from me. My stomach kept churning and my head kept pounding, I had gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom so many times I just carried in a pillow and blanket in there with me, lying down on the ground beside the toilet in case I had to throw up again, which would most likely happen. Tears poured down my face each time my stomach clenched and my throat burned. The throwing up left me unfazed, I was used to that, it was the constant feeling of pain and nausea that I couldn’t handle. I discovered that if I hugged my knees, it didn’t feel quite as bad, but I still felt terrible. I would feel the need to throw up, but if I moved, I would feel ten times worse. I would close my eyes and cradle my head in my hands, hoping that I could just fall asleep or pass out, anything to take this away, but alas, that would be too simple.
I wrapped myself up, popped a few more Gravol to help me sleep. I closed my eyes and waited to feel my heart slow down, my eyes flutter shut, and my breathing even out, ready to sleep off this hangover from hell.

When I woke up later, it was because Matt was moving around the room. I could tell that he was trying to be quiet, but I was a very light sleeper. I hadn’t even noticed that he had moved me to the bed, until I rolled over to look at him.

“What time is it?” I whispered to him, making him stop and turn to me, shorts midway up.

“It’s early, about 6:30, go back to bed,” he told me, pulling up his shorts.

“What are you doing?” I asked rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“I’m just going down to work out; I’ll be back before you wake up, I promise. How are you feeling?” He asked me, walking over and sitting down on the side of the bed. When he asked me that was the first time that I actually thought about it.

“I feel fine, my head’s a little sore, but nothing too bad,” I told him truthfully. “Can I come down with you?”

“Holly, you know the rules,” he told me sternly.

“Please? It’s been weeks, a little exercise never hurts anyone,” I tried reasoning with him.

“Fine, but you’re not going to be down there for too long,” he told me with the voice of authority. Finally, a time for some much needed intensive workout. I ran around the room eagerly, gathering my spandex shorts, loose tank top, and running shoes, quickly throwing them on. I was standing by the door, bouncing on the balls of my feet before he was even done; he just shook his head as he grabbed my hand and lead me down to the basement. “Nothing too serious, just some light exercises, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” I nodded my head, walking straight to the treadmill, turning it on and uping the speed to a full on run. I watched the seconds tick by and the calories burn off, twenty minutes, ten thirty, and before I knew it, nearly an hour had passed, the burn hadn’t even set in, my breathing wasn’t laboured, this was nothing compared to the workouts I used to do.

“Holly, come on, let’s go,” he told me, standing in front of the treadmill as I kept running.

“No, just a few more, then I’ll leave,” I pleaded with him, increasing the speed a little as I spoke.

“A few more what?” He asked me, crossing his arms.

“A few more calories, once I get to two hundred I’ll stop, I swear,” when the words left my mouth, I instantly regretted it.

“No, I said now, you’ve had enough, I said nothing crazy.”

“Please, Mattie, just a few more minutes, it shouldn’t take long!”

“Holly!” He shouted at me, making my attention snap to him as I watched him pull the plug suddenly, sending me to the track of the treadmill, shooting me backwards, onto the floor.

“What the fuck was that for? You fucking asshole!” I screamed at him.

“You watch your fucking tone; do you forget who you’re speaking to? Or do you need to be reminded?”

“Why won’t you just let me finish?” I asked him, utterly confused; it wasn’t even too many calories.

“Because you’re burning off calories you haven’t even digested, you’re doing it solely to lose weight, not for the health benefits. You need to relax.”

“No! It’s not enough; it’s never enough, why can’t you understand?”

“Why can’t I fucking understand? Are you serious? I can’t understand because it’s fucking crazy!”

“Do not call me crazy,” I warned him.

“No, you’re right, you aren’t crazy, but you are seriously fucked up.”

“No, I’m not,” I said, shaking my head, completely hurt.

“Then why won’t you eat something? You look like a fucking corpse! Remember darling, no one wants to fuck a bag of bones.”

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” I screamed at him, running from the room and not stopping until I got into my room. I walked to the desk and grabbed the diary that he had left me a week ago, the one that I was writing down all of my thoughts in, my disgusting, cryptic, and twisted thoughts.

March 25, (the first day I had gotten it)
Loneliness leads you to insanity.
I woke up wanting to break every dish in my house again.

March 26,
Sometimes I don’t feel like continuing to live. I don’t want to kill myself, I just want it all to stop or go away.
I want to be calm.
I want to be happy again.

March 27,
My demons, though quiet, are never quite silenced.
Calm as they may be, they wait patiently for a reason to wake, take an overdue breath, and crawl back into my ear.

March 28,
I don’t know what made me think of this, but suddenly, today I was brought back to the day I had first seen myself for what I truly was, fat.
I ran into my room and slammed the door as hard as I could. I went over to my mirror, breathing like I had just been in some kind of race. I looked at myself, panting and red- faced, tears pouring down my cheeks. I lifted up my shirt and looked at my stomach. Mounds of ugly white flab stared back at me.
I grabbed some of it and pinched down hard. That wasn’t enough so I worked my way around my waist, pinching and slapping at my fat as if I was trying to scare it away.

March 29,
Her philosophy of life was that she might die at any moment.
The tragedy, she said, as the she didn’t.

I flipped past all the filled pages towards the first blank one and in big, bolded, black scribbled letters, I wrote “NEVER ENOUGH.” I filled the page with angry black scratches of my pen, making it look as unappealing and ugly as I looked. When I was done, I took the book with me as I climbed under my sheets, curling up into a ball and hiding myself away from the world like I had done many times before that. I closed my eyes, hoping that I would never reopen them, that I could just silently slip into death, much like I would slip into sleep, but of course, when he came barging into my room, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“Holly?” Matt's voice trailed off as he knocked on the wall right beside where the door was supposed to be.

“Go away,” I mumbled, not bothering to look at him.

“Come on, you know I didn’t mean anything I said, I was just angry,” Matt tried reasoning, though I knew every word that came out of your mouth was complete bullshit.

“I SAID GO AWAY!” I screamed, lashing out and whipping the book at him, aiming it at Matt’s head, he quickly caught it and as soon as he started to walk away with it, I wished it was back under the blankets with me, my secrets safe, not in the hands of someone I knew was going to read them. I had anger and sadness welling up inside me and swirling around, begging for release in the only way I knew they could be released.

I untangled myself from the sheets and dragged myself out of the warmth of my bed, trudging and dragging my feet down the hall, following the path my feet knew by heart now. I didn’t even stop in the kitchen to see if anyone was in there or not, I no long cared, i just wanted release. I had never cooked in this kitchen and I had never even opened the drawers, so I had to hunt through the numerous drawers to find exactly what I was looking for. Drawers of napkins, utensils, spatulas and even tongs, but I wasn’t looking for any of that, but suddenly, when I opened that final drawer, my heart leapt with joy as I stared down at the array of shiny metals. Black handles, blue handles, and red handles; straight, serrated, and curved edges, every single one different, but all similar in one way, they were all sharp and my perfect little tools. I picked up each one and examined them all, butcher knife, too big and much too obvious; curved, small enough to hide but curved and uneven cutting; finally, my eyes settled upon the gleaming silver handle of a beautiful, small boning knife, as I picked it up and turned it over in my hand, I knew this was the one I wanted, no, the one I needed. Quietly, I closed the drawer and slipped the knife into the waistband of my shorts, reveling in the pain of the blade as it cut into the skin on my thigh with each step I took. I didn’t know that there was a pair of green eyes watching my every move from the chair at the end of the table, far out of my view.

Zacky’s POV

My eyes settled on the plate of nachos that I had just sat in front of me, but when I heard the soft padding of footsteps coming down the hallway, my ears perked up. Without a doubt, I knew who it was; there was only one girl in the entire house that was light enough to make that little noise, Holly. She came into the kitchen and didn’t look my way once, it was clear that she didn’t know I was here. I watched with curious eyes as she rummaged through all the drawers in the kitchen, before standing in front of the last one, eyes wide, staring into the open drawer. Of course, I knew what was there, I had cooked enough in this kitchen to know, but I didn’t know why she needed the knives. She was merely staring down for about five minutes before she finally picked one up, a large butcher knife, then a knife for peeling fruit, before finally picking up a boning knife. She turned it over in her hand before holding it firmly and slipping it in between the waistband of the shorts she was wearing. Everything in my body was telling me to stop her, but something stopped me. I knew that if I said something, she would run away ad make a snide comment, not listening to a single thing I said, instead, I waited until I could no longer hear her footsteps and got up from the table.

I walked up the stairs and through numerous hallways until I got to the one that Matt and Holly shared, from within her room, I could hear a door close, either her bathroom or closet, but I didn’t linger long enough to find out. Instead, I walked past her room and straight towards his, opening the door without knocking to see him sitting at his desk reading a small leather bound book. His brows were furrowed and his eyes clearly showed that he did not like what was reading, but when he heard the door open, his head snapped up towards me. He demanded what I wanted and immediately I told him everything that I had just seen, his eyes instantly becoming worried with a hint of rage. When he didn’t say anything, I took it as my cue to leave.

Holly’s POV

I closed the bathroom door behind me quietly, locking the door. I walked over to the toilet and put the lid down before sitting down. I pulled down the hem of my shorts and pulled out the knife, I sat it down in my lap and I ran my fingers gently over the small cuts that I had put there two days ago. They had just scabbed over, the blood crusting over and turning brown, it no longer hurt to push them, but soon they would be accompanied by identical cuts, o both sides of my hips, of that I was sure and I would make sure they hurt. I lowered my shorts a little more and took the knife firmly in my hand; I pressed it into the skin and felt the slow release as I swiped it across my skin, over and over again. I stared down at the oozing slices before dragging my hand over them, covering my hand in my own blood and relishing in the sting that it brought. I closed my eyes and leaned back, it felt as if a weight had been lifted off my chest, and I instantly felt better, until I heard knocking on my door.

“Holly, what are you doing in there?” Matt’s voice boomed.

“I, uh, I’m j- just going t- to the bathroom.” I stutter out, my heart beat racing, jumping up and regrettably letting the knife fall and clatter to the floor. My heart stopped as he stopped knocking and paused as we both listened to the sound of metal on tile, the loud, over bearing noise.

“What was that?” He asked and I suddenly had the urge to throw up.

“N- nothing.”

“Let me in!” Matt demanded, pounding on the door again. I picked up the knife and scrambled around the bathroom, searching for anywhere to hide it. I ran over to the sink and ran the water over the hand and knife, letting the water turn pink, quickly scrubbing all the remnants away. Then, I ran back over to the toilet and lifted up the lid to the tank, carefully placing it inside and placing the lid back on, careful not to make any noise.

I steadied my shaking hands and calmed my nerves before pulling my pants back up all the way and walking over to the door, quickly unlocking it opening it, only to reveal a fuming Matt. Inside I was shaking, scared that he would see under the lies and know what I had been doing, but I silently reminded myself that I was supposed to be mad at him and I made my outside look pissed off, though I really wasn’t.

“What do you want?” I hissed, crossing my arms and painfully cocking a hip.

“What were you doing?”

“What the fuck do you think I was doing, dumbass,” I scoffed.

“Oh yeah, then what the fuck is that?” I demanded, crossing his arms and pointing to the ground, my heart nearly jumped into my throat as I turned around and followed your arm with m eyes to the point you were pointing to on the ground. I thought my heart stopped when I was staring down at the four droplets of blood, it was from when the knife had fallen and I can’t believe I had been stupid enough not to clean it up. It wasn’t even that there was a lot of blood, but against the bright white tiles, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

“I, uh, that, that’s um, n- nothing,” I lied, trying and failing to cover myself up, I had never been good when nervous or put under stress and it showed right now. I turned back around and shifted my gaze to the ground, not daring to look him in the eyes. Everything seemed to happen muted and in slow motion. He was yelling, screaming, punching the walls, but I couldn’t hear anything he were saying, I didn’t even see what he was doing, I felt the ground and walls shake as he took his anger out on everything around me, everything but me. I continued to stare at the ground, though now I was turned around and staring at the droplets of blood. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of them, I loved them because they were beautiful and crimson, but I hated them because they had caused all this. When I finally tuned back in, he was still screaming in anger.

“Let me see,” he demanded, grabbing my wrists roughly in his hands, examining the clean skin.
“Let me fucking see!” He screamed, over and over again, demanding to see. “If you don’t show me, I will find them myself, and trust me, you won’t like it,” his words flowed into my body, though I was too numb to respond to any of it, I didn’t move an inch, I just stared up at him, completely shut down, I didn’t do well with yelling and screaming. I didn’t respond until he was pulling, no dragging, me out of the bathroom, towards the bed. He pushed my down on the bed and that was when I really got scared, my heart was soaring as I started lashing out at him. My mind immediately drifted to rape, this was the same thing Brian did to me the first day I had ever been here. I screamed, cried, let the tears flow freely as I scratched, slapped, punched and kicked him as he started pulling my shirt over my head.

Over my screams and his grunts of frustrations, I heard fast footsteps approaching, it seemed like our altercation had attracted an audience. Someone barged into the room and didn’t even ask what was happening; they merely ran over to me and forcefully held my arms down. Matt pressed his knees against my thighs as someone else restrained the other half of me. I bucked my hips and arched my back, trying to get away, trying to throw them off as Matt, now Shadows, reached his hands down to the waistband of my shorts, he was close and he knew it because I was screaming and fighting even more now. He slipped his fingers into my shorts and felt him scrape his short and sharp nails across the fresh cuts, extracting his fingers and staring at them in pure disgust. He pulled down the hem of my shorts a little on both sides, even though it was only slightly, it was enough to get a clear view at all the cuts. When he stopped moving, so did I, I closed my eyes and panted, taking in long breaths, trying to calm myself down. I opened my eyes and saw me staring into Zacky’s bright green ones, a mixture of worry and disgust clear in his eyes. When he caught me staring, he let go of my arms and promptly left the room, leaving me alone with Shadows.

He never once looked me in the eyes; he just stared directly at my hips, taking in the still bleeding cuts, now worse because of the struggle. “You promised me you were going to try,” he whispered.

“I was.”

“Oh please, don’t spew me your bullshit; I have your diary, remember? I read through all your twisted thoughts and I have proof that you didn’t try its right in front of my eyes.” He whisper yelled as he got off of me, shouting for all the guys to come here. He yanked me off of the bed and dragged me into the hallway, I was far from struggling now, and I was utterly defeated.
“Where’d you put the knife?” When I didn’t answer, he just shrugged. “That’s fine, they’ll find it anyways.”

He stood next to me in the hallway to make sure I didn’t go anywhere as he made me watch them raid my room. They tore the entire place apart; someone went into the closet and searched every drawer and cabinet, ripping clothes off hangers and shoes out of boxes. In the bathroom I could hear brushes and straighteners clanging against the floor as they were thrown out of drawers. In the main room I could see books being sifted through and thrown off shelves, the tops of shelves were looked at, the entire desk was searched and the mattress was taken off the bed.

“I found it!” Johnny screamed from inside the bathroom, he walked out and held it out to Matt, who promptly took it and put it in his pocket.

“Go check my room; I don’t know if she put anything in there.” There he went ago, talking about me as if I wasn’t even there, even though it happened to me all the time, here and back home, I still hated it.

The three men walked into Matt’s room, all cautious and careful when searching his room. Johnny, Brian, and Zacky searched everywhere, though this time, when they looked through something, they put it back. Jimmy was nowhere in sight, but I was fine with that, I didn’t want to see him at all.

They slowly and surely searched everywhere, one by one finding my hidden razors, one on top of the bookcase, in between the pages of a book that was no longer dusty, under a drawer in his dresser, and under the mattress. They went into the bathroom and took everything away, Matt’s razor, some scissors, safety pins, clippers, anything sharp that could do me harm. When they were all satisfied, they left, one by one, patting him on the shoulder as they walked past him.

“Just so you know, there’s a therapist coming tomorrow, and twice a week until you stop being so fucked up and don’t even try getting out of it because I’m not listening to any of the fucking shit that comes out of your mouth.” With that, he left the room and locked the door behind him, leaving me in there.