*This chapter mentions suicide, self harm, depression and anxiety. If any of these are triggering for you, please do not read this chapter.* *If you do choose to read, please also read the authors note at the end of the chapter*

Elle

Wednesday 26th December 2018

         I left Ace to go upstairs by himself and wandered back into the living room where I lied through my teeth about him having a headache to my family, which they believed. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching a movie, and exchanging presents with my Gram, mom went upstairs to ask Ace if he wanted to join but she came back downstairs alone so I assumed he had declined.

 It was nearing late afternoon and my Gram was preparing to leave just as Ace came downstairs, obviously hearing that she was leaving. "Goodbye my babies," she said, giving each of us a long hug. When she got to me, her arms lingered around my body slightly longer. "I'll see you soon, baby. Take care of yourself, okay?" She said to me and I nodded.

 "I will, Gram. I love you," I told her, holding back tears because I knew this would be the last time I'd see her for a while.

 She pulled away from me and then pressed a kiss to my cheek. "I love you too, sweet pea, so much," she said and then moved to Ace, where she didn't warn him before tugging him into a bone-crushing hug which he endured with a brave face. "It was nice meeting you, boy. I hope you look after my granddaughter, she's very precious to us lot," Gram warned in a low tone and Ace nodded, glancing at me through the corner of his eye.

 "Of course I will," he forced a fake smile, which I could see was so clearly false but Gram seemed content with it. "It was nice meeting you too, Cynthia, I hope to see you again soon," he said smoothly and she grinned like a school child, holding onto his bicep a little too long.

 "You're making me blush!" She giggled and then moved away from him, collecting her things before opening the front door. "Goodbye all, thank you for a splendid dinner Lydia."

 "You're welcome," mom smiled and we all waved Gram off as she stepped outside and climbed into her car, roaring it to life before she disappeared down the road and out of sight.

 "M'gonna rest upstairs," Ace mumbled lowly and then headed upstairs, which nobody questioned as they assumed he was still suffering from a headache.

 "Maybe you should go and check on him, Elle?" My mother prompted me. "See if he wants some water or painkillers," she said to me and I nodded, heading for the stairs as everyone else went into the living room to continue watching Christmas movies and munching on deliciously bad food.

 Anxiety loomed in my chest as I reached my bedroom door and slowly pushed it open, immediately seeing Ace laying on my bed with his phone glued to his face. He looked up for a moment as I walked in, and then immediately went back to scrolling down his social media homepage. "I'm sorry for exploding at you back there," I said to him quietly, feeling my heartbeat in my mouth from how nervous I was.

 Ace shrugged it off. "No big deal, I was prying," he said nonchalantly.

 I shook my head. "No, you were asking about my life. You're my boyfriend, it's not weird that you want to know what's happened in my life."

 "Elle-"

 "It's hard to say some things aloud, y'know? Like when you verbalise them, they become a little more true," I admitted strongly, closing my bedroom door behind him so we could have this private conversation. I walked over to my bed and sat down next to Ace, watching as he placed his phone on the bedside table next to him. 

 "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," he said to me seriously.

 "I want to," I quipped back, inhaling a deep, calming breath. "I've told you dribs and drabs about my dad, about what happened... You know he died and that it was a while ago, but that's all I really tell people. But, he was sick, and before you say you're really sorry and he didn't deserve it, he did," I said, my lip wobbling slightly at the end of that sentence. "He knew what he was doing to himself, and he kept doing it until it killed him."

 "What do you mean?" Ace asked, turning so he was facing me.

 "My dad was a smoker, when I was young he only smoked when he was stressed and never around us kids but as he grew older and his stresses grew greater, he smoked more. It was to a point where towards the end of his life, I don't really recall a time he didn't have a cigarette in his mouth. We all hated it, he knew we did, it was the only thing him and mom ever argued about and he knew it drove her crazy because we could see in his face that it was changing him, it was ageing him so much."

 "He'd tell us all he was fine and he'd live forever to try and ease our worries, but then he fell very sick very quickly. I remember the first time we knew something was really wrong, it was a Saturday and mom had made us all this beautiful lunch, and we were all having this amazing time when dad started just having the worst coughing fit. He coughed for like five minutes straight into his hands, and when he moved his hands from his face, they were covered in blood. Mom took him to the hospital that day, and I begged to come in with dad because I was such a daddy's girl and I wanted to be there, they tried to fight it but in the end they let me come. The doctors did some tests and it was a couple weeks until we heard anything, but we were told it was lung cancer, terminal lung cancer. He would never get better, he knew that and we all did too, but the doctors all said they could use treatment and his lifestyle to elongate his life a bit..."

 I choked back a sob as I remembered sitting in the doctors office with my father, my hand clutched in his as they told us he was dying. It was the most horrific day of my life. "They told him to start chemotherapy immediately and to stop smoking completely, we all begged him to as well but he refused. He said he didn't want to live a few years if those years were going to miserable, so he decided to not take any treatment and to continue his habit. He continued smoking until he day he died, less than two months later," I said, wiping the tears as they slid down my flushed cheeks. "He chose smoking over his own family, he could've lived to see his first grandchild, or to see me go off to college, or to be around to raise Harley, he could've lived up to five years with lifestyle changes and treatment but he chose to die within two months."

 Ace moved so his arm wrapped around my waist and he brought me closer to him, hoping to offer me some sort of comfort. "I was so angry, at him, at everything that he had done, the fact he'd left us... I was so mad Ace," I hiccupped through my tears. "I fucking missed his funeral, I skipped it because why should I have gone? He didn't give a shit about us, so why should I have given a shit about him?" It burned to admit, like actually burned my throat as I spat out those words. I skipped my own father's funeral for my own selfish reasons, because I was bitter and mad. "Who skips their own dad's funeral?" I said to myself, burying my face in my hands.

 "You were angry, Elle," Ace tried to reassure me but I shook my head.

 "That's no excuse, he raised me for fucks sake and I didn't have the decency to go to his funeral," I said through my tears, knowing I was spiralling into self-hatred but there was no going back now. 

 I took a deep breath before continuing my story, wiping my damp cheeks with the sleeve of my jumper. "After he died, I was like a zombie. I missed school for nearly two months, and when I went back I wasn't me. I was sleep-walking through my classes, I treated all of my friends like crap, and then came home to lock myself in my room and I didn't come out until school the next day. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, I barely even brushed my hair in the morning. The weekends were the worst, I usually would just lie in bed all day and cry for hours on end until I cried myself to sleep."

 I closed my eyes tightly, knowing where the story was going. "Then, about six months after my dad had died, when I was sixteen, I just gave up. I was so depressed that I didn't see a point, I hated myself, I hated my life and I missed my dad so God-damn much that I didn't want to live anymore. So, I skipped school one day and stole all of my mom's sleeping pills that she was prescribed when dad died to help her sleep, and I took them all."

 Ace sucked in a breath and I nodded, finally opening my eyes to see his blood-shot, teary ones. "I remember feeling sick to my stomach... And then feeling nothing. I woke up two days later in hospital, connected to several different machines with no idea what had happened," I was full on crying at that point, helpless tears pouring from my eyes as I relaid the events. "Harley had come home from school and wanted to check on me because I hadn't gone. He was twelve, Ace, twelve. A twelve year old had to find their older sister half dead on the floor with several empty pill bottles beside her."

 Ace let out a full sob and I reached out to grab his hand, knowing I was full on blubbering as well. "He called the ambulance, and my mom and brother. He stayed with me until the ambulance and my mom got there. God, it fucked him up so much, that was the worst thing out of it all. I didn't think about someone finding me, I just wanted to die, I didn't think about how it would affect my family but he was messed up the worst. When I got out of hospital, he slept in my bed for months until he managed to sleep in his own bed without thinking his big sister was going to kill herself in the night."

 Ace pulled me into his arms as I sobbed into his shoulder, my chest heaving up and down as I struggled to get air into my lungs. "I got help, though, I am on medication for depression and probably always will be and I got therapy until I graduated. To this day, though, Harley still has attachment issues with me and I genuinely will never be able to forgive myself for what I did to this family. Never."

 Ace rubbed circles on my back. "You weren't Elle when you did that, you weren't yourself. Mental illness does some fucked up things to us, and it makes people completely different to what they're usually like. You didn't do that to Elle, the thoughts in your head, the self-hatred, they did that to you," he promised me, kissing my forehead before pulling away from the hug.

 "Everyone says that, but it won't ever stop me from hating what I did to them. My mom had been through enough, they all had, with losing dad, and then they nearly lose me too? It was selfish," I wiped my cheeks, shaking my head.

 "Suicide isn't selfish, Elle," he said, his stern face softening as he looked in my eyes. 

 I shrugged it off and stood up from the bed, feeling my whole body shake from the nerves and amount of crying. "I'm glad I told you," I said and he nodded. "Just don't do what everyone else does, okay? I'm not made from glass, I'm still Elle and I'm much better now, I don't need to be treated like I'm fragile because I'm not. I don't need saving anymore, I saved myself," I said very sternly and he laughed.

 "I'm not here to save you, I just don't want to see you wallow in self hatred over something you did as a kid when you weren't in a stable place," he said and I nodded, looking at the floor.

 "I'm trying," I said honestly, smiling to myself when Ace shuffled to the edge of the bed, reaching up to my face so he could peck my lips gently. 

A/N:

God, that chapter was hard to write. 

From someone who deals with severe mental health issues, I think it's important to tackle these themes in books. 

What Elle is going through in the book is not to glamorise mental illness, it's to show what many people all around the world go through, including myself. Ace is not there to save her, nor is he there to make her better, she has managed to help herself tackle mental health issues through years of therapy and medication. 

If you are struggling with mental illness yourself, and you need somebody to talk to, please visit the below site to find a suicide hotline in your country. And if you need help, please, speak out to someone you trust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

You are not alone, you are loved so very dearly.

Stay safe and stay strong,

Lauren Marie xo