A/N !!
This chapter is intense. If you are triggered by any of the following, then you should ask  for a quick chapter recap at the ending note for myself or a fellow reader to reply to and tell you what happened. Keep yourself safe.

Trigger warning:  suicidal concepts, self harm, anxiety, alcoholism, sexual assault.
Begins at marked "TW" and goes until the end of the chapter
<3

XL
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Crystal's POV ***

Connor shrieked and squirmed as I scooped him up in my arms. We were playing tackle-tag in the living room. I laughed as I fell backwards onto the couch, causing him to let out a squeal of his own laughter.

Slightly out of breath, when he scrambled off of me, I didn't follow. He tried to pull me up from the couch, but I just leaned forward and picked him up again, placing him on my lap.

"I need to go to the gym more often if I'm gonna keep up with you all break," I told him, booping his nose- which he scrunched right after in the most adorable way.

"Can we watch a movie?!" He got excited and bounced a little on my lap. I couldn't help but smile at how goddamn cute he was. I also couldn't help but wrap my arms around him and squish him into a hug, which he absentmindedly returned.

"Hey guys," My mom came around the corner, and I smiled up at her.

To say Connor was what she needed in life would be the understatement of the century. I honestly got emotional sometimes thinking about how much of a light he was in her life.

I had partially expected her to feel really sad all the time and to see too much of my brother in him... and maybe that was still true, but the parts of my brother that were in him were the parts that she would want to feel connected with again, anyway. Connor was a pure little flashlight helping her find her way back home after walking out too far into a dark night.

Maybe being home for break and being around Connor so much would magically heal my problems, too. My mom was doing a fantastic job of staying clean. But I, on the other hand...

I don't think I'd ever been as ashamed of myself as when I packed that extra bottle of vodka into my bag when I came home from my college, knowing we wouldn't have any at my house. I was disgusted with myself, but I did it anyway. And I hated it. So much.

"We gotta go buddy," my mom said down to Connor with a smile.

"But I wanna watch a movie with Cwystal," he looked back at her with puppy-dog eyes.

"I know, sweetie. How about we all watch some together when we get back?" She raised her eyebrows, and he instantly got excited again. His little hands clapped together a few times out of joy.

"Yes!" He beamed, and I swear the cuteness was starting to legitimately kill me.

They were going to Connor's first therapy appointment at a place a few towns away. My mom had done so much research into how we could best help out Connor and make him stay happy and healthy as he grew up. I was proud of her for it, and happy for Connor because of it. He was in such good hands.

It honestly made me think about Jake. I'd never outwardly criticize the way Ashton brought him up- and is still bringing him up- because I don't think I could've done half as well myself... but the only person that Jake really had to talk to about his trauma was Ashton.. and we all know how emotionally distant he could be... and, well, I don't know, I was just a little concerned, was all.

Maybe I'd bring it up to Ashton some time soon- he might think it's a good idea to bring Jake to this same place Connor was going. Just because kids don't necessarily show the same symptoms as usual from their traumas doesn't mean that they aren't experiencing them or will develop them as they get older. Him and Conner were pretty much on the same page in that sense.

My mom and Connor would be gone for a few hours, and I didn't really know what to do with myself. Every channel on the TV was airing something stupid, and I wasn't in the mood to watch a show on Netflix that I actually needed to pay attention to. So, alas, I decided to go upstairs and take a much-needed nap.

I had had a pretty terrible night sleep the night before, considering I had forgotten my sleeping meds at my school like an absolute idiot. My nightmares had been starting back up again at full force, probably because of my goddamn drinking, and those pills had a way of somehow keeping me from dreaming at all.

I got less than an hour of sleep last night, and because of all the coffee I drank throughout the day, it wasn't effecting me as much as it should have been. I let out a satisfied sigh as I sunk into my bed.

But then my heart sunk a little in my chest.

My eyes opened cautiously and looked over at my bag. No words can describe how much I was trying to shake all of the thoughts from my mind. The angel on one of my shoulders was battling with the demon on my other, and I was in between, feeling a migraine coming on.

Well, I thought after a few minutes, I'd need to hide it somewhere else in my room, anyway, right?

Aware I was lying to myself and making up yet another excuse, I shifted my legs off the side of my bed and stood up, slowly walking over to it. The full, large bottle of clear was heavy in my hands as I slipped it out of my bag, and I felt a tear slide down my cheek that I hadn't even really been aware was building.

As I looked for a place in my room to hide a bottle of this size, the feeling of it in my hands began to trigger that mosquito-bite feeling in the back of my brain yet again, and I quickly found myself fighting off the overwhelming need to take just a sip. I put it down on the floor and took a few steps back, thinking that maybe if I distanced myself from it, it would make the desire go away.

But it didn't work.

I fell down to the floor slowly, wrapping my arms around my legs and crying into my knees. What the fuck was I becoming? And why couldn't I stop? I hated my reflection every time I looked in the mirror.

Despite being in the house alone, my sobs were silent, deeper and more painful than any audible cry could be. Perhaps I had just gotten so used to silent crying. The panic attack started soon after that.

** TW **

I gripped at my hair as I laid flat on the ground, not breathing for what felt like impossible lengths of time and then gasping it all in at once in painful surges of air. I turned onto my side, shaking as I tried to grip the floor, tried to ground myself as I felt as though I was levitating into the air in the most helpless way possible.

I could barely breathe, let alone let out any sobs as I shook, tears pooling below me and soaking my hair. Pressing my hand against my chest hard, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying with all my might to focus on my breaths, but failing quickly as a torpedo of thoughts continued whipping around my mind like a category five hurricane, wrecking everything in its path.

My ears almost felt as though they were ringing as my body began to go numb, and I felt myself suffocating with it. I basically clawed at my throat, trying to breath as more tears streaked down my neck. I hadn't had a panic attack this bad in years.

And it wasn't as if anybody else contributed to this. It was all me. All my own mind. People loved me, but they shouldn't. People were there to help me, but I didn't deserve it. Because right when everything had become right and good, I yet again found a way to go and make my own damn demons. And I fell victim to them every time.

It had to have been an hour later before I could finally stand, and I stumbled into the bathroom to throw up. My stomach had been made so upset from how much clenching and shaking my entire body had been doing for that hour.

My cries finally began to turn audible, and I stumbled back out of the bathroom, holding onto the wall as I made my way over to the bottle in the middle of my floor. I was barely able to shut my bedroom door before I sunk back to the ground, crawling the remaining few yards to it.

More tears streaked down my face as I screwed off the top and took a swig, the burning liquid nearly making me cough despite how many times I had consumed it. Tears blurred my vision as I stared at nothing, zoning out so far that I didn't know if I'd ever come back. And I stayed there.

Another hour or two later, I was in the same spot, staring at the same nothing, with the same absence of thoughts filling my mind. Eventually, I heard my mom knock on my bedroom door. I didn't answer, it was almost as if I'd forgotten how to talk.

I missed a lot of it, but she said something along the lines of that she assumed I was sleeping because she knew I had a bad night sleep last night, and that she didn't want to wake me up by coming in the room, so that if I was awake to let her know.

I'm not asleep, but I'm not awake either, I thought as I took another sip, a numb tear sliding out of my eyes and down my paralyzed face. She said a goodnight to me through the door when I didn't respond, and I just continued to sit there in the dark.

That was, until it got unbearable.

Staying quiet, I put the significantly less full bottle back down onto the floor and tried to pick myself up, only succeeding when I held onto my bed for support. I got into the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror.

I felt my reflection trigger another attack, but it felt different now that I was drunk. It felt too layered in with everything to make me feel anything at all. I needed to feel something. Anything. My mind and body had been numb for hours and hours and it felt like days. It felt like I was back where I was a few years ago.

I saw my brother's face in my face as I stared forward. Saw the murderer I was. The life-ruiner. The alcoholic. I saw a girl who dragged countless undeserving people into her shit. People who would have been better off without her. Who still would be better off without her.

I was too numb to sob as all of these thoughts swarmed my senses, causing me fall forward onto the counter for support. My hand accidentally slammed down on my razor.

It cut across the palm of my hand by accident, but I didn't feel it as much as I normally would have due to my current state. My breathing caught in my chest as I slowly raised my hand, observing the blood now dripping from my hand onto the white countertop. I got flashbacks to the few times I had cut myself way back when. Just a few times, but it was terrible and horrible and hurt.

But this time it hadn't hurt as much for some reason.

Even in my drunken, disassociated state, the lack of opposition I had to the idea of cutting myself caught me off guard, and I found myself impulsively lunging for the toilet and flushing everything sharp in sight to protect me from myself. I cried again then. My blood still pouring from the slice in my palm as I grabbed a random shirt from the floor and lamely wrapped it in attempts to get it to stop.

My thoughts were nearly as disoriented as the rest of my body, and I couldn't even process the full weight of what almost just happened as I stumbled out of the bathroom to grab the bottle, hiding it haphazardly in my closet and throwing on a sweatshirt.

I just needed to get some air, I thought to myself, despite the clock reading 2:31 am. Yeah, some air would be good. A walk outside for some air.

I found myself walking as quietly as possible out of my room and down the stairs, holding onto the railing with everything I had so that I didn't fall down. My vision was a little messed up, but it wasn't spinning. I hadn't drank enough for that, but I felt more disassociated than I'd ever felt in my life due to the combination of my earlier panic attack and immediate drunkenness afterward.

The night was pretty cold, but I thought it felt refreshing than freezing on my burning skin. I stumbled down my driveway and began walking down the street. I was swaying with each step, subconsciously struggling to keep upright as I focused my senses on trying to stay alert, but it wasn't working too well.

I was walking and walking for what must have been half an hour before I heard a car pull up beside me, the driver get out after it pulled over and parked.

"Crystal? What are the odds."

It was George.

If I had been an ounce more sober and slightly more in touch with my body, I would have started sprinting away. But I didn't. I couldn't. It was as if I had forgotten how to run.

I might have been drunk, but the utter fear and panic was still genuine and present- just internalized inside my mind and not able to be acted upon by the rest of my body.

"Are you drunk?" He noticed in the dimly lit street. I slurred out a response, but even I didn't know what I had said. He got closer, and I felt tears start to fall from my eyes as I froze in my spot. The space between us got smaller and smaller.

"It's not safe for someone like you out here this late, let alone in the state you're in," he got so close that he was able to reach out and hold onto my waist to keep me from falling over as I swayed. I tried to get my limbs to push him off of me, but they weren't listening.

"It's a good thing I found you before someone who doesn't care came along," his voice got darker then, and I tried once again to push him off of me. I succeeded for a moment before he pulled me into him again, this time even closer. I finally let out a scared noise at this. He let out a bone-chilling laugh under his breath as he held me tight against him, his hands traveling down to grip my butt. I kept trying to push him away.

"You know, I was actually on my way to a friend's house, but this is just too golden of an opportunity to pass up," he seemed really happy about his lucky surprise.

Shaking aggressively, I let out a panicked sound of protest and went to push him off of me again, but he grabbed my arms and started pulling me towards his car. I was helpless against his iron grip. He all but threw me into the backseat of the SUV he had been driving, and came in with me a moment after. I finally started to cry then, the agonizing emotions in my head building up too much for my body not to show it in some way.

"No- no no- no, please," I slurred out as best as I could as he firmly grabbed my waist and slid me further down the seat so that I was laying fully down on my back. My drunken, disoriented attempts at self defense were no match against his sober strength. I called out for help, but even as I tried to scream, it wasn't as loud as I had wanted it to be.

Nobody was coming to help me this time.

"Shhh," he leaned down and immediately overpowered me again, causing me to let out a cry of desperation, fear, and heartbreak as he attacked my neck with his lips. Even in the state I was in, I started getting really intense flashbacks of that night a year ago. The night that he was trying to finally get back at me for now.

I cried out again, but this only seemed to push him further as he gripped me so tight that I let out a shriek of pain. His hands moved around to hold me down in a bunch of places, each no doubt going to have a bruise on them tomorrow. I kept trying to kick and scream, but one of his hands clasped over my mouth so that he could talk.

"You're so drunk that you won't even remember this in the morning, so there's no point in fussing. It'll be like it never happened," he said down at me, and I cried further, relentlessly squirming under him and promising myself I wouldn't go down without a fight. He started unbuckling his belt.

But then a few minutes later, I blacked out.

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Hey guys :(  this hurt to write.

QOTD: What is something you are thankful for?

>>> I'm so thankful for you all <3. (Cheesy, I know, but true nonetheless)

Love you all, go get a glass of water.

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Stay Beautiful,
Briella<3