Counting Stars and Scars {Kellic}

18. Whether Near or Far I am Always Yours

{Song-The End Of All Things by Panic! At The Disco}

-Vic's POV-

I spend all of the next day in a daze, totally unable to comprehend what happened.

Maybe I should explain.

I sat my parents down at the dinner table last night, shaking and sweating and so nervous I thought I would actually throw up.

My family was confused as hell. Well, my parents more so. Mike just sat and stared at me with a knowing look in his eyes, like he already knew what I was going to say.

It didn't go too badly, I suppose. I said mostly what I wanted to say. The worst part was that awful silence after I explained as gently as I could that I had tried to kill myself and how Kellin (who I also mentioned was now my boyfriend,) convinced me to tell them.

They just stared at me in a shocked silence; I think my mom had actually stared crying. We slowly started to figure it out from there.

But it was a miracle. My parents didn't hate me, they didn't yell or tell me I was doing it for attention. They didn't even have a problem with Kellin as my boyfriend, just said that they'd love me no matter what. Sure, my father was a little stiff and cold, but I think that's because he was honestly too shocked to realize what was happening. We talked over a couple things. My mom suggested we go right to finding a therapist and getting some help, and everyone else agreed. I sat through the whole thing trying to not freak out, because I was hating how the topic on conversation was just about me. (Stupid, I know, considering I was the one that brought it up.)

Long story short, I have an appointment in two days to figure out what's wrong with me. Slightly cynical way of looking at it, but can you blame me? I'm still kicking myself for what I did, to Kellin and my friends. How could I be so selfish? Granted, I honestly thought I'd be doing the world favor.

Now, I don't know. The question has still been weighing on my mind, the question of what would have happened if I had succeeded.

At this moment, though, I don't want to think about it. I spot Kellin at his locker, and a grin breaks out on my face.

Kellin sees me and runs over to give me a giant hug. He pulls back after a bit to look at my face. "How'd it go?" he asks. "Like, were your parents acting weird at all this morning?"

I had told him the basics of the night over text, but it was late and texting important things weren't really my thing. "Um." I pause, thinking about it. "Not really. I mean they're kind of acting like I'm going to try to off myself at any moment."

"I mean, you can't really blame them," Kellin says with a sad look on his face.

I look down at the floor. "Yeah, I know," I say softly.

Kellin tries for a smile. "But this is good, right? Your parents are getting you help?"

I nod. "I think so."

Kellin looks at me for a little longer, then pulls me into a tight hug. "You doing okay?" He asks softly.

I bury my face into his shirt. "Sometimes it seems like you're the only one who asks that and actually cares."

"Hey," Kellin replies. "Tony cares, Jaime cares, Mike cares. They all care a lot."

I think back to last night and this morning with Mike. He was amazing; didn't ask me any questions I didn't want to answer and didn't act weird. He only asked if I was okay and if I wanted to talk about anything, and then said that he knew I wasn't in a good place and that he was happy I could finally talk about it.

"I know," I tell Kellin finally. "It's just hard. Because I know I'm not okay."

He presses a kiss to my forehead. "I know, darling."

I love the way he calls me darling; I feel my heart skip a beat at the sound.

I smile at him, and then we pull away. Looking over across the hall to Jaime and Tony's lockers, I notice them talking together. Then, so fast I can barely process it, I see their hands brush past each other and Jaime gives Tony's a slight squeeze.

My mouth drops open.

"Did you see that?" I ask Kellin.

He's also looking over, eyes crinkling as he grins. "I did indeed. I think those bastards finally got together!"

"Wait, you thought something was going on between them?"

"Hell yeah. I've known it forever."

"And you didn't think to tell me?" I squeak, slightly hurt.

He smiles down at me. "I knew you'd figure it out eventually. Besides, it was fun with me being the only one knowing why Tony always ran into things when Jaime walked by."

I gasp. "So that's why he does that!"

He laughs a bit. "Exciting, isn't it? I wonder how long it'll take them to tell us. The poor things probably think we have no idea." He pauses for a moment before looking down at me with a bit more serious face. "How're your arms doing, by the way?"

I bite my lip. "Um. Okay, I guess. They still hurt."

"Can I look?"

I shrug. "If you want."

The next thing I know, I'm being pulled into the nearest bathroom. Kellin takes the big stall and sits me down, instructing me to hold my arms out.

He gently unwraps the bandages covering them and slips them off, uncovering the skin of my forearms. He looks at the damaged skin with a somber face, and again I fell awful.

The wrist of my right arm wasn't too bad, the long cut going up my wrist was already mostly healed, overlapping with the rest of the small white scars going the other way.

The left was awful. The stitches were still there, going all the way up to my elbow. The skin around the cut was puffy and an angry red, and it hurt like a bitch.

I watch Kellin's face as his jaw clenches and his eyes turn sad.

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

"Don't be," he says back, looking up at me. "This is my fault."

"Don't say that." My voice cracks. "It's my fault, all my fault, okay? I made this choice."

"But I caused it." Kellin stands up, running his hands through his hair.

I rewrap my arms in their bandages and watch him pace around. "Kells," I say, "What good will it do to blame yourself? It happened. You can't change that anyway."

"But I should hav-"

"Don't." I interrupt him. "I don't want to hear that. We have to get past this."

Kellin tugs on a piece of hair. "I know. I'm sorry, you're right." He sighs, and then then hold out his hand so I can stand up as well.

"I love you, Vic," he says softly.

"I know." I smile. "I love you too."

(A/N: Short update, sorry it took so long! But its here. Shoutout to my bestie fren VanessaChaos for helping me through my writers block with this story, please please go check out her story Dancing with Death, it features me as an asexual demon of pride and it's sick as frick. (Also, she's just really awesome.)