For Your Eyes Only

Annie’s POV
He wouldn’t want me anymore if I let him see. He’d think I was stupid for hurting myself. He’d think it was for attention. He’d think I was crazy. I couldn’t barricade my emotions like usual, so once the tears began I didn’t try to stop them. I quieted my gut wrenching sobs that I hadn’t heard or felt a long time, not wanting to attract the attention of the other boys. Boys… my brother. Dead. No. He was gone for good.
“Annie, please!” Niall’s voice broke, tearing my heart, but I still flinched away when he took a step closer. The hurt on his face was shattering. I couldn’t even look at him. I squeezed my eyes shut and clamped my left arm to my chest, hiding the awful marks. The arms wrapping around me made me jump in alarm, causing them to stop for a moment before pulling me into a warm, shakily-breathing chest. Niall was crying too.
“P-please, baby,” he whimpered. I couldn’t say it. He’d throw me out for lying to him about my brother and for being so weak that I had resorted to cutting. He’d- “I don’t care what you think. I love you, and your past won’t change that.” I slowed my sobbing and pondered his words. Your past won’t change that.
“N-no, I-I can’t… I don’t…” And that’s when the darkness started to close in around my eyes. That’s when I stopped breathing for a moment. That’s when I realized I couldn’t keep hiding.
Niall’s POV
I knocked back the two white, oval-shaped pills that the nurse called ‘triazolam’ in one swig of water while I waited for whatever papers I needed to sign. Annie had passed out cold. We couldn’t wake her up at all, and she wasn’t breathing very well, and to make things worse, Liam was sick in the bathroom and couldn’t stop barfing up who-knows-what. So we came to the nearest hospital and immediately Annie was seen to. They hooked her up to machines and ran tests until I was pretty sure they had tested for every disease known to mankind. I had been pacing like a caged lion. I wanted to see her. I wanted to know what the phone call was about. I wanted to know why she was cutting. I couldn’t stand it. I got fed up when Louis told me to sit down, and kicked a chair into the wall, leaving a good sized dent. That was when the nurse came and gave me the pills, telling me they’d help me calm down and eventually, sleep.
“Mr. Horan, are you aware that Ms. Powl has a history of suicidal tendencies and parental abuse?” asked the nurse. I jumped, not having noticed her there. What?
“Um, suicide? No… but I knew about her parents,” I frowned. She handed me a slip of paper, her lips pursing in concern. I scanned the paper, shocked at what I read.
-October 6, 2004 Light Concussion
-November 29, 2004 Lacerations to lateral right over ribs
-June 17, 2006 Lacerations to anterior of right arm
-May 4, 2007 Fractured left radius
-September 13, 2008 Anxiety attack, sedative
-January 27, 2009 Concussion, contusions on right eye and cheekbone, lacerated lower lip, lacerated jaw
-June 14, 2010 Re-fractured left radius
-December 25, 2012 Acetaminophen overdose (Note: Attempted Suicide)
-February 3, 2014 Tranquilizer dart, anxiety attack, (Note: Attempted Suicide)
-July 5, 2014 Anxiety attack, sedative
-June 23, 2016 Anxiety attack
I gaped at the entries from 2012 and 2014 of her medical history. They were suicide attempts. She tried to kill herself. When she said she wanted to die back at the hospital when I came to see her… She meant it.
“I-I didn’t…” I mumbled, numbly handing the paper back to the nurse. She laid a comforting hand on my shoulder before turning and going back to see Liam. I wandered over to Annie’s room and felt a pain in my gut as I saw her lying there. She was hooked up to every machine you could possibly imagine. I found myself at her bedside, holding her hand and turning it slightly. If I looked hard enough, I could see the scars. I rubbed my finger over them and was able to see them a bit better… She had caked make-up over them. That’s why I hadn’t noticed them before. Her right wrist was smooth, without the marks that would forever be there to remind her of the pain she went through, and I was grateful. It was almost like… half of her was still broken and shattered, but the other half was still hoping. Hoping that perhaps, someday, she’d be able to forget…

Notes

I feel pain imagining a broken, desperate Niall kicking a chair into a wall. It hurts.