A/N For Lia...
Probably triggering.
Mitch had always been brighter than anyone I had ever known. He was always so protective, so gentle and loving.
When we were growing up, he never took the spotlight like he deserved. He always stood on the sidelines, in the shadows of someone who didn't deserve the attention. Sometimes I would see him look upset when the teacher would announce the soloist in our next choir recital, but within seconds he would smile and congratulate the ungrateful asshole that stood in what should have been Mitch's place. He never thought of it as such a big deal, but I always took everything that happened to my best friend to heart. We were so close it was just natural to be defensive about him, to protect him. He was my family, and I only wanted the best for him.
Whenever I would ask him why he never tried to get more solo time, why he let himself be looked over, he would just shake his head and tell me it was rude to ask for something that wasn't yours. He truly believed that he didn't have the right to own that stage and wow everyone with his angelic voice, and it pained me knowing he would always think that way, no matter how much I told him otherwise.
It hurts that I didn't even notice he was doing it to me too.
When he was a teenager, he would let people walk all over him. He would constantly do favors for people he barely knew, just out of the goodness of his heart. If someone was rude to him, he would just sit there and take it. He would hear insult after insult, and he would keep his mouth shut. He wouldn't even try to defend himself; his silence would be drowned in the harsh words of a dumb kid that didn't even know him. To Mitch, they weren't bullies as much as 'people who had a lot going on'. For hell's sake, I had a lot going on, but you wouldn't hear me say anything to Mitch.
He was stronger than me, and could face the criticism with a brave smile, even if it tore him apart.
I never paid attention to everything he did for me either. When we met someone new, he would play himself down just so I could look better. And of course I was the idiot that was too entranced by whoever we were meeting to see what he was doing. He didn't just do it around new people; he did it around friends and family too. He spoke praise about me, and everyone else for that matter, simply because he was too kind for his own good.
He had cracked under the weight of his love. He was broken, but hopefully not beyond repair.
I tried so hard to love him in the same way he loved everyone else.
We moved to LA when we were only nineteen.
I tried to whisk him off his feet into a big city, hoping that a change of scenery would be the solution to all our problems.
It wasn't.
We got a nice place in the city that we were happy to call home, our band took off, and we started to blossom into new people.
But with new friends came the same old problems. He burnt himself out trying to stretch himself too far. He was caught between his impeccable kindness and his ability to love himself. He put on a fake smile for show so everyone would think he was fine, and fans saw him as such a positive person, just like he'd always wanted. But it was all a mask.
When he was alone, and he thought I wasn't looking, he would let it fall. He would look at himself in the mirror with a face painted with disgust. I saw him mouth horrible things to himself as he poked and prodded at his body. The ones I caught were torturous, something I couldn't even imagine escaping his lips; "Starved animal" and "disgusting" being a few.
I rarely ever saw him happy anymore. The only time I saw that genuine smile from when we were kids was when he was safe in my arms, when he would snuggle up to my chest and whisper "home" as he fell asleep. I would watch the gradual rise and fall of his chest as he slept, worrying about the lilac bruises under his eyes and the dark shadows under his hollow cheekbones. He looked so weak and frail these days, like the fall. Not dead yet, but getting there, slowly but surely.
He wasn't himself anymore.
I had built all these walls around us to try and keep him protected from the outside world that had ruined him in his youth. And now I was the one to blame; because he lost the war against himself.
