ethereal

thirty nine

A/N: Ansel Elgort plays Eliot Steel, Kylie's brother. I listed that someone else does and I don't know how to change it.
-Cat :-)

Kylie's P.O.V.

I woke up to the sound of beeping. Am I dead? God I already regret doing this. What will happen when they find my dead body? What will happen when Michael, Calum, Ashton, and Luke find out? Will they cry? Probably not. Will my family cry?

"She's in here." I hear a voice say quietly in the distance.

I pulled together the strength to open my eyes to see Elliot tip toeing in. So I'm not dead.

"Elliot?" I called out to him.

He turned to me with a startled look, obviously thinking that I was still fast asleep. I gave him a half smile before realizing that he was running towards me. He wrapped his arms around me, making sure he didn't bump into my arms.

"Don't ever do that to yourself again. I don't care how much anything fucking hurts on the inside. You can punch me in the face and break my phone, anything. Just don't do that again." He looked at me with glazed over eyes.

Had he actually been crying over me? That's stupid, his tears aren't worth it. As much as I say I hate him, I would never want him to be hurting on the inside or outside. Oh.

"Elliot, it's okay! I'm fine!" I laughed, waking up from my thoughts.

He shook his head with a crease in between his eyebrows. "No, you're really not. What happened to my happy, carefree, little sister?"

"She grew up."

"We both know that's not the truth."

I sighed, "Luke Hemmings happened to her."

But before Elliot could reply, the doctor was already walking into my room to see if I felt funny, due to the amount of blood they had to inject into me.

•

The doctor had given me 15 stitches and a cream to put on them. He advised for me to stay the night, which I agreed to, not wanting to see the bloody mess in my bathroom at home.

Elliot had told me that he would be back in the morning to pick me up because he had a few things to take care of.

•

My brother came right at 9:00 in the morning to pick me, saying that he had a surprise for me.

I fell asleep in the car, nothing good on the radio.

When I woke up, Elliot was gently shaking my shoulder. "You ready? Let's go."

I stepped out to notice that we were at the airport. I turned around to see my parent's plane. I looked at Elliot once again before he told me,

"Fuck it, we're going back to Australia."

"What?"

"You were so upset over missing Luke and the others, that you did... what y-you did... right?" He tilted his head slightly.

"Uh, yeah." I lied.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see my parents.

"Hey honey, you alright?" My mother asked, my father busy on his phone.

He soon shut it off when I replied. "Yeah I'm fine now."

•

After a long and awkward as fuck plane ride, our parents dropped Elliot and I off at the Australian airport. They were heading to off to Asia for a few business meetings. They had rebought our old house, but we were only planning to stay here during the summers.

After arriving and unpacking, I revisited every room. We had decided to not hire maids and cooks. We wanted to live as normal as we could in this mansion of a house. We also decided to only take two cars, our black Range Rover and red 350 z.

I climbed into the red car, driving to Michael's house. I missed his brotherly nature in my life, not that Elliot's wasn't enough.

Once pulling up to his curb, I got out and locked my car. I ran up to his door and, with a big grin, rang his doorbell. The door opened up after a few moments, revealing Michael.

"Kylie?"

I nodded excitedly and he quickly pulled me into a tight hug. I laid my head on his shoulder, knowing that I'd missed his hugs dearly.

"Kylie," He pulled back after a few moments. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I gave him a half smile.

He frowned. "You scared me so much. Did you..."

I slowly nodded and showed him my stitched up wrists.

"Hey Mike! What's taking so long?" Another familiar Australian voice called out.

I looked past Mikey to see Luke. He stared at me before noticing my held out hands. Before he could see anything, I shoved my hands into my pockets. Michael watched the whole scene go down before awkwardly stepping out of the room and downstairs, where I now assume the rest of the boys are.

Luke took careful steps towards me until he was two feet away. He held out his hands expectantly and stared into my eyes. His eye contact made my stubbornness fade away as I slowly placed my hands in his. He turned them and examined the stitches on each wrist and arm. Some cuts were left unstitched , due to their shallowness, but we're still very noticeable.

"Why Kylie?"

"I think you know very well why." I removed my hands from his grip.

"I didn't mean that stuff and you know it. I told you that I would say things I didn't mean when we fought." He pulled at the roots of his hair. "Just don't do this again. You promised me you wouldn't do this again. I told how much it hurt me. Didn't those letters mean anything to you?"

"Obviously not to you." I pulled my jacket sleeves over my wrists, creating 'sweater paws'.

He sighed. "You know how much they mean to me."

"You know how much you mean to me. Yet you say that stuff to me! Do you know how hard it is to have someone you love reject you?! You wouldn't have said that stuff if you hadn't thought of it first!" I calmed my voice down a bit. "I cut myself 30 times that day. I went unconscious. I woke up in the hospital. I learned two things that day, that you're an asshole, and that you could care less about me. I was stupid to think you would ever love me."

"I-"

"I wasn't finished." I told him the same exact words he said to me, a sarcastic smile spread across my face.

I turned around to leave, deciding that I would visit the others when Luke wasn't around.

"I do care about you. I love you. I love you so fucking much." He sounded as if he was about to cry.

I turned around to face him. "Prove it."

Tears in his eyes, he ripped off his flannel. He held his swollen arms out to me. His arms were covered in slits, some deep and some shallow. I looked up at him to see a tear roll down his cheek.

"L-Luke..." I said in a shaky voice.

A/N: Cliffhanger again! Sorry about that, but the next chapter will pick up right where it left off.