Never Been Fixed (Demi Lovato)

Robyn's Story

THE GIRL'S POV

"Well, my name's Robyn." Ew. I despised saying my name aloud. It was so disgustingly ugly, just like the rest of me. "I live - well - lived, with my mom, dad, and two older brothers. They're 17 and 19 years old. I'm thirteen."

"No way!" Demi interrupted for the first time. "You're way too tiny to be 13! You can't be more than 10." Then she seemed to realize what she had said, and she turned bright red, not a good look to match her bright blue hair). "Oops, sorry," she blushed. "Go on."

I smiled. It felt good to have someone call me small, even though I knew she must be lying. I was fat, ugly, and obese, and that's all there was to it, especially compared to Demi. She was beautiful. Anyways, on with my story.

"I had a fortunate life. My parents both had really great high paying jobs and were quite intelligent. My 19 year old brother, Jax, is extremely gifted, like me, and my other brother, Dash, was pretty smart too, and all the girls loved him as well. We got along really well, and I looked up to them a lot. Even with our huge age gaps, we were always together, we were 'Jax, Dash, and Robyn' and people would always say our names in that order, always together, because that's how we always were.

Then, one day, when I was like 11, my mom found out Jax had been skipping school. A lot. Like every day. It was really unlike him, because he's in an accelerated program and always gets straight A's too. She and my dad confronted Jax, and found him at his desk in his room, writing his suicide note. They had caught him minutes before he committed. He had the noose ready and everything." I stopped to take a big breath. Talking about it still hurt, a lot, just knowing he wanted to kill himself, and I, his baby sister, who he loved more than anyone else, had been oblivious.

Demi sensed the pain I was in, and scooped me into her arms. I felt slightly ridiculous, a 13 year old girl sitting in a strange woman's lap, but the fangirl side of me was going completely berserk over the fact that I was being hugged by DEMI LOVATO. She crossed her arms protectively across my body, and I snuggled into her chest as she buried her face in my hair.

"You can stop if you want, sweetie," she whispered.

"No," I replied simply, and kept going. "Anyways, Jax went into rehab, and I had no idea what was happening to him as I was only 11. I knew he was sick, but that's all my parents had told me. The night they found out about him, they left me at home alone and took him to the hospital. Dash, I think, was in some sort of shock and had gone off somewhere to cool off, probably to his juggling club. He loves to juggle. Since I was alone, I creeped into Jax's room and peeked at his note. It wasn't just one note like I had thought. It was at least 6 different ones, written over the span of a few months. Each one planned for a different suicide date at the end of the note, and began with an apology, mostly to himself I guess, saying that he had chickened out again, because he was worried for me and couldn't bear to leave me. Hearing that...it made me feel so guilty. That's when I started cutting."

"Okay," Demi said, frowning, "but that doesn't explain how you ended up here. I mean, you don't need to tell me, but..." she said, trailing off.

"Oh right," I sighed bitterly. "My parents were really broken by Jax's depression, as was Dash. We all were. Jax had to stay in rehab for a few months. Dash decided to totally shut us out. He stayed in his room for hours on end. We could hear him sobbing, and there was nothing we could do. Of course this made my parents cry as well, so they would go and hide in their room too, so I was the only one left actually functioning properly in the household. I was only 11, but I was making my own meals, cleaning the house, and walking the 35 minutes to school everyday.

"School was hell. It wasn't that I got bullied. I was mildly liked, one of those people who was invited to all the popular girls' parties and stuff, but wasn't really popular myself, more just like a default, that backup friend that's there for everyone but had no one actually there for themselves. So yeah, it wasn't that I wasn't liked. It's just that it was awful. I think maybe I have some sort of anxiety or something, because no matter what we were doing, I was always so scared that something terrible was about to happen. My hands would quiver for no reason, and I would always be sweaty and weak. But anyways, yeah. That's when my life started to go downhill. I started cutting more often than before. At first, I didn't think I was addicted. I was depressed and felt so...wrong on the inside, but I think my logic was that there was nothing REALLY wrong with me, because depression wasn't something that you can see.

"So I started cutting even more, because it was something you COULD see. It was a daily reminder to myself about how fucked up I was. The only thing that could ever even begin to stop me from hurting myself was your music. I had always loved your music, but I became a REAL Lovatic the day I found out about your past, including rehab and everything. Because my mom was always so distant, I have this weird attachment thing where I get this connection with particular women and they suddenly become my idols and I just want them to hug me and be everything that my mom wasn't. That's what you are to me, Demi."

I took another breath, realizing how much I had been rambling on. Demi probably didn't care about any of this. I should just hurry up and get to the end.

"Basically," I concluded, "the hospital could only keep Jax safe for so long. He convinced them to discharge him, and he ended up making a successful attempt. We were all devastated. Dash blamed my parents for pushing Jax over the edge, so as soon as he graduated high school he completely cut contact with them and moved away for university. I haven't heard from him since. Meanwhile, my parents sank further and further into their own pits of guilt and despair. The worse they got, the worse they treated me. It just became this huge fucking circle of destruction. I thought I'd be able to deal with it, but soon enough it became clear that leaving was my only option. I got the fuck out of there and have been living on the streets ever since. It doesn't seem like they've been looking for me, so I guess that's it. I'm on my own now.