cuts | 5sos

chapter one

My life had become a enormous mystery, the question was, how did I still hold on? I mean, how much can a seventeen year old girl handle, after the hundreds of cuts on my wrists and legs, the high amount of times that I just thought about ending it, and the fact that even my own brother abandoned me.

I was so hurt.

I was trying to find some new clothing, really a few new black shirts and tops that looked cute and covered my wrists. Nobody knew about my cuts, nobody had to know about them and so I just did an extremely good job at hiding them.

Even though I know that it's bad, there's something in me that can't stop. I have to do it, even though I'm already hurt, I tend to hurt myself even more. I keep a knife hidden under my bed, and that's what I use, nobody would miss it anyways.

I never show them to anybody, and I usually skip P.E. because nobody really seems to notice when I'm there or when I'm gone.

I smiled at the sweatshirts that were laying neatly stacked on top of each other, next to that, some flannels that looked really amazing.

Flannels reminded me of my older brother Michael, older than me, but we were always really close. Until his band got famous and that's actually when he abandoned me, he never spoke to me again, he decided to leave his past behind and not tell the world about it.

My mother could care less, after my dad's suicide she never really got home, she was always sleeping around or at some low-life club seducing men who were in a midlife-crisis, probably cheating on their wives.

That made it basically me, myself and I.

I liked one of the flannels and grabbed it, I was going to fit it once I found a few more things, but I really liked the one thing I had found right now.

I sighed while remembering that one night when Michael came home, news that was exciting for him made my heart break, he told me his band got a sick opportunity and that he had to move to London. He made me promise to not go after him and I promised him I wouldn't. I did want his favourite sweatshirt, I wore it to this day, even after two years.

You wouldn't say that my life was particularly easy, I usually struggled everyday, I sat alone at school during lunch break since I didn't really have any friends and I build up high walls. Some senior boys thought it was funny to laugh at me, they called me names that didn't even make any sense, except for maybe two, psycho and emo. 

I'm slowly turning crazy.

And nobody cared.

I often thought about suicide, I wish I could go to my father and that I wouldn't have pain anymore. I wish I could just stop with suffering and just no longer be in pain. My dad was always the one that cheered me up.

But like any other person, my dad had a side that even my mother didn't know about, he belonged to one of the biggest drugs-selling gangs of Sydney, but when he lost a deal, a two million dollar loss, he couldn't take it and he killed himself.

He made a note saying that it was better, that we - his wife and kids were now safe. He said this was all to protect us, and I wish I could have gone with him.

There was a difference, the feeling that my dad wasn't on this planet was there and I learned how to deal with it. But knowing that Michael was on this planet somewhere, walking around, having the perfect rock star life killed me.

I never got to meet his friends Calum, Luke and Ashton. I didn't know whether it was because they didn't want to meet me, or that Michael was embarrassed of me, but I did understand why, actually.

I just wished he kept an eye on me, but he completely let go of his past. Michael's hair has been dyed a lot since he got famous. And now, it was red.

And since they got quite a lot op publicity, I found out some things about the other three too. There was Luke, the one with the bottom lip piercing, Calum, the dude with the tattoo's and then there was Ashton he always wore bandanas.

I found a great pair of black skinny jeans and grabbed them to put those on too.

I didn't try to reach out to Michael, he was probably way too busy with the band, and I promised him I wouldn't. I knew for a fact they were almost ending their tour, the last few shows were in Australia. Since they lived in Los Angeles now they were probably back there. But there always was a thought in the back of my head that maybe he'd come back.

I was scared, what if Michael came home to finally check up with me. I could take care of myself and that wasn't the problem. I actually didn't want him to come home. He abandoned me a year ago.

By the way, I'm Hannah Clifford. People usual call me just Hannah, nothing special. My friends used to call me Han, but since I didn't really hang out with them anymore, I didn't get to hear that name for the last two years.

Something I'm thankful of is that I don't get annoyed by the paparazzi. They pretty much don't know Michael dear had not the best life before he left. Nobody in his new life knew he had a sister. And I'm not even sure if his band mates actually know of my existence.

Not that I really cared, if somebody from the paparazzi found out I was related to Michael, I would be all over the news, they would want to know everything from my life and I wouldn't get left alone to be honest, I wasn't really up for that life.

I saw an amazing bicker jacket and grabbed my size.

I think that since he left, my self harming only got worse. I used to self harm myself a bit when my mom would get home and she would get mad and attack me, but Michael was always there to protect me. Since he left, the bruises got bigger, and so did the cuts.

"Hannah?" I turned around to see one of my old friends staring at me, with disbelieve, because I was Hannah and nobody actually talked to me, and I didn't really like socialising. So this ment I needed to end my shopping trip.

"Hi.." I said turning around and looking at the ground.

"How are you?"

Fucked, depressed, lonely, abandoned, sad.

"Fine."

I wasn't though. And any human with a brain could tell I wasn't looking good. There were hanging big and dark bags under my eyes and my oily long brown hair was pulled back in to a ponytail.

"You look tired.."

Well, she did point that out. The beautiful girl standing in front of me was Alyssa. She used to be my best friend, until she got this stupid boyfriend named Toby. She stopped hanging out with me until she just didn't talk to me anymore.

"How's.. uhm.. Toby?"

I tried to change the subject because I didn't want to look sensitive and hurt. If we were going to talk about that I was tired, or show off my cuts, she would probably find out about my self harm.

"He.. Ehm.. Moved."

She looked down at her feet, she looked sad and broken to be honest, I didn't know what to say.

"You guys.."

"Yeah.. He moved to Adelaide and then I found out he cheated on me."

What a douche bag, if this had happened and we were still friends, I would've gotten really angry at him. But me and Alyssa weren't close, we were closer to being strangers than friends.

"It's okay.. I kind of knew about what he was doing anyways."

"Right.."

"How's, well, Michael."

"We, uhm.. don't talk, actually."

I was fighting against the tears, because I didn't want to cry in front of her.

"Oh.."

We didn't really know what we needed to say, Toby and Michael were closed stories, because they were emotional. I smiled her softly, "I'll talk to you later." She said when her phone started ringing and she left me alone, how I was usually.

I hated my life, I wish my brother was here.

I just want Michael, not the famous rockstar from 5 Seconds of Summer, just Michael, my brother.