"Seren! Get your spoiled ass down here." Cassidy and I both heard the angry voice bellow up the stairs.

Cassidy had wandered into my room about an hour ago, my phone outstretched in her hand. It had rang for about fifteen minutes straight, with the same ominous UNKNOWN flashing across the screen with every ring. Cassidy had tried to talk to me. She made a valiant effort. She asked me about my likes, my dislikes, my favourite things to do, my favourite subjects in school. Eventually, after only receiving one word answers from me, she stopped. Cassidy laid her body beside mine on my bed after that, glancing up at my face in both curiosity and concern every so often.

At the sound of my Dad's voice, Cassidy jumped off the bed in alarm. No doubt due to the authoritative tone the seven words were dripping with.

I didn't blame her, I would have been alarmed too, in a different world. In a world that I'm sure many teenage girls live, where the biggest thing to fear was the promise of your parent's anger and disappointment.

I didn't live in that world, though. Thanks to Jax, I lived in a world where I was now scared of one thing and one thing only. Him.

I sighed as I heard my Dad stomping up the stairs. Each thump that was caused by his foot on the carpeted steps was followed with a passive aggressive sigh. Cassidy's expression was growing more and more alarmed by the second.

"Can you explain to me... oh. Who's this?" My Dad's voice changed from the stern one of a angry parent, to close to his light and playful voice he usually used, at the knowledge that I wasn't alone in my room.

Cassidy looked to me first, likely in hopes that I would spare her the awkwardness and introduce her to my Dad. I didn't though, so she turned back towards my father.

"Hi, sir. I'm Cassidy, Seren's friend." Cassidy's voice came off as timid, and I realized I had never heard her appear anything close to shy before.

"Oh." My Dad looked towards me in questioning. I know what he was thinking. It's been a long time since I've had a friend over that wasn't Olivia, Trinity, Noah, Cain, Zane, Benji, Tyler... or Jax. Usually all of them together.

"Well, it's always nice to meet one of my daughters friends, Cassidy, but if you'll excuse us, my daughter has some explaining to do." My Dad continued, smiling weakly at Cassidy.

"Right." Cassidy said as she moved towards my bedroom door. "I'll call you, Seren."

After Cassidy had left my room, and we heard the front door open and close again, signalling her departure from my house, my Dad let out yet another sigh and sat cautiously on my bed.

"The school called me." He sounded disappointed in me. I can't remember the last time he's sounded disappointed in me. My Dad always told me that I was the perfect daughter. Little did he know, I was the opposite.

"They told me you've barely been in attendance in your classes for the last week." Dad stated when I didn't answer.

I didn't answer because I didn't have anything to say. Maybe old Seren would have turned on her charm, and attempted to talk her way out of this. Not now though. The matter of going to school was simply insignificant to me, as was the knowledge that my Dad was disappointed in me. Maybe there were things that mattered right now, but I couldn't think of any. Not after what just happened. Not after Jax's words. His threats.

"Nothing to say?" His voice grew angrier as he continued speaking. "I thought I raised you better than this, Seren."

I wanted to say, you've barely raised me at all, but I didn't.

"Where have you been, if not at school?" He asked me.

"Here." Mostly, anyways.

My Dad's eyebrow shot up at my answer. "You've been staying home by yourself instead of going to school?"

"Yep." I could feel the attitude in my voice. I could feel the anger that was barely hidden by the single syllable.

"Why?" He moved closer to me, reaching out to touch my arm. I jerked it away, so he couldn't.

"What's going on? Is there something happening at school? Something that's making you not want to go?" Dad's voice had softened, and he was looking at me in way that he hasn't looked at me in years, like he actually cares about what I have to say.

"Maybe." I muttered, shrugging. "There's..."

My dad cut me off before my words came out, however, so I guess he didn't care what I have to say, after all.

"Whatever it is, you need to be more mature about it. You can't skip school because of any old inconvenience, Seren, I thought you knew better. You know I give you a lot of freedom, because I trust you to make the right decisions. You're not making the right decisions right now. What happened? You've had everything under control for so long now." My Dad stood up from the bed, slapping his hand down on the fabric of my duvet for emphasis.

"School, every day. Or you're going to start losing your privileges. You know something, Seren, you know how many teenage girls would kill for your life? To live how you live? And yet you have no appreciation for it. You should learn to be more grateful." He paused again, looking down at me with a look in his that made me numb again.

"I'm disappointed in you. You need to do better. You need to be better. There is no excuse for acting this way, Seren. There's nothing that could have happened in this privileged life of yours that warrants skipping school for a week straight. No excuse." His words continued into my room even after he had walked through the door.

I sank back into my bed after he left the room. I thought about getting up and closing the door, but I didn't. I didn't have the energy to do it. My father's words didn't surprise me as I thought them over. Would they surprise anyone? People had looked at me the same way my whole life. The beautiful girl who's nothing more than that, the beautiful girl who has everything given to her, and what's not given to her just falls at her feet. What could possibly be wrong in life when you look the way I look? And why would you be worried about her? Why would you see her?

He was right about one thing. I used to have everything under control. Even when I was drowning on dry land, plainly in front of everyone, I was still in control. I could control how much water filled my lungs. I could control when I took a singular gasp of air. I could control when I wanted to tread the water and when I wanted to sink, instead.

I have no control now. Jax took it all. I needed to get it back.

My phone rang again, the same annoying ringtone that has been irritating my ear drums all day. I was about to pick it up and throw it at the wall, in hopes of silencing it, when I saw it wasn't UNKNOWN calling yet again, it was Zane.

"Hello?" I answered as I pressed my phone against the side of my face.

"Seren?" Zane's voice wasn't the calm it usually was. "I just got off the plane, I have like three voicemails from Cassidy but I called you first. Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine." I told him. Everything is fine in the way it always is. It's all fine.

"Seren, I know that voice. Talk to me, babe, please." Zane said.

"What voice?" I asked him. It's just my voice.

"That one. The one where your anxiety is about to take over and you shut down." Zane said the words like he was reading them from a script, he didn't have to think about them. He already knew it was true, because I've lost control. I've shown him that it was true.

I sighed, knowing he was right, but annoyed that he was right at the same time. "Jax came to the house."

"What?!" Zane's voice raised as he barked the word out. "Are you okay? Did you talk to him? What happened?"

"I'm fine." I muttered. I ignored the rest of the questions. I don't know why I did. It was Zane after all.

"You're not fine. Tell me what happened." Zane urged me.

"He came to the door. Cassidy answered. He didn't talk to me." I relayed the events to him, leaving the details out.

"And?" Zane asked me.

"And what?" I'm so tired of talking about Jax. I didn't want to talk about Jax. I didn't want to think about Jax.

"Fuck." Zane muttered, I think it was in defeat. I knew that he knew I wasn't going to give anything up. "I should come back."

"Don't." Even in my current numbed state of panic, I still felt the guilt of Zane's disruption of his own life, due to my problems.

Maybe my dad was right. Maybe I was just being immature about this all.

"I'm fine, Zane. I promise. My dad is home, everything is good. You don't need to come back." I willed my voice to change from the ice cold tone, don't ask me if it worked. I can't tell anymore. Everything feels the same.

"Okay..." Zane's voice came out hesitantly. "Listen, I'm going to call Cassidy back, and I'm going to get her to come pick you up. You can go to O's house with her. Gavin will be there, you can even stay there tonight. I don't know, at least I won't lose my mind worrying about you."

"No thanks." I told him, barely letting him finish his sentence.

My Dad was right. I wasn't making good decisions right now. I wasn't making the right decisions. I used to make the right decisions. I used to know what to do. I used to be able to tread this cold water that I know as my life as gently as possible. I used to avoid anyone asking questions. I used to be able to avoid any detections. I used to refuse to let anyone know who I am. Who I was.

"Are you sure?" Zane asked me.

I felt a stab of pain at the emotion in his voice. I knew he was worrying about me. But that's the problem, right? I cared. I used to not care.

"I'm sure." I told him. I knew where I was going to be tonight, anyways. I had known from the second I had noticed my pill bottle was empty. It was always going to end up this way. There wasn't any other options. As much as I'm sure it would be nice to hang out with Cassidy, and O and Gavin, I couldn't.

I just, couldn't.