My brother was being uncharacteristically talkative.

Granted, he hadn't actually said a single word, but he'd actually been following along with my conversation, grunting occasionally and nodding his head, his eyes glittering like he was actually paying attention to what I was saying which was a miracle in and of itself.

"Anyway, so they were supposed to go out last night with the whole group, but since she hadn't been at school most of the week I figured she was just sick or something and would come since her friend was going with Carter, but nope. She never showed up, and even her friend Mori hasn't heard from her."

Grey nodded his head, seemingly intrigued with our conversation.

"And Colton was so pissed. I don't think I've ever seen that guy so mad. I asked him where she was and he almost hit me. Hit me! Can you fucking believe that? It's some bullshit, is what it is. I wonder where she is."

I hadn't been able to take my mind off of Cami all week, especially not since she'd pulled her great disappearing act.

She'd become the talk of the school after Colton's show he'd put on at the museum trip, and she had just blown school off for the rest of the week like she wasn't suddenly the school's newest shiny toy to talk about.

It was wrong, the things they were saying about her.

Camille Astor wasn't well known in social circles. She'd been best friends with Mori since coming to school at the start of the semester, but before that she was a complete mystery.

I'd even broken down to googling her name, but the internet was either scrubbed clean of anything mentioning her, or she never had anything noteworthy ever reported about her.

Of course, the Astor name had pulled up tons and tons of search results, being the prominent family name that it was, but ever since the scandal a few years ago that wiped most of them off the map, they'd gone silent.

Scarlett Astor hadn't gone silent, though. No, she'd been murdered by her husband, who was sitting pretty at San Quentin State Prison carrying out a life sentence for that one.

The articles wouldn't shut up about the money laundering, the cheating wife who'd stepped out on her husband with his work partner, and their twelve year old daughter caught in the crossfire who'd gone into foster care with a massive trust fund hanging over her head, being lorded over by the state of California, per her parent's will.

Who knew where that poor girl was now. The articles had never named her for her privacy.

Grey rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and I realized the time, wondering why my big brother had let me ramble on about some random girl for fifteen minutes straight without walking away.

"Hey, so, are you doing okay?"

Grey became deathly still. He always hated the 'how are you doing' question.

Partly because he physically couldn't answer, and partly because he didn't want to.

He settled on a gentle shrugging of his shoulders that I translated into meaning 'fine, I guess', but I could tell there was more to it.

The faraway look in his eyes told me a different story. There was a dimness in the blue of his irises that were normally bright and emotive.

Tonight, they were dark and stormy, like he was waging war in his own mind.

"You sure?"

I had no idea why I asked him that. He always shut down when someone pried, and I was no different.

There was a time that I hated my brother.

The time I found my ex-girlfriend in his bed.

The time he stole my Power Rangers two-in-one transforming action figure.

The time he scratched my car with his bike.

It all changed and became something else, something resembling resentment and less full of rage.

Everything changed when I found him hanging by his belt in the closet of his bedroom.

I shook the images out of my head of my once blue-faced brother and faced him, already knowing what I'd find.

There was the scowl that I'd grown so accustomed to.

I almost smiled at the familiarity of it all.

"What? You can't blame a brother for caring. I mean, well, you can, but you shouldn't."

Grey's eye roll felt like a warm hug.

The smile that he couldn't fight but hid behind his hand was like him telling me he loved me.

My priorities shifted when my brother did what he did. Our whole family changed, but my outlook changed more than anything else.

It was my life's goal to be there for him, even if he didn't want to be there for himself.

I wouldn't let him down again. Never again.

He let me drive him to school that morning instead of taking his motorcycle.

My little brother was scared for me.

Worried.

Anxious.

I couldn't blame him, either.

Trying to kill yourself would make any decent brother concerned, so it was no surprise that Parker had tried to go above and beyond with watching me and trying to take care of me after recovery and even now, three years later.

My medication had been regulated, I used my writing as a form of coping from my daily anxiety and my depression had subsided, at least for the moment, so I felt like I was in a good place aside from the constant annoyance that was therapy.

I absolutely hated that shit, and no amount of pleading from my mom would get me to interact with their psycho babble bullshit.

So I let the kid drive me to school, just to make him happier.

I should've been in college by now, halfway through my freshman year, but my attempt three years ago and the subsequent recovery I'd gone through pushed me back a grade year.

It wasn't that I was stupid, but I would've had to work day and night to make up every missed test, quiz, assignment, project, and whatever the fuck else they assigned us.

It was Monday morning, a brand new week, and we were starting fresh, so naturally I was wearing all black.

My clothing choices were mainly to keep people the fuck away from me, and partly because I enjoyed my style.

Black jeans and black combat boots, black shirt and a black leather jacket. The only thing with a little bit of color on me was the silver chain hanging from my belt loop with my wallet attached to it.

I gave no shits about the 'dress code'. My dad was the Dean. It was the one use of nepotism that I actually enjoyed.

No matter how hard I tried to fade into the background with the stoner kids and the 'emo' kids, it didn't matter--there were always eyes on me.

One of the drawbacks of having the famous 'Hartingrove' name meant that I was constantly on the radar, especially for girls who had the idea in their mind that they could 'fix' me.

There was no fixing depression, only working through it with time and day by day treatment that worked best for me and my own mind.

I stalked past row after row of lockers until I reached my destination, the metallic monster refusing to accept the combination on the lock three times until I finally got the damn thing right.

My new medication caused my hands to shake uncontrollably at the most inopportune times. For example: when lighting a cigarette. When typing a new story. When taking a test. When trying to open my locker.

I had just deposited my books when I noticed the hallway growing quiet around me.

A quick look around showed Colton, Parker, Carter, Victoria, Kennedy and Leah (or the shit-stains as I liked to call them) staring at a girl walking alone through the aisle lined with rows and rows of lockers.

She was beautifully tragic, in that 'I've seen too much of this world' kind of way.

She was beautiful in a way that felt desperate and unhinged, as if to look upon her was to stare too closely into the sun. Gaze too long and you were likely to end up with crispy retinas and a seeing-eye dog prescription for the rest of your life.

Red made a ring around dark doe eyes, puffing them out and making it seem like she'd been crying or hadn't had enough good sleep.

Her clothes hung limply on her frame, her long hair in loose waves that cascaded down her shoulders.

She reminded me of...well, me. The me from three years ago. The me who'd been a shell of a person and had viewed the world as my enemy rather than my salvation.

And this girl...she had that same distant and cold look in her eye, the same look that told me she didn't give a shit what happened to her.

What scared me even more than that, though, was the way that my brother was looking at her.

I'd just spotted the girl he couldn't stop obsessing over, and I could tell the instant his eyes registered what I'd seen seconds earlier.

Colton tried to stop her. He called her name and even reached for her arm but she flinched and yanked it back quickly, like his hand on her arm had burned her.

Parker tried next, saying her name gently, but her eyes were unseeing, unfeeling, unblinking.

I knew all too well how it felt.

I had been numb to everything. Numb, until the pain filled in the cracks at night where I'd rock myself over and over until I fell asleep sitting up for a few minutes, only to wake again and have a panic attack at the state of my body and my life.

I knew a broken shell of a person when I saw it for myself.

Jesus. Was this what my parents and my brother had to go through? Watching me live half-alive, a walking corpse?

My blood turned to disappointment in my body as I watched her duck her head from the leering states and blatant laughter at her expense while Parker did absolutely nothing to quiet their mocking.

He listened to their jokes about her, stood there with his asshole friends and just let it happen.

Even as a lone tear slid down her cheek, he stood silent and did nothing.

No one followed her as she ran down the hall to an empty classroom and shut the door behind her.

No one followed her. No one except for me.