‘As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others,’

- Marianne Williamson

Chapter Twenty

“You sure you are going to be okay?” Ted questioned for the millionth time, his soft brown eyes looking down at his niece as he pulled up outside her therapist’s office. Azelie took a deep breath in as she nodded, a slight smile spreading across her lips.

“Yeah.. I’ll be fine,”

“Okay, well, I’ll be in the gallery checking up on things.. so just come over when you’re done and we can head over to see them,” Ted replied, still worry about his niece despite her constant reassurance that she was okay. It was easy to see she wasn’t, she hadn’t slept for two days, the evidence was in the dark skin below her eyes contrasting sharply with her pale skin, but he didn’t know what he could say to make everything better. He had wished countless times that he did, but the answer never came.

“Alright, see you then!” Azelie replied as she climbed out of the car, quickly looking both ways up and down the main street before running across the street and into the familiar offices of her therapist. She checked in with the receptionist, who instructed her to sit and wait for a few minutes.

As she waited her mind drifted back over the events of the yesterday. Sleep was one thing Azelie didn't do on Thursday night. She just lay awake, staring up at her roof in the darkness trying to fight all the thoughts in her head. How could she have forgotten! She used to count down to it - like it was her birthday or something, but it wasn't a birthday. It most definitely wasn't her birthday. She would count down to it, dreading it as the date approached. It was almost as if it was branded on her forehead, burning into her mind, and yet, this year she had forgotten about it.

'The Cole effect' was what Azelie had decided to call it. The idea that Cole made her forget about the reality of everything. Made everything lighter, better - made Azelie happier. The Cole effect should have been a positive thing - but it wasn't, at least not to Azelie.

The entire of Friday she’d managed to avoid him. He wasn’t at lunch because of football practice, and if she saw him in the corridor she would just turn and run in the opposite direction. Talking to Cole right now seemed like the worst thing in the world to Azelie. She couldn’t handle the questions, at least not at the moment. She knew that she would eventually have to face him, Cole was just brilliant at getting Azelie to talk.

“Azelie? You can go through now,” the blonde receptionist smiled over at Azelie, pulling her from her train of thought. Azelie instantly stood up from the comfy chair she had been sitting on and walked past the receptionist, not needing to be shown the way, as she made her own way to her therapist’s office, knocking lightly on the door while opening it slightly.

The office was different in contrast to the rest of the building. It was rather modern from the outside, and even the reception area was a large clear space, with large windows letting in lot’s of light; however the office was completely different to the reception. Covering the walls were high shelves that reached the ceiling, stacked high with books shoved into any available space. The floor was covered in a green carpet while there were piles and piles of papers and files all over the floor. The only free space in the actual room was probably a path to the therapist’s desk, and a small area around the desk for people to sit in.

“Ah Azelie, great to see you after our session... please, take a seat!” Dr Gardener smiled as she saw Azelie standing in the doorway of her office, her green eyes bright with interest. She had never had a patient like Azelie. It was quite a small town she worked in, so her clients usually were just the common issues like divorces or fears, but Azelie was different to everyone she had ever had, and therefore the woman looked forward to her sessions with the girl. It had taken her weeks before Azelie had even told her the full story of everything that had happened in her life. Of course she had read all about it from her file, but it was always different hearing it from the patient themselves. Even after seeing Azelie for a couple of months, she knew that she didn’t have her full trust, but she knew somebody that might.

Last week she had discouraged Azelie from becoming friends with Cole, telling her that it might hurt her progress in therapy. Azelie had obviously not liked that idea, and ended up storming out of the doctor’s office. For a girl who tried to distance herself from as many people, she sure was against the idea of cutting Cole out of her life. This had only fueled the therapists desire to uncover the full mystery that was Azelie Ryans.

“So how have things been this week? Sleeping much?” She asked as Azelie sat on the chair, not making much eye contact with the therapist. The questioned caused Azelie to let out a laugh,as her gaze floated up from the floor and begun scanning the room.

“Sleep is more like a foreign concept to me right now...” Azelie answered truthfully, still not making eye contact with the therapist. The fact that Azelie always struggled to look her in the eyes didn’t worry her in the slightest, despite the fact that often the patients that didn’t make much eye contact were usually the ones that trust her the least, but instead intrigued the therapist even more about her usual patient.

“You fight it don’t you? It’s not something you can help, like you don’t struggle to sleep...” the doctor replied.

“Just struggle to stay asleep,” Azelie added, looking at the therapist. She just nodded in reply, writing down something on her notebook.

“Right... so today if I’m correct, today is the anniversary of-” She began to say, but Azelie interrupted her so she couldn't say it.

“Yeah, that’s today...” Azelie quickly interrupted, not wanting to hear it. It plagued her constantly since she had remembered, playing on her mind and haunting all of her thoughts. She didn’t want to hear it, she just couldn’t. She didn’t want it to be real, it couldn’t be real.

“Azelie? Why don’t you want to hear it?” The therapist questioned, taken back from Azelie’s sudden interruption. Azelie’s gaze instantly dropped from the woman sitting opposite her and back down to the floor. When Azelie didn’t answer, the therapist made it clear that she wasn’t going to drop the subject without an sufficient answer from Azelie. “Have you said it out loud to yourself?”

“Of course, I’ve said it, I told you, did I not?” Azelie replied slowly, her voice low.

“Yes, but have you said it recently? Have you told anybody about it?” The therapist questioned, thinking of one boy in particular. Azelie’s gaze snapped up the therapist, realizing who the anybody had been inplied. Cole.

“He doesn’t know. He doesn’t need to know,”

“Maybe he doesn’t, but you need to say it!”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Azelie replied, her voice rising. She jumped up from the chair, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. Her therapist just kept a smile on her lips, staying quiet as Azelie paced about her office, thinking things over in her head, calculating what answer she should give. Azelie just stopped for a second, feeling a little bit too dizzy from pacing so furiously. She took a deep breath in, letting it calm her heart rate down as she began to see clearly once again.

“If we are to continue to be friends, I know he’s going to find out, and I will be the one that has to tell him. He told me about his past, it will only be fair that I share my past with him too... but I can’t tell him yet, I just can’t,” Azelie answered, her words making her feel worse and worse. Her therapist was right, she had to be able to say it herself. She was going to have to tell him, maybe one day soon, but how could she when she couldn’t even say it to herself?

We all have truths that we refuse to face. We don’t want to acknowledge that these things are truths, and aren’t just out imagination’s going wild. These’s are the truths that make us; and at the same time, break us. They are our deepest fears and thoughts.

“You sure you want to do this?” Ted questioned as he killed the engine, mirroring the scene from earlier outside the therapist. He looked over at his niece, a worried look etched once again on his face. This day was as painful for him as it was for Azelie, but his own feelings didn’t matter to him. Sure, he was upset, but Azelie was his responsibility - she came first.

Azelie turned to look out of the window, a sickening ball of emotions growing strong in her stomach. Every thing inside of her was telling her to turn away and run, but she couldn’t. She had to do this, she had to be here.

“Azelie?” Ted questioned, pulling Azelie back down to earth. She turned to him, a look of confusion forming on her features. “Are you sure if you want to do this?”

“No,” She answered truthfully, tears rising to her eyes. She tried to blink them away to stop them from fallingl, but she didn’t have time to as she was pulled into a tight embrace from Ted. Very quickly, the tears began to flow faster and faster down Azelie’s cheeks, her breaths coming out in loud chokes as she struggled to breathe. After a few minutes, Azelie began to calm down again, the tears slowly drying up.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Ted said, his voice full of concern for his niece. “They would understand if you couldn’t - they wouldn’t want to see you upset,” He added, slowly unwrapping his arms from around her. Azelie slowly shook her head, as she wiped away any remaining tears.

“I have to, Ted... I’ve not been able to visit them for the past seven years. This is the first year I’ve been able to,” Azelie replied. “Just, let me do this... please?” She begged, her eyes filling up with tears again. Ted slowly nodded, understanding what she had said. One of the first things Azelie had done when she had moved at the start of the summer was visit her parents, something her aunts had never let her do.

They both slowly climbed out of the car and walked into the grave yard, Ted not leaving Azelie’s side. Azelie’s mind flickered back to the day Cole took her to the same grave yard to tell her about his mother. For some reason, it comforted Azelie a small bit knowing that she wasn’t the only one that had lost a parent. Sure Cole still had his father while Azelie had lost both of hers, but he would still understand some of her pain, unlike anybody else she had ever known.

Azelie’s eyes scanned across the grave yard, trying to see if there was anybody else around grieving for a lost one (or dancing on the grave of their enemy) but there was nobody. She had Ted, but apart from him, she was alone in the world, standing in her own grave yard of bodies. The thought itself caused Azelie physical pain to think. She couldn’t understand why she had to be so messed up in the head, would it not be simper to just end everything? Why hadn’t she? Ted was always busy in the gallery, she would have plenty of time with a razor, and there was an entire medicine cabinet at home full of pills to pop, just a handful and she wouldn’t wake up from nightmares. There were plenty of bridges to jump, she why didn’t she, when letting go of the rails is such an easy act, it seemed impossible for Azelie to think of... why?

“Azelie?” A voice cried, pulling Azelie from her nightmare. She looked up, expecting to find Ted calling to her, but instead found somebody completely different standing in front of her. Her heart beat raced as all of the questions she had been thinking were answered.

Why didn’t she let of the rail and why didn’t she stay at home with the razor, or make her way through the medicine cabinet.. because there was always that one boy who pulled her back over the rails, the boy she couldn’t let dow, much and all as she’d like to.

“Cole... what are you doing here?” Azelie questioned, hardly believing her eyes. This had been the last place she had expected Cole to appear! Sure this was where his mother was buried, but she had considered it safe from Cole, for today at least, why the hell would he be in a grave yard?

“Well... you ignored me all of Friday, and I wasn’t going to even ask you what was wrong, I knew to leave it if you didn’t want to tell me... but then I got a phone call, like an hour ago telling me to meet you here,” Cole explained, his green eyes not leaving Azelie’s, seeing just how broken she felt.

“Who called you?” She asked, confused as to what Cole was saying. Slowly, his gaze flickered from Azelie to Ted, who was stood beside her.

“Dude! You were suppose to say that you decided to have a picnic!” Ted cried, looking angrily over at Cole, who just shrugged in reply. Azelie looked up at Ted in anger, slightly confused to what the hell Ted had done.

“You called him and told him to meet me here?” she questioned, turning to face him. Ted quickly saw that he was in trouble, Azelie getting ready to argue with her uncle over Cole. He remembered how Azelie had inherited her mother’s rage, which had never been something you wanted to be on the receiving end of, and he quickly began to back away, putting his hands in the air.

“I’m going back to the car!” He quickly cried, spinning around on his heels and practically breeaking into a full run back down the path to get to the car. Azelie let out a sigh of frustration as she turned back around, trying to figure out what she should do next.

“Look if you don’t want me here, I can leave.. the last thing I want to do is push you into telling me whatever it is that you have going on up there in your head!” Cole said, his voice soft and full of understanding. Azelie just stayed quiet, looking down at the path, trying to figure out what she should do or say. Cole took her silence as his answer, as he smiling softly at her. He walking past her, making his way to his car.

“Wait!” She cried unexpectedly, not wanting to be left alone. She didn’t feel alone with Cole; he was on the same boat as her, he had been through the same things and she found comfort in that. He turned around, a look of question stretching across his face. “Come with me,” She added, her voice barely louder than a whisper. Cole immediately walked back to her, using all his strength to keep down the smile that was dying to form on his lips. She hardly noticed when his hand held onto her’s, he didn’t know why she was here, but judging from her eyes it wasn’t for a party.

They walked for about five minutes until she finally stopped in front of two graves, Azelie squeezing his hand just that bit tighter. He read the writing engraved on the stone, before double checking to make sure he read it right... he just couldn’t believe it. When he told Azelie about his mother, he didn’t think she would ever understand his pain. He had always thought that nobody ever would, but here he was standing next to somebody who had lost twice as much as he had.

“You lost both of them?” he asked, breaking the silence between them. She just nodded, unable to look away from the graves. She was trying to swallow her feelings, keep them hidden and buried deep within her, but she was finding it increasingly impossible with every second more she spent with Cole. This wasn’t even half of what she had to tell him, her story was far more complicated than two dead parents. This is the drain her life went down.

“How did they die...” he questioned slowly, unsure if it was okay to ask. His green eyes connected with her brown ones, the dark colour inviting him in.

“It was a truck driver... fell asleep at the wheel and drove into our car... I was the only one that survived,” she whispered, emotions breaking out from Azelie. She couldn’t hold them down anymore, all it would do would drive her insane. It took just was a single tear to roll down Azelie’s cheek before Cole wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly as she buried her head into his shoulder, trying to hide from the world in the arms of her best friend.

He was more than just a friend to her now, she had begun to tell him her story. She trusted him with the start of her story, she trusted herself to let him close. She had promised that he wouldn’t end up like the rest - nobody in this town would. She wouldn’t allow it. Seven was enough on the list.

This was only the beginning of everything. God knows where they were going to end up when she finished it... probably on the edge of a bridge.

I really should start uploading regularly again, I promise I will! I really want to get this story finished so I can move on to happier things! Anyhoo, sorry for the wait (it wasn't all my fault!!) and I really hope you did! (if you did, would you mind clicking on the little vote button, it would mean a lot, also leaving a wonderful comment would be apperciated!)

The song on the side is the wonderful All Time Low's Therapy :) Who I saw in concert 8 days ago for the second time.. and met them for the second time.. WAAAAAH POST CONCERT DEPRESSION!!

Also more news is I've entered the special awards! Under Best trailer :D If you want to see it, the link to the trailer is in the external link! And It would also be super duper appreciated if you could nominate me when the time comes for the award! It would really mean a lot :D xx

Next upload is hopefully Monday! :D

Until next time!

Unicorn out! :D