Never Alone

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Shane had come to sit next to Isabella, sliding his back down the wall until they were both staring out at the surrounding darkness. There was a sort of silence between them, despite the pulsing beat polluting the cool air. It was almost as if two waves of the same frequency had finally found one another and the surrounding atoms were charged with the level of understanding that passed between them. 

"You're pretty amazing too, you know?" Shane broke the silence in a soft tone, placing the beer bottle beside him as he tilted his head back to look up at the stars. "To be through what you've been through and come out the other side? That's pretty damn amazing."

Isabella raised her eyebrows in surprise, tilting her head slightly so that she could just about see him in the corner of her eye. "You...you've read my blog?" It still didn't really explain how he had recognised her. She had never actually shown her face. Although, come to think of it, research into some old news articles would have done the job.

Shane shrugged, completely unperturbed by the situation. "Yeah...that and I have a friend who's met you. Vaughn. He's a massive fan of yours. How's Elliot these days?"

Isabella almost fainted from the amount of information he seemed to know about her. It made her wonder if he thought knowing that much about a stranger was normal, if perhaps the world knowing his every move had gotten to his head.

But he just laughed at her shocked expression, feeling the need to give an explanation as he took in the pure astonishment in her eyes. "Vaughn wouldn't shut up about how awesome you were, and he also kept going on about how you and Elliot would make the cutest couple. So I asked if he knew where you and Elliot met. And he mentioned Never Alone Helpline. And, well, that intrigued me because...uh...I kind of created Never Alone Helpline."

And there went the sequel to Isabella's unhinged jaw. "You...you...but...uh...what?" New information was running around her brain like some sort of broken record only able to make uncoherent sounds. All the words in her brain had been reduced to a miniscule font. A font so small that she could no longer read the binary code of how to function.

He laughed again. But it lacked humour this time. He took another swig from the beer bottle, wincing slightly when the cool liquid contaminated the chords of his throat. "It was my idea. Vaughn and Eddie set it all up." Isabella was beginning to notice the way that his words bumped into one another, slurring together into one, big, sloppy sentence. She briefly wondered where he had received the alcohol. "Inspired by my own experience." Definitely at least a little tipsy. He sounded far too proud of himself. But he must have been weaving in and out of his drunken state because he had been fine a few moments ago.

"Experience?" She questioned. For some reason.

His laughter had some warmth to it this time. But he still didn't exactly sound happy. "Yeah. I had phone conversations with a girl." He paused and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and pressing his head into his knees. "She died."

Isabella wasn't really sure how to respond to that. But she didn't have to. Because Shane's shoulders had begun to heave with heavy sobs before she could even open her mouth to speak. And she felt the need to wrap her arms around him. So she did. And she felt the need to answer truthfully when he looked up at her with watery eyes and asked her how to deal with death. So she did.

"I have no idea."