[[[all of my flaws]]][[[part ii]]]

58.

I could kill him. Why couldn't he tell me what was going on? I thought, obviously wrongly, that we'd grown quite close over the last two weeks. And now nothing. He still couldn't look me in the eye. Part of me wanted to tell him to go to hell, I was out of here in 6 days. But the other part, the stronger, stupider part, wanted to help him even if he didn't want me to. Like he'd helped me.

We were in a hotel that night, thankfully, and after they'd done some recording with Mark at the venue, everyone said goodnight and headed to bed. I waited ten minutes before going to his room.

He didn't answer at first. And I could hardly shout through the door and wake up the whole floor. I text him that I was about to go downstairs and get a spare key. I heard his phone ping from right behind the door and then the distinctive sound of a lock opening. I let myself in.

'Lily, I don't want to talk about it.' He was sat on the floor by the door. Empty beer bottles surrounding him. I crouched down in front of him and held his hands. He still wouldn't look at me, so I forced him to, putting my hand under his chin and pulling his head up. I could see he'd been crying. And that was the worst thing I'd ever seen. This strong man had been crippled by whatever demons were inside his head. 'I fucked up.' He sobbed.

'Everythings going to be ok.' I told him and took him in my arms. I'd only ever seen him cry once and that was when Steven had broken into our home and tried to kill me. But this was different. No one was in danger. Were they?

Despite my pleading, he wouldn't talk. He just kept saying how sorry he was and that we couldn't do this anymore.

'Look, I don't care about 'us' or whatever it is we are. I just need to know you're ok. We're friends remember?' But this seemed to upset him more.

I got him up from the ground and into bed. I lay behind him, my arms wrapped around his stomach, listening to his shuddering breath. I knew he was trying to stop himself from crying, but he needed to get it out. Whatever it was. I stayed all night just holding him and telling him there was nothing that couldn't be fixed.

By first light in the morning he had finally dropped off to sleep. I covered his curled up frame with the quilt and crept out silently. I took myself back to bed and managed to get a few hours sleep before my alarm went off. We had a busy day of more interviews, photo shoots, meet and greats and recording. I could hardly drag myself out of bed to stop my alarm ringing on my phone by the tv. But when I did I noticed a text.

*thank you x*

I hoped he felt better and he could deal with whatever it was he was fighting.