"I just do. I can feel it in my heart, and you know what Y/N/N? My heart has never been wrong before."
That night, the two of you fell asleep against each other, your head resting against Demi's chest as your father took Dallas to the emergency room. You soon found out by overhearing other people's conversation that your sister had been found with a pharmacy of drugs in her system, and it was only a mere week before your sister got arrested by the police for underage drinking. Your mother and father decided enough was enough, and Dallas was sent off to a rehab facility.
At first, you were livid with your parents for sending Dallas away, but when she came back, any anger you had quickly went away as you realised that you had gotten Dallas back. The real Dallas. Before you knew it, Demi had booked a movie this time which had forced not just her and your mom, but Madison too, to LA once again. This time, you were too old to be allowed to go as you were due to be starting middle school soon, with Dallas and your father being the only company you really had.
All through the summer, Dallas bought you along with her to the voice acting jobs she had acquired, making you ecstatic as sometimes the people there would even let you voice a character if they needed an extra person. You remember getting a pay slip one day as a reward for your hard work, and Dallas took you out to the mall to get you the iPod touch you had begged for for months. It was safe to say that your parents were proud of how you and Dallas were coping at home, but Demi was now a different person.
The next time you saw Demi, she wasn't in good shape. Her voice was raspy and she had lost a lot of weight, her ribs and hips poking into you when she hugged you. You tried to figure out what was wrong with your other big sister as you stared across rooms, observing her unusually quiet behaviour. Demi had always been loud and obnoxious, bubbly and full of energy. Now, she had become the same shell of a person you had seen Dallas become less than a year ago, and you were determined to not let it happen again.
You went storming into Demi's room one night after hearing her faint cries through the wall. You demanded to know why she was crying and to know what to do to make her stop, but your sister only looked at you horrified as she frantically searched for a hoodie across the floor.
"D-Demi, it's warm in here, y-you don't n-need a hood-d-die." You have always had trouble with your D's when it came to your stutter. Demi only shook her head as she ignored your point, causing you to march over to her and grab her arms to drag her back over to her bed, but as soon as your hand hit her wrists, she hissed and pulled them away.
You glanced down at your hands, only to see blood all over them from where you had touched Demi.
"D-Demsie? You're b-bleeding. Why are you b-bleeding?" You asked, your tone lighter this time.
"Don't worry Y/N."
"I a-am worried about it D-Demi! P-People don't just b-b-bleed!" You despised your stutter in times like these where seriousness was crucial.
"Y/N —"
"O-Oh my g-god. You d-did this yours-self." You put the pieces together almost immediately when you spied the razor blade sitting on the red-stained bedsheets across your sister's bed.
You were only young, but your maturity was far beyond the number attached to your name. No one ever usually took you seriously, whether it be because of your stutter, your age, or the baby face you carried around every day. But in that moment, you could see Demi realising that you had grown since she last saw you. You weren't a little girl anymore.
"Things are just so hard right now. But don't worry about me. I promise I'm gonna be okay, I promise." As far as you were concerned, a promise was a promise and Demi would be the last one to break it. But as the months dragged by and you kept hearing and seeing what your sister was doing to herself, you doubted that she would be okay if she kept living like this.
About a month after this ordeal, your mother and father switched places as your mother came home to look after you, Dallas and Madison and your father went to look after Demi who was touring with the Jonas Brothers. She was living her dream, yet it was obvious that she was falling further and further down a path that she wouldn't be able to find her way back down. Everything seemed to be going well, seemed to be under control, until you answered the landline one night.
"D-De La Garza-Lovato r-residence." You greeted politely, just as your mother had taught you when you were young.
"Y/N, where's your mother?" It was your father. It was unusual for him to be calling at this time of night — normally he would be backstage with Demi who was performing.
"D-Dad?"
"Yeah babe, it's me. Your mom — is she there? I really need to talk to her Y/N."
You fretted, looking around the room. "I think she's u-upstairs getting r-r-ready for her high school r-reunion thingy. D-Dad, what's going on? Is there anything I can d-do to h-help?"
"Just find your mother okay?"
"O-Okay. D-Don't hang u-up."
You ran upstairs, your legs taking you as fast as humanly possible. You had a feeling something had gone terribly wrong, and at the sound of your mother's cries, you forced yourself to race even faster.
"M-Momma?!" Engulfing your hysterical mother in a hug, she looked to you for some kind of answer.
"I need Eddie! Something's happened to Demi! He won't pick up!" Your mother shouted. Not necessarily to you, but to anyone who could hear her. Your mother's friend, who you couldn't quite remember the name of looked worried at both of you huddled together, but you hoped your mother would find some comfort in knowing that your father was on the phone downstairs.
"Momma, h-he's on the p-phone downs-stairs. He says h-he needs to t-t-talk to you."
Your mother nearly tripped herself over as it was her turn to race down the stairs. You and her friend followed her down only to hear words that almost made you sick right there and then.
"Eddie?! Oh my god, Eddie! She's dead isn't she?!"
Demi. Your big sister Demi. You swore you wouldn't let yourself nearly lose a sister again, yet here you were, seemingly actually losing a sister this time. Although you had no confirmation apart from your mother's impulsive and anxious words, you were convinced that was what had happened. That bad feeling in the pit of your stomach all day, the bad taste in your mouth — all a sign that the worst had happened.
"D-D-DALLAS!" You screamed at the top of your lungs as you sat down on the edge of the step. Your mother's friend had left to comfort your mother leaving you all alone in your thoughts, no one to confirm or deny that Demi had really died.
When you felt your sister pull you into her arms, you could only say one thing.
"D-Demi's d-d-d-dead!"
"No, no baby girl," Dallas cooed, pressing you so tightly against her chest that you could have been embedded into her skin. "Demi's okay. Demi's okay, I promise. Demi punched her backup dancer and did some bad things last night, but she's okay. She's alive."
"H-How do you know D-D-Dally?! M-Momma said she was d-dead!" You clasped onto the back of Dallas's shirt, never wanting to let go.
"I spoke to Demi baby, she's on the plane and she texted Mom saying that she was sorry. Mom freaked out and assumed the worst. I promise she's okay."
"H-H-How do you k-know she's g-gonna be okay D-Dally? She h-hasn't b-b-been for so l-long!"
"I just do. I can feel it in my heart, and you know what Y/N/N? My heart has never been wrong before."
The exact same words Demi had said only months ago were repeated to you by a completely different person, tripping you out, to say the least. Now didn't seem like the ideal time for a trip down memory lane, but you couldn't force away the memories that suddenly exploded in your head of car rides to auditions, family game nights in the lounge room, singing songs with your sisters in the music room — it was only then that you remembered one very important constant in your life.
It was always you and your sisters against the world, and that would never change.
we three
Start from the beginning
