Eli POV.
Friday was the first nice day after the night I woke everyone up. On Thursday, I talked with my brothers about treating me like a human being, and I think they got it, so Friday morning I got up, went on my run, and didn't come back to Lorenzo smothering me with that annoying high-pitched voice.
School wasn't that exciting, but I guess that means I was slowly getting used to it, which I liked. I could be just a kid going to school, complaining about teachers and cafeteria food.
"You could not be more wrong, yes snow white is a classic, but she sucks! The only right answer is Mulan, I mean, she saved her fucking country and killed a bunch of bitches, while looking amazing," I ranted to Jess, who made the mistake of starting a conversation about Disney princesses with me.
"Okay, I'm gonna give you that, but what about Tiana?" she asked with a cocked eyebrow.
"No, still not better than Mulan," I said proudly crossing my hands.
"Did someone ask Eli about those Disney princesses? A huge mistake," Gabriele said as he walked up behind me.
"Actually we didn't ask, they just started this," Jess said earing a jab in the ribs.
"Oh, fuck off," I said before turning to my brother.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Nothing, I just wanted to see if you'd be okay, with Ethan coming over tonight?" Gabriele asked trying to seem collected, but I could see how nervous he was.
I just rolled my eyes and punched his arm.
"I already told you, it's fine, I like Ethan, he's cool," I said not liking, that I had to repeat myself.
"Uhm, yeah, he does have a green aura," Gabriele said nodding along with a smirk.
"First Jess and now you? What is it with you people bullying me?" I pouted throwing my hands in the air.
"Come on, what did I do now?" Jess said with a playful eye roll.
"You know what you did," I said faking a break in my voice.
After school, Gabriele and Ethan waited for me at the car. I still didn't know how they always got there before me, but I guess I just had short legs.
"Bye, short stuff," Abby said with a win before going off with Manny.
"Bye-bye straggot," I said rolling my eyes.
"You ready to go?" Gabriele asked me as I walked up to the car.
"Sure thing, let's ride off into the sunset," I said high-fiving un unexpected Ethan.
"Shotgun!"
"No! It's my brother driving, I get shotgun!" I called back, basically wrestling Ethan for the car door.
"Yeah, but he'd choose me any day, wouldn't you?" Ethan said with puppy eyes.
"Just for that, you're never getting shotgun," Gabriele said gagging over the look Ethan shot him.
"Yes!"
"Not fair, I'm your best friend," Ethan complained.
"Not anymore," I said sticking my tongue out as I climbed onto the front seat.
We let Ethan pick the music since he had to sit in the back. He immediately cheered up and put on a playlist consisting, almost entirely of drum & bass. We ended up shaking the internet car with our dancing, while Gabriele was ready to throw hands at either one of us.
As we got out, Gabriele smacked the back of Ethan's head right before I opened the door.
"Hi Anna," I called to the lovely woman arranging flowers in the foyer.
"Hello Eli, Mr. Borrelli, Mr. Davis," Anna responded with a warm smile.
"Hiya Anna," Ethan called with a huge smile, before going over to hug the sweet lady.
"Nice to see you again," he said as he let go.
"You too Ethan," Anna said wiping something off his shoulders.
"Are you staying for the movie night? We start right after dinner," Lorenzo asked Ethan at the dinner table.
"Sure thing," he said while stuffing his face with the vegan lasagna I had made with Matteo.
"You can pick a movie too then," I said already excited about our movie night.
We decided to make it a weekly thing, where we watch one movie from each of the boys. I didn't mind, since I hadn't seen that many films, and I actually liked spending time with my brother. I have no idea when that happened, but I guess it was too late to back down.
Gabriele picked How to Train Your Dragon 2, and I didn't have the heart to tell him, I watched all three of them after our first movie night. Ethan made us watch Bad Boys, which was really funny, but Lorenzo didn't like it. Antonio chose Ironman, which I have to admit, was really good. Matteo picked Captain America, inspired by Antonio's choice. Lorenzo chose Pretty Woman, and finally, Alessandro lulled us to sleep with the Imitation Game.
In the end, only me, Alessandro, Matteo, and Antonio stayed awake, until the end of the movie. Ethan and Gabriele had dozed off halfway through Pretty Woman and Lorenzo fell asleep soon after the beginning of the Imitation Game.
I was somewhere between sleep-world and reality, constantly snapping back from almost falling asleep.
"Just go to sleep," Alessandro said calmly as he pushed some hair off my face.
For some reason, I liked it. I felt safe for the first time in so long, and I couldn't but smile at the thought of having my family around me, as I finally fell asleep.
Saturday morning, I woke up in my bed. I guess Alessandro carried me to sleep last night since my memory shuts off after the last movie.
After my usual morning routine, I walked right into the music room. None of the boys were awake yet, so I thought that to be the perfect time to record.
I had five songs, ready to record in my notebook. I got it for my birthday, from Diego. He knew, the notebook, I wrote on, had to be special, so he painted the covers himself. He had covered the book with note sheets, of my favorite songs, and then painted over them. It looked like random splashes of color, but if you looked at it for long enough, you could make out a face.
One of the only luxuries I had, was the small, but amazing microphone, I carried in my backpack. I placed it on the music stand and started playing. I played all five songs, through first to get a feel for the recording, and then I started going them over, with different instruments.
At ten o'clock, I decided, to wrap it up for the day. I didn't want my brothers to walk in on me recording and ask too many questions.
I had told them some things already, but I still didn't like it. I wanted to tell them everything, but it was like a voice started screaming in my head every time I tried to. It was a full-on battle in my mind, so I just avoided it as much as I could.
That day, I started mixing one of the songs on my computer. It was called Mourning Routine, and it told the story of everyone in my life disappearing or dying off. Of course, I didn't say anyone's names or anything that would easily give away my identity, but if you know me, and knew that I was the voice behind Young and Damned, you'd be able to connect the dots.
The first verse was dedicated to me running away from everything I knew, and everyone I loved. The second verse was about the way I saw my parents as perfect loving people, dying off. The third verse was about Mia and the bridge was about Carlos. The song ended with a simple verse, where I finally talked about losing myself. "I lost so much in my life, but nothing made me want to die, like having to realize, I've lost my mind."
In true Young and Danmed fashion, I had a full band on the track, where I played every instrument. I made almost exclusively rock, but I dabbed in ballads every once in a while, so most of the songs, I write are for bands. When I go on stage, I have a band with me called The Rebellion. I met them at a club once, and they agreed to play with me. Ever since then, all my concerts have been Young and Damned featuring The Rebellion.
I spent the whole day perfecting the song, and at one o'clock at night, I released it. The thing about me as a songwriter, I never announce, when I'm putting out music because I don't know myself. When I'm happy with it, I just release it into the world. If people like it, then I might make a music video, but usually, it's just a black screen with the music playing in the background. I've released three albums, but they came together at the same time, so I just decided to put them out at the same time.
The first one was called Asylum, which I wrote entirely when I was at camp. The second one was Flowers of Eden, which came together in a weekend, where I got locked in my room. The third one was Goodbye, which I wrote in my first weeks in Finland when I didn't know, where I could record. I found out, they had studios in libraries and I could just buy a library card with five euros, and I could use the studio for free, whenever I wanted to. That's why, in the past two years I put out more music, than ever before.
Saturday was one of the best days I've had in a long time. I just played music, recorded, wrote, and mixed for twenty hours straight. Sunday however, wasn't as nice.
Alessandro POV
Sunday morning, I asked Eli to come to my office. We had been talking with Lorenzo, and we realized, there was no good time to bring it up, so we just decided to do it.
When Eli came in, Lorenzo and I were already sitting on the couches in the corner of my office, waiting for them.
"What's up?" Eli asked as they sat down next to me on the couch.
"We wanted to talk to you about something," Lorenzo started clearing his throat.
I reached over and as gently as I could, I grabbed Eli's hand. They studied my every movement, and only tensed up, when I opened their hand, palm up.
"About these," I said looking Eli right in the eyes, but they knew what I was referring to.
The crescent-shaped scars on their palm had turned white over the week, but they were still very visible. I'm not sure if they'll ever heal completely.
"We've been trying to think of a good way to bring it up, but there isn't one, so we decided to ask you here to talk to us," Lorenzo explained to Eli who was starting to look anxious.
"What do you want to know?" they asked retracting their hand from me and placing them under their legs.
"Why did you do it?" I asked, trying to sound soft, but that wasn't my specialty. That's why I wanted Lorenzo to be there.
"It's... I mean... I- I guess it's a reflex of some kind. I don't ever mean to do it. It just happens, and when I realize what has happened I feel... Well, I feel like shit," Eli explained subconsciously rocking back and forth on the couch.
"Do you know what triggers it?" Lorenzo asked.
Another reason he was there, was that he knew his stuff. He took extra psychology classes, and he read a lot more than me. We both googled as much as we could about self-harm, but I still think Lorenzo knew about it far more than me. At least, he knew what to do better than me.
"Usually, when I feel like I've done something wrong, and it causes a panic attack. I don't do that normally, but when it's a bad panic attack, I sort of lose control over my mind," Eli explained finding the words as they went on.
"Is there anything we can do to help?" I asked. I read somewhere, that's what you're supposed to ask.
Eli just shrugged. They were clearly uncomfortable, but either they masked it really well, or they were more relaxed than usual when we talked seriously.
"not really, I get panic attacks every once in a while, Most of the time, they get triggered by something that reminds me of something in my past, so there's no way you can cover everything up," Eli said with an awkward chuckle.
"Eli, we've been thinking, and we think it'd be best if we got you a therapist," I said after a while of us being silent.
Immediately, Eli's head snapped in my direction with their eyes wide in horror. There was something so heartbreaking about the fear in their eyes.
Lorenzo POV.
"Please don't. You promised you wouldn't send me away. I'll do better, I promise, it won't happen again," Eli started already hyperventilating.
I immediately lowered myself to sitting on the floor in front of Eli. I tried grabbing their hands, but they flinched away. I couldn't help but frown a bit, but quickly recovered.
"No one's sending you away," Alessandro said sternly.
"Someone would just come by the house every once in a while, and you could talk. You wouldn't be going anywhere, and you could pick who it was, okay," I tried reasoning, but it was useless.
Eli's breathing was really irregular, and they started to scratch the back of their palms really aggressively.
"No, Eli, don't do that. Everything is okay," Alessandro said grabbing Eli's hands.
They turned to face him, with a broken look, and I could see Alessandro's eyes gloss over.
"you're safe okay. Eli, you're not going anywhere. We're not going anywhere," I said trying to get them to focus on my voice.
When nothing seemed to help, I could only think of one way.
"I'm sorry," I said before catching Eli in a tight embrace.
They fought against it, but I just held them still, trying to get them to calm down a bit. I rubbed their back as they trashed against me trying to hurt themselves.
"Shhh, shhh, just focus on my voice. It's okay, you're safe," I kept saying over and over, for what felt like an eternity.
Finally, Eli started calming down in my arms, so I tried to let go, only to be stopped by Eli, who grabbed my shirt and yanked me back into the hug.
We stayed like that for a while, as Alessandro got some water and painkillers for Eli.
After they drank the huge class, in its entirety, we just sat there. Both I and Alessandro held one of their hands, as they stared off into nothingness before them.
"I don't like talking to someone... Therapy was something they did on camp," Eli said against their knees, while they rocked back and forth.
I exchanged a knowing look with Alessandro. We didn't know, what went on in this camp, but it couldn't have been nice.
"Either it's the therapist, or you need to tell us more," Alessandro said firmly.