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Tired. She was just so tired. Right now all she consisted of as a person was an overwhelming sense of tired. There were reasons, excuses really. She was tired because she couldn’t get enough sleep. Tired because she was performing show after show, night after night on a few hours’ sleep. Tired because her exercise regime is bordering on abusive. Tired because watching someone you thought shared your love, love someone else is somewhat emotionally draining. Tired because her body was crying out for the nutrition that she was purposely withholding from it. Tired because the voices in her head were getting louder and louder and fighting to drown them out was just making her too tired.
She had so much and she knew it; money, fame, fans, family, friends, things that most people would kill for and she loved it and she loved them, but nothing was enough anymore. She used to wish she didn’t care, at the stage in her life when everything was too much, when everything hurt too much and there was too much going on and she just cared too much. It was overwhelming.
Now, she thinks that she might want it back, that feeling, that overwhelming sense of caring too much, because now she doesn’t care and she knows it’s wrong and she knows she should be worried, but she’s just not. She’s tired but she’s not sad or angry or happy or overwhelmed. She has no feeling, nothing, she is nothing but she is tired.
Logically, she knows in her mind that this is not right. But even though she knows that and she should care, she should tell someone what she’s feeling, or not feeling, she just doesn’t care. She wants to do nothing more than to curl up under her covers and just sleep. She thinks that just maybe, she wants to not wake up again. And she knows that those kinds of thoughts should really scare her, but they don’t.
She didn’t realise, until recently, just how good an actress she was, because no one seems to have noticed. Noticed that she’s nothing. That she isn’t there anymore. She doesn’t cry or get emotional on stage anymore, she doesn’t fight with Joe or get angry when people ask her if she’s ok about Ashley being here. She just smiles and brushes it off, because she doesn’t know how to do feelings anymore. She is nothing but she does know how to act like she’s happy, she has experience hiding her emotions and putting a smile on her face but now she’s hiding nothing with a smile, nothing.
Sometimes, she thinks that maybe someone suspects, when Alyson hugs her and her hugs seem to last longer than usual and she pulls back and she scrutinises Demi’s face, but Demi pulls out her infamous smile and she seems satisfied and smiles back or when Meghan catches her eye across the room and she gets this little frown on her face and watches Demi closely for a bit, but then something distracted her and she forgets to be worried and Demi breathes a sigh of relief at the same time as pushing down that little piece of disappointment that rears up, because really, she thinks, she wants someone to notice. Or she used to, when a bit of her still cared.
She thinks that maybe, just maybe, Nick knows something’s up. He’s spent more time with her than anyone, writing songs together in the back of her bus, opening up about things and feelings that neither of them have ever explored before, but never that. She never even hints that she is anything less than perfectly content with her life. Yet still she knows that he’s not completely fooled and she knows she has to be careful because Nick is too perceptive and he knows her better than she knows herself, except for that part, the dark part that even she doesn’t really know. And Nick is her best friend and he connects with her through music in a way that no one ever has before, so maybe he does know something.
She’s not sure when it all started, she thinks that maybe there’s always been a part of her that was just darkness. Even as a kid, she can remember times when she wondered what the point of doing anything was if she always ended up feeling empty. She remembers days when she wanted, needed to cry, for no reason but the tears wouldn’t come anymore. She remembers whispered conversations between her parents and her teachers. She remembers her mother’s tears and the look in her stepdad’s eyes when he looked at her, swimming with some combination of tortured love and helpless fear.
She remembers then deciding that she needed to start hiding these feelings if all they did was make the people around her so upset. And she got really, really good at it. So good, in fact, that for the most part, she was able to convince herself that she didn’t feel it anymore, she was happy all the time and everything was good. But there are the bad days, really bad days when she can’t lie to herself and she knows that what she’s feeling is wrong. But it’s been so long since she’s allowed anyone to see her at anything less than her best that she still manages to fool everyone with her fake smile and claims of tiredness.
But then Nick finds out one of her deepest secrets. And instead of just feeling nothing, she is overwhelmed with blind panic, so she says anything and everything that will make him forget about it or at least convince him that it was just one time. She think that he believes her and she firmly ignores the niggling feeling of desperation that kind of wants him to fight her on it. But she still catches him giving her extra-intense looks out of the corner of his eye.
She closes herself off because now she’s just too tired to put on the act for him. She avoids him, because he’s too perceptive and he knows her and trying to get anything past him is just exhausting. So they’ve stopped writing songs together in the back of her bus, they’ve stopped opening up about things and feelings that neither of them have ever explored before. And maybe, in that little tiny bit of herself that’s not just pure exhaustion, just maybe, it hurts that he backed off without question, that he didn’t try to fight her on it. Maybe, she thinks, it hurts more than it should, because after all, Nick is just her friend.
She knows what people say, what the fans say about them. About how they look at each other now and how they seem so close and how he’s always looked at her like she’s something really special. But right now, she’s tired and that’s all she feels. She doesn’t even love herself, so really, how could anyone think that she possibly loves him.
And she really thinks that’s what she feels, until she hits rock bottom and her parents turn up and suddenly she’s being forced to face the feelings that she’s not feeling and really she just so tired that she doesn’t fight them on it, she just hangs her head and agrees to get help. But the thought of leaving him for however long it’s going to take scares her in ways that she knows it shouldn’t. So maybe, beneath all the feelings that she doesn’t feel, maybe she does feel something.
She gets help. It takes longer than she thought and it was the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. She came close to giving up and walking out more times than she cares to admit, but she did it.
And suddenly life is different. She feels things now, both good and bad and she lets herself. Because she’s learned that feeling things are ok, even if they’re not always good.
She’s surprised by the reception she receives when she makes her comeback. Because she knows that she messed up big time and really she was only a shadow of a person for so long that it’s a shock to know that people still want her around. She is welcomed back with open arms, by the fans, her family, her friends. Miley and Selena especially are so good to her, each in different ways and she appreciates it more than they’ll ever know, because she knows they don’t get on but still they work together to keep her sane.
She still has her dark days and they’re worse than ever because now she feels it all. Those are the days that she holes up in her room with her laptop and curses her weakness as the tears on her cheeks are illuminated by the light from the screen and her heart tightens with every word that comes out of his mouth as it resounds from the speakers.
It’s on one of these days that Miley drops by unannounced and she scrambles to shut the laptop before Miley sees, but it’s too late and Miley gives her this look and suddenly she can’t hold it in anymore and Miley is holding her as she sobs her heart out.
And then, the next day, there's the tweet that changes everything, the first contact between them in an excruciatingly long time. She can’t quite believe it so she texts him just to be sure. Her heart starts racing as she asks him if he’d be willing to perform.
Then it’s the day of the concert and honestly, she kind of expected him to show early but he doesn’t. Her stomach drops as she considers the fact that he might change his mind and not show up, after everything she put him through, it’s not like she doesn’t deserve it.
Suddenly the shows about to start and he’s still not here and she can’t bring herself to think about it because she has to go on and she can’t do that if all she feels is crushing disappointment mixed with a hint of indignant anger.
But then the show is halfway finished and she looks over and he’s there. So she introduces him and before she knows it his arms are around her and she finally feels like everything is going to be ok.
Then they sing and she thinks that maybe it’s the best performance they’ve ever had together and it’s over faster than she wants it to be, but then his arms are around her again and she’s never felt so safe. And she’s looking up into his eyes and he’s looking at her the way he always has, like she is the most precious thing in his world, only now, she thinks, she’s ready to let herself believe it.