The way the therapist was clicking his pen made Austin even more nervous than he already was. Truthfully, Austin didn't even want to be here. But Jimmy told Austin that if he wanted to remain a Starr Records recording artist, that he'd have to attend weekly therapy sessions. That way, when he was "cured" of his "depression," he could return from his leave of absence and become the new poster child for depression and self-injury. Jimmy hadn't said that last part, but that's where Austin figured Jimmy was going.

"Tell me, Austin, when did this all begin?" the therapist, whose name was Dr. Collins, asked him. He clicked his pen a few more times.

"Can you please stop that?" Austin asked. The therapist stopped clicking his pen and chuckled.

"Sorry," he said. "Bad habit. It bothers a lot of my patients, actually. Now, where were we?"

"You were asking me how it all began," Austin said.

"Ah, yes. Please begin," Dr. Collins said.

"It's a long story…" Austin said.

"I've got time," Dr. Collins said.

"Austin!" Ally said, groaning.

"I'm sorry!" Austin said. "I was going to finish the song, but I accidentally fell asleep."

"Austin, I only asked you to do one thing for me, and that was to finish the song!" Ally said.

"I'm sorry," Austin said, not wanting to fight her on it anymore. "I'll go work on it right now."

"Thank you," Ally said.

Austin went up the stairs and into the practice room. He got out his guitar and began to run through everything he'd done so far. However, he hated the song. The chords just didn't sound right, and the lyrics were all wrong. He attempted to change some of the chords and brainstorm some ideas for new lyrics, but his mind kept wandering back to his exchange with Ally. He was such a horrible person. Really, she'd just asked him to finish up the last verse to a song, and find some way to end it. But instead, he'd fallen asleep. He'd let himself fall asleep on the job.

Austin had been really tired lately. He didn't know why he was so tired, he just was. Last night, it hadn't even been eight at night before he'd fallen asleep. And now, he'd let Ally down.

He was infuriated with himself. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have done that?

Austin stood up and set his guitar down on the chair. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and crept out of the practice room. Sonic Boom was pretty busy, and Ally was really caught up with the customers. Austin slipped down the stairs and into the bathroom of Sonic Boom without Ally even noticing.

He slid into one of the stalls and closed the door behind him. Finally, he was all alone in the sense that he didn't have to worry about Ally walking in on him anymore. Austin rolled up his sleeves and looked at the pink marks that stretched horizontally across his forearm.

He was disappointed. Not because they were there, but because they were healing. However, he could change that if he wanted to. The power was in his hands. Austin dug around in his backpack until he found the razor blade that he kept in there. He pulled it out, and without hesitation, pressed the blade against his skin. Austin dragged the blade across his forearm, following the same path as the now-fading scars.

First, there was pain, but then came the high that made the pain worth it. He continued until his forearms were covered with a brand-new set of cuts. He waited a few minutes until the buzz wore off a little, and then stood up and left the stall. He leaned over the sink and grabbed several paper towels. He pressed them to his arm to try to stop the bleeding. For some reason, it wasn't working. Austin started to panic, but then remembered something that he'd heard; that cold water stops bleeding. He turned on the faucet, and ran his bleeding arms under the water. When the bleeding finally stopped, he dried his arms off and pushed his sleeves back down. Then he grabbed his backpack and slung it back on over his shoulder.

Luckily, Ally was still dealing with customers. She hadn't noticed him slipping into the bathroom, and she didn't notice him slipping back up the stairs now.

Once he was back in the practice room, he picked his guitar back up and ran through the song again. There was still something wrong with it, but he still couldn't figure out what. He mentally cursed himself for being too stupid to write a simple song.

Then, he heard a knock on the door.

"Come in," Austin said.

"Sounding good, Austin," Ally said.

"Thanks," Austin said.

"Look, I'm really sorry I yelled at you," Ally said.

"It's fine," Austin said. "You had every right to yell at me. I was supposed to get the song done, and then I didn't."

"How about we finish the song together?" Ally said.

"Sounds good," Austin said.

His arms ached really badly when he tried to play, but deep down, Austin knew he deserved it.

"So, you began cutting to punish yourself?" Dr. Collins said.

"Yeah," Austin said.

Dr. Collins looked over Austin's file.

"I'm not going to ask you anymore about your symptoms, as you already discussed these with Doctor Grant," he said. "We can touch base on those next week."

Dr. Grant was Austin's primary care physician. He was the one who formally diagnosed Austin with depression and gave Austin a referral to Dr. Collins.

"Okay," Austin said.

Dr. Collins continued studying his file.

"Tell me about Dez," Dr. Collins said.

"Well, he's really tall, he has red hair," Austin began.

"No, I want to know how Dez found out. It says here in my file that he was the one who spilled the beans," Dr. Collins said.

Austin continued these violent cycles of self-harming for several weeks. Throughout this time, no one had any idea what Austin was doing to himself behind closed doors. No one even seemed to detect that there was something different about him: even though he was tired all the time, even though his didn't smile as much anymore, even though he wore long sleeves in Miami, and even though he often declined invitations to hang out. Sometimes it was because he had a headache or a stomachache, and other times he declined even though he no legitimate reason to.

No one thought anything of it. They just assumed that between music and school, he was pretty worn out. However, there was one person that couldn't be fooled, and that was Dez.

One night, Austin was sitting on his bed with his favorite razor. He'd stopped making excuses to cut, but that wasn't a good thing. Now, he just cut whenever he felt like it. His cuts were finally healed enough that he could re-open them. So, he did. He made one new one, then two, then three. As he was on his fourth, he could hear the sound of something banging around outside. He told himself that it was probably just his neighbor struggling with his trash can. But a few seconds later, something crash-landed in his room. Austin looked up to see Dez lying in a heap on his door.

"Sorry about that," Dez said, starting to stand up. "I kind of fell when I was coming in through the window."

Before Austin could say or do anything, Dez looked over at Austin. His eyes went from Austin to his open wound to the razor in his hands. Austin watched as Dez's expression changed from happy and excited to tearful and nervous. It triggered some kind of reaction in Austin. He quickly stashed the blade back in his bedside drawer, and he quickly pulled out the towel he kept stashed under his bed and wrapped his bleeding arm up inside of it.

"Austin," Dez said. Austin didn't know what to say. "Why are doing that? Why are you hurting yourself?"

"It's nothing, Dez," Austin said.

"It's definitely something!" Dez said. "You're hurting yourself on purpose! How is that nothing?"

Austin just sat there, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening. His cheeks flushed with the embarrassment of being caught in the act. At least it was one of his friends and not one of his parents.

"I'll be right back," Dez said.

"Where are you going?" Austin asked as Dez walked out of his bedroom. A few minutes later, Dez came back with some first aid supplies.

"Show me your arm," Dez said. Austin relented and held it out to Dez. Dez cleaned up the wounds with hydrogen peroxide. Austin hated that stuff because it had the tendency to sting. But somehow, having Dez do it made it a little better. Then Dez bandaged them up.

"Where did you learn first aid?" Austin asked.

"I taught myself when I was preparing for the zombie apocalypse," Dez said. "You never know when first aid training might come in handy."

Dez gently patted Austin's freshly bandaged arm. Austin smiled solemnly. Dez looked into Austin's eyes. Then, Dez leaned in. He gently kissed Austin on the lips. Austin probably should have pulled away, but he didn't. He just kissed Dez back, momentarily forgetting about everything that was going on.

"Promise me that you're not going to do this anymore, okay?" Dez said.

"I promise," Austin said.

"Obviously you didn't keep that promise," Dr. Collins said.

"I know, stop rubbing it in my face," Austin said.

"I'm sorry, Austin. I didn't mean to upset you," he said. "If you don't mind me asking, why did you make that promise to him? To Dez."

"I've always been easily persuaded," Austin said. "But there were still tears in his eyes. He looked so…desperate. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to just quit, but I couldn't bring myself to tell him that."

"I see," Dr. Collins said.

"You see what?" Austin asked.

"No, I mean that I understand what you're saying. Now, how soon after you made that promise did you cut again?" he said.

"About two weeks," Austin said.

For those two weeks, Austin managed to make himself believe that he was happy. He worked on music and getting caught up on schoolwork. When Ally and Trish weren't looking, Austin and Dez would sneak kisses with each other. Everything seemed to be going fine.

But one morning, Austin woke up. He'd gotten a full ten hours of sleep, but he felt exhausted. His head was throbbing, and he felt like he was going to throw up. Somehow, he knew that today wasn't going to be a very good day.

And Austin was right.

The school would text them grade alerts periodically. Today was one of those days. Austin checked his phone. He was failing several of his classes. And unfortunately, his parents had just received the same text. He was going to be grounded. This meant that he wouldn't be allowed to go to Sonic Boom after school. He wouldn't be allowed to play any shows or work on his music at all. He'd only be allowed to stay home and study. Already, he could see Ally and Dez's disappointed faces when they found out. He could see Trish and Jimmy and his parents getting angry at him. The walls already felt like they were closing in on him.

He went to his next class, which was Language Arts. Surprisingly, it was the one class that he wasn't failing.

When he walked into the class, he saw a stack of books sitting on the desk. Instantly, Austin knew that he could kiss his passing grade goodbye. Austin wasn't the best reader to begin with, and his reading abilities were worsened when he had to not only read a book, but sit there and analyze it from angles never thought possible by the authors.

"Take a book, please," Mrs. Grayson said as students filed in. Austin stopped by the stack and grabbed a dog-eared copy of The Catcher in the Rye before taking his seat at his usual desk.

When class started, Mrs. Grayson told them all about how they were going to be reading Catcher next. She went over the main characters and the synopsis of the book, and had the students guess what was going to happen.

Austin wanted to pay attention, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. He was too worried about everything else going on in his life to think about his upcoming affair with Holden Caulfield. The second the bell rang, Austin quickly grabbed all of his stuff and bolted out the door. Instead of going to Geometry, he went straight to the nurse's office. His head hurt so much. The nurse gave him some Tylenol and let him lay down on the cot for the class period. After third period had ended, she kicked him out.

The day dragged on, and the thoughts wouldn't stop. When Austin got home, he got the lecture from his parents about his grades. He said that he had no idea why he was failing, and that he'd try to do better. They grounded him, just like Austin predicted, and then they sent him to his room.

He barely got through the first page of Catcher in the Rye before he just couldn't take it anymore. His mind was spinning around in circles.

Then, he got angry phone calls from Ally, Trish, and Jimmy. Austin apologized, and said that he would try to do better. After that, he stumbled over to his night stand. He didn't know that he was searching for his razor blade until his fingers brushed up against it. He took the razor out of his drawer and held it right above his arm. Was he really about to do this? Was he really about to relapse after two weeks of being cut-free?

Why yes, yes he was.

He dug the blade into his skin and began making cuts all over his arms. Over the past three months, he'd accumulated lots of scars from this, and he was running out of room to make new cuts, so he went back and redid some of the old cuts. His pain tolerance was higher, so he had to dig deeper to feel anything. For the first time all day, he felt like he could actually breathe.

The next day, when he went to school, he was cornered by Dez. Dez didn't look happy. Austin expected Dez to nag him about his grades like everyone else, but instead Dez said something different.

"Show me your arms," Dez said.

"Why?" Austin said.

"I'm not stupid," Dez said. "I know that you've been cutting yourself again. I want to see."

Austin made sure that no one else was in sight, and then raised up his sleeves just enough to expose some of the new cuts.

"Exactly what I thought," Dez said. "What the heck, Austin? You promised you wouldn't do this anymore."

"And I did. I didn't cut again until last night. I tried to hold on for you Dez, I really did," Austin said. Dez's eyes softened a little bit, and Austin could tell that Dez believed him. However, Dez still wasn't happy.

"Austin. You really need to get help," Dez said.

"No, I don't," Austin said. "It's fine."

"It's not fine, Austin. This is killing you," Dez said.

"Whatever," Austin said. He started to walk away from Dez, but Dez grabbed his wrist before he could get away.

"You have one week," Dez said. "You have one week to tell someone. I don't care who it is, but you have one week to tell someone so that you can get help."

"What if I don't?" Austin said.

"Then I'll tell," Dez said. "And don't think that I'm not being serious, because I am."

The warning bell rang, and the boys turned to walk to their next classes.

"One week, Austin," Dez said before walking off to his Biology class.

"So, you didn't tell before the week was up?" Dr. Collins said. Austin shook his head.

"I tried, Dr. Collins. I really did," Austin said. "But I just couldn't find the words. And then I just kind of forgot."

"Until…?"

"I got a call from Jimmy asking me to meet him at Starr Records. He said it was really urgent, and so I snuck out to go meet with him. I had no idea what it was going to be about. I should have known, really," Austin said.

"Then what happened?" Dr. Collins asked.

Austin chained his bike up outside of Starr Records. Jimmy had urged Austin to meet with him. All Austin knew was that the subject matter was important. So, he'd snuck out to come meet with Jimmy.

Austin walked into the lobby of the records building. He could hear really loud sobbing coming from one of the couches in the lobby. At first, Austin didn't think anything of it. He thought that it was just a kid whose dreams had just been crushed by Jimmy. But then Austin realized that he knew that cry. That was Dez's cry.

Austin turned around to where he could see Dez sitting on the couch, crying. Austin ran up to him. Whatever Jimmy wanted, it was going to have to wait a few minutes.

"Dez, what's wrong?" Austin asked.

"I'm sorry, Austin," Dez said.

"About what?" Austin asked.

"I told," Dez said.

"What?" Austin said. Austin had been warned that it was coming, but it still filled him with rage. He had trusted Dez. How could Dez have betrayed him like that?

"I couldn't stand to see you hurt yourself like that anymore!" Dez said. "Like I said, you really, really need help!"

"Austin?" the receptionist called from the front desk. "Mr. Starr would like to see you now."

Austin got in the elevator. The walls felt like they were closing in on him. When he got to Jimmy's floor, Jimmy's secretary led him out of the elevator and into Jimmy's office. She smiled brightly, not knowing what the meeting was about. She closed the door behind her on her way out.

"Sit down," Jimmy said. Austin could tell that they were about to have a very serious conversation.

Austin sat down in one of the chairs.

"Dez came to me today," Jimmy said. "Normally, I don't take meetings with him, but he said that it was about you and that it was really important. He told me that you've been hurting yourself. Is that true, Austin?"

Austin nodded.

"That's what I feared," Jimmy said. "Austin, let me tell you a story. Do you remember a young pop star by the name of Sara Sanderson?"

"She sounds familiar," Austin said.

"She was signed to my label," Jimmy said. "When I found her, she was a diamond in the rough, much like you. She made these videos of herself singing covers of songs. She was talented, so I gave her a go. She became huge. But like you, she was also trying to balance school and her career. She developed a horrible case of depression. She was screaming in silence, but no one had a clue. Finally, one morning in February, she didn't wake up for school. Her mom thought that she had just overslept, and went to go wake her up. When she got to Sara's door, she could hear Sara's alarm going off inside. She opened the door, and walked over to where Sara was sleeping. Except, it turned out that Sara wasn't sleeping. She was dead, Austin. She'd swallowed a whole bottle of pills. Her suicide note was in her hand."

"Wow," Austin said. Now it was coming back to him. He didn't recall ever listening to any of Sara's music, but he could vaguely remember some of the stories in the news about her suicide.

"If we had looked closer, we would have been able to see the signs. We could have gotten her help. We could have saved her," Jimmy said.

"I get what you're saying Jimmy, but it's not that bad," Austin said.

"Sara thought that too. That's what stopped her from getting the help she needed," Jimmy said. "You don't know how badly you're suffering. Your well-being is way more important than anything else. As of now, Austin, you're on leave of absence. Use this time, and go get the help you need."

Austin just stood there, stunned. He didn't know what to say.

"Go home," Jimmy said. "Talk to your parents, and see where we go from there."

"Thanks, Jimmy," Austin said. He really meant it-he was thankful that he'd had this talk with Jimmy. Austin stood up to leave.

Then, Jimmy did something unexpected. He pulled Austin into a big hug.

"See you later," Jimmy said.

Austin walked out of Jimmy's office and got back into the elevator. He rode down to the ground floor. But before he left, he wanted to do something.

He walked down the hallway. There were big poster versions of the covers of every album that Jimmy had produced. He studied each one carefully. Some of these groups, Austin had heard of before. And of course, there was a poster for him hanging up. Finally, he came across the one that he'd been looking for: Sara's.

The girl in the poster looked like a happy, confident young girl. Austin would never have guessed that she'd be the one that would later take her own life.

But Austin thought that it was fitting that Jimmy had brought her poster over from the old studio and hung it up in the new one. It was like the Sara Sanderson he wanted to remember was now immortalized on his wall.

Austin turned around and walked back out into the lobby.

Dez was gone now. Austin didn't know where he'd gone, but Austin hoped he'd see him soon.

Austin was sobbing now. He didn't know why, but he was. Dr. Collins grabbed a tissue from the tissue box and handed it to Austin. Austin wiped his eyes and tried to stop crying. He knew that he'd be getting to the crying eventually, but he didn't expect that to happen right on the first visit.

"That brings us up to present day, correct?" Dr. Collins asked.

Austin nodded. Well, it didn't exactly bring him up to present day, per say, but it was close enough. What happened next was when Austin got home, his parents sat him down and talked to them. Jimmy had given them a call. They'd scheduled an appointment with Dr. Grant for the next day, and then went to go see him. Dr. Grant asked him about his symptoms and looked at his scars, and then explained to his parents that Austin had depression and gave him a referral to Dr. Collins. Austin's parents called and set up the appointment, and now, here Austin was.

"Austin, when you were telling me about your meeting with Jimmy, you got very emotional. Why is that?" he asked.

"I'm finally starting to realize why Dez did what he did," Austin said. "I need to talk to him. I need to apologize."
"I'm sure that Dez would love to hear from you," Dr. Collins said.

Austin nodded. He was still crying, but he wasn't sobbing anymore.

"You must think I'm a basket case," Austin said, his voice weak with tears.

"You're not a basket case, Austin," he said. "I want you to realize something. You have a whole group of people who are determined to help you get better. You have me, your parents, Jimmy, and Dez. You're going to get through this, Austin. It's going to be a long, hard, battle, but we all have faith in you."

"Thanks," Austin said.

Dr. Collins gave Austin a sympathetic smile.

"Our time is up for today," he said. "I'll see you next week."

Austin stood up from the couch and walked out of the office. His mom was waiting for him in the waiting room.

"How'd it go, honey?" she asked.

"It went pretty good, actually," Austin said.

"I'm glad," Mrs. Moon said.

They walked out of the building and got into the car.

"Can you take me to Sonic Boom?" Austin asked. Technically, Austin was still grounded for having bad grades, but it appeared that Mrs. Moon had forgot.

"Of course," she said. She got as close to Sonic Boom as she could with the car, and walked inside the store.

"Hi, Austin," Ally said. She rushed over to Austin and gave him a gentle hug. The news had undoubtedly spread to Ally and Trish. "How are you?"

"I'm okay," Austin said.

Ally smiled at Austin.

"Trish is at work, but Dez is upstairs if you want to see him," Ally said. Right after she said that, someone rang the service bell on the desk. Ally rushed over to the counter to help the customer.

Austin ran up the stairs and into the practice room. Sure enough, Dez was on the couch.

"Austin! How'd your first therapy session go?" Dez asked.

Austin didn't say anything. He just ran over to Dez and pulled him into a big hug.

"I'm sorry, Dez," Austin said.

"I forgive you," Dez said, wrapping his arms around Austin. "I forgive you."

The two of them knew that they should probably stop hugging, but neither of them could bring themselves to let go.