(four songs—not because of a switch in POV, but because these all fit so well and I love them so much x)

SONG(s) FOR CHAPTER: 

♬ Far Too Young To Die by Panic! At The Disco ♬ 

♬ Asylum by Disturbed ♬  

♬ Coming Undone by Korn ♬  

♬ Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace ♬  

CHAPTER 18

♕ HARRY STYLES ♕

SOMEONE WAS FOLLOWING me Saturday morning on the way to the training center. I was sure of it. I would've bet my life on it. Yet every time I turned around—nothing. Even then, I could feel the nonexistent eyes boring through me, deciphering everything wrong and flawed in me. I could feel the intense gaze the strongest when the invisible body landed his eyes on my head.

I knew I was merely imagining it. No one would follow me, and even if they were, I would've noticed them by now with my chronic paranoia. Of course, no one was. It was all in my mind. Everything was always in my mind.

A minor headache was forming yet again when I walked into the training center. Josh stood near an empty ring with a water bottle in his hands, shocking me a bit. Whenever I had a match soon, he was always chugging alcohol, not a liquid that was good for you.

"You okay there?" I joked while putting on my gloves.

Josh rose an eyebrow. "I could ask you the same. What's with your eye twitching?"

I frowned. Eye twitching? That hasn't happened in a while. But I played it off as if I had no idea. "Headache. So, what do I need to know about my opponent?" I asked, desperate for a subject change.

Josh had no problem complying. "He's about your weight, but he's ten times slower. Really has trouble noting someone's next move."

I nodded, and training began like usual.

Except I had to stop just before it was over because of the headache increasing. Jesus, will these things ever leave me the hell alone? I could hardly go to sleep last night without the constant throbbing in the back of my skull.

It simply wasn't agreeing with my persistence to prolong to inevitable.

Of course, when Josh asked if I was all right, I waved him away. It was to my dismay that he was so curious. This wasn't time for sappy stories, however, because the match was in mere hours. I'll be damned if I lose just because my mind enjoyed playing tricks on me. I hadn't become undefeated just for such a petty thing to demolish the streak.

God, I wished Grace were here. She knew more than anyone. Surely having her close would soothe me in a way no prescription could ever do. I tried to visualize her face in my mind, tried to reminisce the our last kiss hardly two days ago. They were all memories too far away, especially with the violent ones overwhelmingly resurfacing.

"Don't want to tucker you out before the fight," said Josh, handing me a water bottle. "Go lay down, kid. Get rid of that headache."

 If only it were that easy...

But I did as Josh requested, heading back to the apartment Jacob and I bought for about three hours before having to leave once again to the arena. Jacob was out with a "friend" he supposedly met, so I had the room to myself. I was glad Jacob wasn't here. He didn't deserve the burden of my problems.

I debated on calling Grace then, but of course didn't. She was probably busy anyways, trying to impress Evan's family and such. Pardon me—that Evan kid. Miraculously, I wasn't in the mood to care about specifics on his name.

The downfall of that, however, was that my mind was in the perfect mood to mess with me. I laid down in the bed, pulled the covers over my head, and squeezed my eyes shut. Thoughts swirled around my brain in loops, repeating themselves as if I already didn't know how pathetic and crazy I was.

But I wasn't crazy.

 I wasn't crazy.

When my episodes were really bad, I told the therapist assigned to me at the time I wasn't crazy. I said it over and over and she replied the same thing over and over: "Only crazy people say they aren't crazy." Needless to say, she wasn't my therapist for much longer.

Somehow in the midst of thoughts revolving around insanity, I succeeded in falling asleep, albeit it was anything but peaceful.

★ ☆ ★ ☆

The arena was loud, every cheer amplified in my mind, along with other thoughts that I refused to let get the better of me. Josh was giving me his usual pep talk, as was Jacob, while I glanced at the cameras around us and imagined Grace rooting for me on the other side.

I pushed my mouth guard in, jumping on the balls of my feet. I wasn't so much worried, not really. Josh was proved true to his word when I caught my opponent training down the hall near the locker rooms, trying to pump himself up some more. His swings were slow and weak, just as Josh said.

My eyes roamed to my opponent now, all hyped and ready—except it wasn't my opponent standing there. It was my father, causing my eyes to grow huge and (I shamefully admit) afraid. His t-shirt was stained in the blood he spilled, a hole the size of a bullet on the side of his head where he had pulled the trigger. His teeth were bared, his eyes were irate, and I was his prey.

I stumbled back, tripping over Josh in the process. I looked down quickly, my breathing uneven. I blinked multiple times, subtly shaking my head so no one would get suspicious. Josh was asking if I was okay again, to which I again waved his worries away. After multiple moments, I timidly gazed back up.

My father was gone, and my opponent was in his rightful place in the corner.

I let out a breath the best I could through the mouth guard, pushing my hair out of my face. I shook my hands out, as if it would help, peered up at the bright lights overhead. I was safe. I was fine. My father was dead. I. Was. Safe.

The bell signaling the first round pulled me out of a potential harmful memory, to which I was grateful for. My opponent shuffled forwards, raised his fists, wiggled his head back and forth as if to throw me off guard. I wondered if he knew how foolish he looked, or if he simply didn't care and it was all part of his fictitious strategy.

I threw the first punch, something I normally don't do but I was tired of him dancing around me like some sort of ballerina fairy. He was the one taken off guard, which of course gave me the advantage of my next strike.

He fell back into the ropes of the ring, wiped a line of blood from his nose, and pranced over again.

Yet again, quicker than I could see the shift, it was my father splattered with blood. I swallowed hard, as if I could swallow my disbelief and pitiful fear. He was holding his fists up, a demonic smirk lazily planted on his face as if he wasn't covered with metallic red liquid.

"Coward," he spat at me, gnarling his teeth like an animal but maintained the cynical grin nonetheless. "It's your fault. All of it."

As if on cue, my mother's screams and sister's cries were in my ears again. I blinked quickly, backing up without realizing it. No. He wasn't here. It wasn't my fault. I didn't do anything. It was him.

My hallucination of my father swung at me, which I was able to dodge with haste. He continued to spit insults, putting the blame on my shoulders instead of his own. The screams, the cries, the gunshots—they all were so overwhelming. So loud. So real.

"No," I muttered through my mouth guard, anger coursing through me. "It wasn't me. It wasn't..."

A fist landed square in my jaw.

My opponent flickered back to himself before morphing into my father again. I couldn't take it. I couldn't keep refraining myself. I couldn't keep hearing everything all over again.

I punched, hard. My father's face jerked to the side, a new rush of blood spilling from his nose as if he hadn't lost it all already. He taunted me, asked if that was the best I could do, let out a maniac laugh. I hated that laugh. I hated it, I hated it, I hated it.

I swung again. And again. And again until he was on the ground, blood covering his face and my knuckles. I was panting, my mind was spinning. I would've continued to shut him up if it hadn't been for the ref that pulled me away, quite forcefully.

But then it wasn't my father on the ground anymore. It was my opponent. And he looked unconscious, with the physician and ref hovering over him. I started panicking, praying I hadn't actually beaten someone to death. It hadn't been my opponent I was fighting. It was my father. It...

Obviously, it wasn't. I was unfortunately crazier than I wanted to believe.

I took my mouth guard out and rambled quickly. "Is he okay? Is he breathing? I didn't mean to... I didn't..."

The physician gave a nod to the crowd after checking his pulse, and I couldn't have been more relieved. Guilt still swelled inside me, tearing up my insides and practically eating me alive. What was wrong with me? Why was I such a monster?

Jacob had his hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, Harry. You stopped. You didn't do anything you're not supposed to."

"I nearly beat him to death," I said in disbelief, still disgusted with myself.

"That's how the game works. Except he didn't die, because he was smart enough to tap out just before he went to la la land."

I knew it was true, but I still hated myself for it. I didn't consider knocking someone unconscious as "fair play." How was I supposed to explain that if I were asked? That I went psycho crazy because I saw my dead father instead of my actual opponent's face?

I was announced the winner. My opponent was waking back up when we went to leave. I made it my mission to apologize to him, but when I did, he had only laughed (and not harshly), waved me away, and said I was a better fighter than he thought. But I couldn't take compliments. Not when I nearly killed someone.

Ignoring Jacob and Josh calling me to change, I pushed past everyone to get outside in the fresh hair. My head was pounding, my paranoia on high alert. I looked in every corner, hid from every shadow. It didn't help. My head was literally screaming inside and I couldn't calm it down.

Funny as it was, I ran into the back of a parked car because I was so captured in my own mind. I banged my palm against the car as if to take my anger out on it, but clenched my fist to keep me from doing so. Instead I paced around the parking lot like the mad man I was, kicking at the dirt and innocent trash cans that had nothing to do with any of it.

I heard the door behind me slam open, Jacob's voice somehow mixing into the other voices in my head. But his was muffled, distant, and too far away to draw me back from the hole I've dived into.

The gunshots and screams and cries carried on.

Headlights blurred beside me from the busy evening traffic.

My mind had made itself up before I could even catch on, my legs moving before I could will them to stop.

Truth be told, I probably wouldn't have stopped them anyways.

Crazy, that's what I was. Scurrying through the parking lot with my hands clamped over my ears as if it could silence the demons that possessed me. Stumbling over my own feet because I was too much in a haze to focus on balance. A scream welling in my throat because I didn't know how else to relieve myself from the torment inside me.

The headlights were still blurred from my off-vision, but still right there. Hardly ten feet away. Enough power to pull the plug, to silence the demons and voices and gunshots. I wanted it. I wanted it so damn badly.

I took the few steps into the road, a car quickly approaching. Right before the impact, the cries were gone. The gunshots, no more. The guilt and sorrow and twisted thoughts—all swept away.

Brakes were stomped on, tires screeched against the asphalt.

It wasn't as forceful of an impact as I had hoped for, but it knocked me off my feet all the same, taking the oxygen from my lungs with it.

Though I wasn't dead, I was flooded in darkness of an unconscious sleep.

And I was convinced I didn't deserve such an easy escape that was only temporary.