Ace doesn't remember the walk home.
Just the streetlights smearing halos asphalt breathing heat her knuckles throbbing in time with her pulse. Every step feels like she's dragging the night behind her the party still clinging to her skin like smoke she can't wash off.
The door slams shut behind Ace.
Silence...
Then it hits.
Her stomach violently warning her too late. Ace barely makes it to the bathroom before she's on her knees gagging, retching emptying herself until there's nothing left but sharp breaths and tears she refuses to acknowledge. Her hands
grip the cool porcelain like it might keep her from coming apart.
She spits. Wipes her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Laughs once, broken and humorless.
Pathetic.
She staggers to her room, kicks the door closed and locks it. The walls feel too close her skin feels wrong and everything feels wrong
she grabs her phone and blasts
She grabs her phone, fingers shaking, and blasts Bring Me The Horizon like she's trying to drown her own thoughts before they kill her.
The opening of Drown fills the room.
Too loud. Never loud enough.
Ace collapses face-first onto her bed, shoving her head into the pillow like she's trying to disappear inside it. The sound vibrates through her chest, through her ribs, through the cracks she pretends aren't there.
Her voice comes out raw, half-sung, half-sobbed.
And the weight of the world's getting harder to hold up—
Her throat tightens.
It comes in waves, I close my eyes—
Ace squeezes her eyes shut, fists tangled in the sheets knuckles screaming.
Hold my breath and let it bury me —
Tears soak the pillow now, hot and relentless. she doesn't wipe them away, doesn't fight it what's the point?
I'm not okay and it's not alright—
Ace's chest caves in on itself.
"Who will fix me now?" Ace chokes out, voice breaking completely.
She rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling like it might answer.
Who will fix me now?
Dive in when i drown?
Ace's laugh comes out jagged almost hysterical. "No one," Ace whispers. " no one ever does."
Ace's hands press flat over her chest, like she can physically hold herself together.
Save me from myself—
That line hits like a punch to the throat.
"Please," she whispers, not sure who she's begging anymore. Herself. God. Max. Anyone.
Don't let me drown—
Her voice rises with the chorus, cracked and shaking, singing like it's the only thing keeping her breathing.
Who will make me fightWhat doesn't destroy youLeaves you broken instead—
Ace curls onto her side, knees pulled tight to her chest. The leather bracelet digs into her wrist. She grips it like a lifeline.
Got a hole in my soul growing deeper and deeper—
She presses her fist to her mouth, trying to smother the sound of her sobs, but they rip out of her anyway. Ugly, Loud, Honest.
And I can't take—
Her voice gives out completely.
The song keeps going. She doesn't.
Ace lies there shaking, music filling the room where words can't, tears soaking into fabric that's seen this before. She feels sixteen again. Seventeen. Every age she ever broke and never fully recovered from.
She whispers it into the dark, the same lie she's been telling herself for years.
"I'm fine."
The song says what she can't
she doesn't sleep.
She just let's she music hold her while she sinks.