"She was doing what?"

"Coke," Selena replied, sighing as she leaned back on the couch, her face in her hands as the man on the speaker was genuinely speechless. He'd known that something was majorly wrong with Leia but it was like nothing he said would get through to her.

"Leia Hudson... is on cocaine?" Riven clarified, his voice crackling due to the poor line signal as Selena and Cara sighed once more. They'd had to repeat this numerous times for the man and it still seemed like he was having a hard time believing them.

"I am so confused."

Everyone mumbled in agreement as they sat in Taylor's living room. Cara, Gigi and Taylor were all sitting spread about across the room as they listened to Selena's retelling of the events that had happened. Their schedules had all been hectic for the past week so it had taken them this long for them all to be in the same country to have this discussion.

Tate was lying with his large head resting in Taylor's lap as the dog snores softly, obviously having found it tiring being constantly on edge around Dylan. Taylor had never really been a dog person, but the dog was so much like his owner that she had easily found a love for the huge pup. Her hand was subconsciously even stroking his ear, the large dog forgetting yet again that he wasn't a lap dog.

"Guys, it was bad," Selena tried to explain to them all just how bad their friend had gotten since they had all last managed to speak to her. "Like crazy bad."

"She was a complete mess," Selena continued, her voice laden with anguish. "Leia was shutting us out, using drugs to numb the pain she was feeling. It was like she had completely lost herself."

Cara shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes. "I can't believe we didn't see it sooner. We should have been there for her."

"It's not your fault, Cara. We all missed the signs," Gigi said, resting a comforting hand on Cara's arm. She knew this was affecting her on a deeper level than the rest of them.

Taylor shifted her gaze from Tate's fluffy head to Selena, her expression filled with concern. She knew that Leia was struggling, but she hadn't realized it had gotten this far.

"Did we?" Taylor muttered, her voice so gentle and broken that the others almost missed it at first. "She's been acting weird since that night with Justin... and then at my party, I confronted her and I just knew something was wrong. But I just walked away."

"And that's also not your fault," Gigi replied, looking sternly at her friend from across the room. "We can't beat ourselves up for this. Leia made a mistake - and we'll help her through it when we can - but it is not on us."

Taylor drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch, lost in thought. The idea of reaching out to Leia's family seemed like the most logical next step, but there was an underlying feeling of apprehension within her.

There was an uncomfortable silence as everyone tried to process the story that Selena had just told again. None of them really knew how they were supposed to react to the news that their best friend was becoming addicted to taking drugs and was also potentially being hurt by her current boyfriend - if they even were that.

Before anyone could say anything, Selena's phone started ringing.

"Who is it?"

"It's... Leia?"

"ANSWER IT!!!" They all yelled at the same time, everyone frantically screeching at each other and at Selena for the girl to pick up the phone call. Selena yelled back at them, telling them to shut up as she clicked accept on the phone call.

There was a moments of silence in the room as the call connected and faint sniffles could be heard down the line. Cara and Taylor shared a saddened look at the fact that their friend was obviously upset and they weren't with her.

"...Leia?" Selena spoke softly when the girl didn't say anything. They all held their breath as they crossed their fingers that she was going to say something and that she hadn't accidentally butt dialled the number. "Leia, is that you?"

"I need help, right now."

____

Moments before she decided to call Selena, Leia sat in the kitchen, her eyes focused on the counter top and the evidence of the heavy night that she had experienced with Dylan and the rest of his gang. Flinching slightly as she continued to apply the rubbing alcohol to the cut on her skin, Leia hissed as she finally pulled the small dressing on to her hand.

She had thought it would be a good idea to clean up the mess that they had all made, but she had only managed to successfully put away three bottles of beer before slicing her hand open on the fourth bottle that she hadn't noticed was smashed. Her mind was too far away from the kitchen to have even been focused on the full details of the mess around her, the millions of thoughts that had arisen from Selena's appearance a week prior fighting to control her.

As much as she wanted to be in denial and pretend that Selena had just came over to tell her thousands of lies, Leia knew that if the girl had been lying then she wouldn't have been so hung up on the woman's words. There was something in what the girl had told her that made her second guess everything. Deep down she had always believed that her friends wouldn't have just cut off contact with her and Selena seeming genuinely confused at Leia not getting their messages cut deep into her mind. She knew the girl well enough to know her tell tale lying signs, and Selena had been telling the truth when she told the brunette that they all had been trying to reach her for weeks.

Leia hated herself for it, but her main thought wasn't even about getting herself out of the situation she had put herself in for the sake of her own safety, but rather for her friend's sake - especially the blonde pop-star that she would always have feelings for. If this experience was telling her anything, it was that her friends were more important to her than she could ever have imagined.

"Hey babe, I'm going to see my parents, I'll be back around two or three," Dylan's voice startled her, cause her to squeak as she accidentally pressed down on the newly bandaged cut. He looked at her in disappointment as he saw the bandage on her hand, rolling his eyes without a single care about what had happened to her. "Try not to ruin anything else."

Leia kept her mouth shut as she watched him leave, well aware by this point that he wasn't going to visit his parents. After Selena had appeared in her house, Leia had begun to get paranoid about everything in her life - including Dylan. She would not have fully accepted that he was hurting her, bruising her not just physically but also emotionally, until Selena had forced her to look at the situation. She had gone through everything she could to try and make sense of what was happening in her life, and that just so happened to have her end up in Dylan's laptop reading his messages and discovering that he was away seeing some other girl the entire time they had been together.

Standing up from where she had been sitting in the kitchen, Leia felt her body shake slightly as a thin layer of sweat had began to fall on her body. She was already craving the little lines that she could see the remains of on the counter, but she had made a promise to herself after the night prior that that would be the last time she ever touched them. She needed her friends and family and her own life back.

Rushing through to her room, she grabbed her phone from where it was left - smashed and cracked from a previous fight with Dylan - and frantically unlocked it. Her hands shook with nerves as she clicked on her contacts, scrolling to find her friends numbers. Her eyes scrunched in confusion as she swiped back up to the top of the list, scrolling slower this time as she studied the long list of contacts only to find that none of them were on the list like they had been previously.

Clicking onto her phone settings, Leia searched for her blocked contacts list - and there it was. Her friends had been trying to contact her all this time but of course she hadn't gotten their messages since they had all been blocked by her phone. She knew fine well she hadn't done it, and since the only other person who she knew could have had access to her phone was Dylan then there wasn't really much room for contemplation over who it could be.

Throwing her phone back on to the bed she was leaning on, Leia took a deep breath as she covered her face with her hands in stress. Wiping at the tears that had began to pour down her face, she knew instantly what she had to do to stop this from getting any worse.

Grabbing the suitcase that had been sitting in the corner of the room for weeks now, Leia began to pick up this from across her apartment as she counted down how long she had left to make sure that everything was packed up before Dylan got back. It was time for her to get control of her life again.

But she knew that she couldn't do it alone.

_______

"Don't think I haven't noticed that you're being very, very uncharacteristically quiet about all of this, Taylor," Selena spoke as she cast a glance at the blonde who was sitting in the passenger seat beside her. The two were riding solo as the rest of the girls had went to pick up the random things on a pretty large list that Leia had asked Selena to pick up on her way over.

Taylor cast a quick glance over to Selena while letting out a soft hum, showing that she had acknowledged the girl but didn't know what to tell her. There was a lot of things running through her head and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it all - the past few weeks had been rough for her. Something about finally reuniting with Leia after how they'd left things at her party wasn't helping her nerves either.

"Is it because of seeing Leia...?" Selena tried to ask her friend, not wanting the girl to be overthinking something and causing herself unnecessary suffering.

"I'm just worried Sel," Taylor softly sighed, her head resting against the cold glass of the window as they almost reached Leia's apartment block. "I've been so caught up in everything with Tom, all of the Kanye/Kim/Calvin stuff and my reputation that I just know I could have stopped her from getting this bad if I had just been there that night at the after party."

Selena turned her head to send Taylor a disapproving look. She'd thought Taylor was blaming herself for the 4th of July party, not the original night that Leia had met Justin. She needed her friend to understand that this wasn't Taylor's fault. It wasn't just the one action of Taylor not going to the after-party that had resulted in all of this, and there was no way of knowing if Taylor herself could have prevented everything that was going on with their friend.

"Tay..."

"I just really care about her Selena, and I know we all do... but I just..." Taylor trailed off as she continued to look out of the window, her words causing Selena to raise an eyebrow while staring at the road in surprise. It was no secret in their friend group that Leia had fancied Taylor for a while now, but at this point Selena hadn't even thought Taylor would have fancied the girl back, not when she was with Tom.

"You don't need to explain it to me," Selena finally told her, reaching her hand out and giving Taylor's hand a squeeze in solidarity before moving it back to the steering wheel. She could see Taylor finally turn to look at her in the corner of her eye as she seemed confused by what Selena meant. "It's okay."

Taylor let out a slight humourless laugh as she realised what Selena was trying to tell her. She sat up slightly straighter in her seat as Selena pulled the car to a stop outside of Leia's apartment block, but neither of them reached for their door handles just yet.

"How long have you know that... that I..."

"Liked girls?" Selena said what Taylor was finding it hard to say. The blonde nodded as she swallowed a lump in her throat, a little bit surprised that Selena seemed to be so in tune with her thoughts. "I didn't know as such, but I suspected it for a while when you and Karlie were so close before... I know I sound like one of those shippers online, but then your friendship with Leia... if you could call it that... yeah that kind of confirmed it almost. You getting with Tom kind of put the idea on the rocks, but I could just tell."

Taylor wasn't sure if she really followed but she understood what the girl meant. She was utterly head over heels for Leia Hudson and it was maybe one of the worst tragedies in her life that it took her almost losing her friend for her to face up to what she had been feeling for months.

The silence in the car lifted as Selena opened the door, sending Taylor a soft smile of acceptance as they both exited the vehicle and began to walk up the path to Leia's front door. Her next door neighbour smiled warmly at them as he passed the duo while going to his mailbox, sending them a quick wave. Selena and Taylor noticed the look of surprise on his face at seeing them around for the first time in a while, but they didn't have time to stop and chat.

Taylor looked to Selena for approval before rapping her knuckles against the door - maybe two or three more times than necessary - to let Leia know that they had arrived. Soft thudding from inside the house told them that the girl was approaching the door, and Taylor braced herself for the very worst.

"Did you bring the new door lock?" Leia asked as soon as she opened the door, tears still fresh on her face and her whole body seemed to be trembling as she let Selena and Taylor into the apartment.

As they moved inside, Taylor couldn't help but take in her appearance. Leia was in an old hoodie, frayed at the edges but Taylor was a bit amazed to see it was one of the hoodies she was sure was a part of Fifth Harmony's last tour merch. Later on she would find out that this was one of Lauren's old hoodies, but that was a story for another time. Taylor had never heard about that night at Gigi's house, and those that knew had kept up their promise of keeping it to themselves.

There was a slight hesitation as Taylor and Leia stood so close to each other without having seen or spoke to the other in almost two months. Selena could feel that tension in the air between them that she had alluded to in the car, but she knew that with the urgency in Leia's voice on the phone and when opening the door that they didn't have time to waste.

"Cara and Gigi are on their way over with it as we speak, they're just getting Camila first as they dropped her off so that she could get the cleaning stuff you needed," Selena spoke softly, trying to ease the girl as she frantically paced around.

The pair of best friends could see the remainder of a heavy night prior, with bottles of emptied alcohol and familiar white powder marks scattered across the kitchen and living room. Taylor held back her reaction, knowing that she didn't want Leia to feel like they were judging her for her mistakes but she hadn't really understood what Selena meant about it being crazy bad until seeing it in person.

Leia's eyes darted nervously between Taylor and Selena, her hands anxiously wringing in front of her. Taylor could see the shame and desperation in Leia's eyes, a stark contrast to the vibrant, confident girl she had once known. Taylor took a deep breath, trying to push away the wave of emotions that threatened to consume her. She couldn't afford to break down now. Leia needed her support more than ever.

It hurt Taylor to see her friend in such a state, surrounded by the remnants of a wild night that had clearly spiralled out of control. Instinctively, Taylor reached out her hand and gently placed it on Leia's arm, hoping to offer some comfort amidst the chaos.

"Leia," she said softly, her voice filled with concern. "We're here for you. We're going to help you through this."

Leia's eyes were bloodshot and filled with shame as she looked back at Taylor. The vulnerability in Taylor's voice struck a chord within Leia. She had missed Taylor more than she cared to admit. Selena stood silently beside them, offering her support through a reassuring touch on Leia's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice raw and trembling. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I just... I just wanted to escape from everything."

The blonde was the first to notice the suitcase at the door with a couple of plastics bags full of things too. Her eyes narrowed as she looked between Leia and the bags, confusion spread across her features as she tried to figure out what the girl was planning.

"Leia, are you leaving?"

Leia spun around to face Taylor, the blonde's voice taking her back to before she ruined everything good in her life. Her mouth opened for a second as she went to reply, her voice getting stuck in her throat as she remembered just how beautiful her friend was. Selena looked between the two, trying to hide a small smile as she watched them attempt to speak to each other.

"No, but I need him gone," Leia said eventually, not needing to explain anything to the duo. Selena and Taylor were aware of the situation even if Leia hadn't explicitly told any of them and they knew exactly who she was trying to keep out.

The tears started to pool in Leia's eyes and before any of them knew it, she was being wrapped in a tight hug by Taylor. The blonde wrapped her arms tightly around her friend, moving them over so that they could both sit on the couch while Selena began binning the empty glasses as they waited on the others to arrive so that they could change the locks (since Dylan had his own key) and fully do a deep clean of the apartment as the heavy partying had taken a toll on its cleanliness.

"Its okay, Leia," Taylor softly murmured into the girl's ear as she cradled her, "I've got you now."

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originally published: may 2020

rewritten: february 2024