Solace (noun): comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness.

Now

Montana

I've never quite understood why when you live somewhere you yearn to leave but when you finally do, you cannot wait to get back. Maybe it's the familiarity, the ease, the comfort of the norm.

A week after meeting Dylan and his baby daughter, his words still ring in my head like a scratched disk. "-he's made you incredibly sad, it's radiating off your skin and nothing makes you this sad if it isn't worth it." I tug at a strand of my hair, hoping the ting of pain makes it stop. My skin still stings from the sunburn Barbados gave me but I was content being back home in New York for the week.

The elevator doors open and I step into the busy headquarters. I look up from admiring my shoes to see that there are people everywhere, if Bradford's was this busy, it usually meant there was a show coming real soon. A very important one I have no idea about. I keep my head down, my feet carrying me forward to my only source of solace somewhere in this office.

But because of the forces that are conspiring against me, I don't get three steps ahead from my original spot when someone notices me. Sometimes I forget I'm as tall as a skyscraper and that I cannot hide no matter how much I wish it in my head."Montana!" One of my old colleagues greets with widened eyes like she had just seen a six headed hydra.

This surprised calling of my name causes a domino effect of faces and greetings turning towards me and I want to scream at the top of my lungs and demand my best friend be brought to me this instant but then the familiar faces start clicking into place and a slow smile spreads across my face. "Hey everyone, I see Lillian is still having you all killed and your houses burned and children gutted." I signal around the large space. Models are being stripped of their clothes and fitted into new ones, cameras recording everything while designers scurry around with folders.

"Do you mean the one who gave you a job in the first place?" A voice asks from behind me and I spin on my heel, a smirk on my face.

"Lillian." I extend my arms to my old boss, the huntress of the fashion world. Everyone was her slave, serve her or be gone.

"Darling." She coos at me, kissing my cheek. Her blonde hair is pulled back tightly into a bun, her sharp features proudly on display.

She pulls away and places her perfectly manicured hands on either of my cheeks, "Oh dear..." She murmurs, scrutinizing me with her sharp eyes, trained to take in every detail in the matter of a few seconds.

"You look absolutely dreadful." She pouts then drops her hands to her sides in case she is caught in the act of caring for someone. She had the reputation of a vile bitch to keep up you see, even though deep down inside, she was far from it.

Lillian drags her eyes down my plum colored dress and black heels and rolls her eyes with a sigh. "Sierra is in her office." She nudges her head like she's dismissing me and turns on her heel, cussing at an intern nearby to get back to work without gaping like she's choking on her boyfriends private parts. Somehow she managed to make insulting someone elegant too.

"Nice to see you too." I murmur under my breath and wave at the people watching nearby, quickly escaping into the corridor on my right.

I remember my first day here years ago, I had been a jittery mess, falling all over the place. A shiver runs down my spine and I shake the thought away.

The door to Sierra's office is ajar and I peek in. It takes me a second to spot her among the pin dolls and stacks of glossy papers, bent over the vast table in the middle of her office, sketching furiously like she couldn't get whatever it was out of her fast enough.

Her brown hair falls on either sides of her face and she doesn't take her eyes off the paper in front of her. It was magical, watching Sierra do it. It felt too intimate to watch sometimes but you never really have the courage to look away once you experience it.

I lean against the doorway, watching the being who has my solace do what she does best. Maybe I shouldn't have come here. I was going to burden her with my sorrow and she has had enough of it for a lifetime. But there was no one else, nowhere else to go.

You'd never think the girl you save on the side of the road one day when she is about to kill herself would end up being the person who could save you too. But she did become that person and the involuntary tears spring into my eyes at the thought.

Sierra's head snaps up almost like she heard my inner thoughts, her trance breaks and she blinks a couple of times, dropping her pencil. "You're here!" Sierra gasps, standing and running around the table and jumping into my arms.

I can't help the laugh that emits from my mouth or the tears that spill down my cheeks or the sudden burst of treacherous joy in my heart. "You knew I would be."

Sierra hugs the life out of me, the broken and deeply frustrated life and replaces it with the solace I was telling you about earlier. It's a calm only she emits, it is her calm, her superpower and I silently thank every higher being in charge of appointing best friends."We always come back to each other when we can't bare it any longer, so yes, I knew." she whispers into my hair.

Sierra pulls away a little when I sniffle, "What is our first order of business then?" Something flashes in her eyes when she looks back into mine but wipes at the tears on my cheeks nonchalantly with her thumbs and puts on a smile.

"Getting drunk ASAP, please." I huff, clearing the lump in my throat. I didn't know how we became sad drunks down this long road of friendship but drinking with your best friend till neither of you can stand straight felt like a luxury you couldn't ever put a price on.

"Let's go." She grabs her bag from the coffee table nearby and pulls me out the door.

~

Calum

I drop my bags on the small bed and look around the square room. The window looks over the large track field outside where I see the kids exercising on the grass. Sigh. Luke's center was getting busier everyday, soon there will be a new one opening in Los Angeles too.

I leave the room, closing the door behind me and make my way down the hallways. Pictures litter the walls all along it, I stop in front of one I haven't seen, it must have been put up while I was gone. It's one from the seminar where Luke was given an award for reducing the rate of teen suicide with his centers and programs here in New York.

Needless to say, I was proud of my best-friend for turning his life around and helping others do the same.

As you go down the hall you see pictures of all the kids next to their doors and I'm glad to see most of them are still here. I shouldn't call them kids, they are far from it. Even if they are only a couple of years younger than me, most of them grew up faster than they could control.

"Calum!" I turn to see two pigtails skipping to my side and I stop, turning to her with my smile on full blast. "Hannah!" I cheer, hugging her to my side and she wraps her bony arms around my torso.

"I'm so glad you're back! Where were you all this time?" She asks, looking up at me with her curious, fourteen year old expression.

"After the tour, I went to Australia to visit my mum." I tell her as we continue down the silent corridor. The center was quiet during this time of day, everyone was asked to be outside or at group sessions. During the two years the center has been running, we've discovered that letting them do things on their own time is actually more effective than forcing a schedule down their throats.

"Is she doing alright?" Hannah asks, pulling a cigarette out of the pocket of her dress and lighting it, placing it between her lips.

"Yeah. She's good." I cringe as she blows perfect rings of smoke out of her tiny lips and for some reason it reminds me of that girl in the blue dress who runs after a rabbit in that fairytale... I think it was called Alice In Wonderland. I remember my sister showing it to me in one of her picture books when we were kids.

Hannah offers the cigarette to me, "Didn't I tell you that's bad for you?" I huff, pressing the down button for the elevator.

"You still do it." She rolls her iridescent eyes at me and takes it back with a shrug.

"Have you been practicing the cords I taught you last time?" I ask so I don't collapse onto my knees instead and beg this girl who has an entire life ahead of her to throw the fucking poison away and pull her future closer. But it wasn't that easy for any of us.

"I perfected it," She flicks her dark hair over her shoulder as the doors close.

"Good. I'll teach you-"

"I had a dream." She interrupts and I stuff my hands in my pockets.

"Yeah? What was it about?"

"My mother and her boyfriend." She rolls her eyes again like a thirty year old and coughs.

"You wanna talk about it?" I ask slowly.

"Are you going to make me say it to everyone during circle time?" She cocks an eyebrow at me. She hated talking to the other kids, but we never forced them to talk either. They do it on their own and then blame it on whoever is in charge in the room so that they don't look like they actually wanted someone to care about them for a second in time.

"You know I keep all your stories to myself." I pat her shoulder and she presses her head into my side affectionately as we walk out of the elevator and into the main area. Luke and Ashton are talking to a couple of people by the reception so I turn the other way, heading to my usual room. We have a concert tonight so I'm sure they'll come looking for me later anyway.

Hannah skips into the room ahead of me and I watch the other kids file in from another door.

It's laughable really, me at a center for troubled teenagers trying to get them to talk when I'm as fucked up as they are.

We all usually just sit in a circle and be fucked up together.

There's seven of them in my group, all victims of child abuse, domestic abuse, rape and childhood drug abuse.

The first time Luke told me, the amount of times he used the word abuse made me puke all the contents of my stomach. I stayed in bed for a week because I was shamefully weak after seeing their faces for the first time. The haunted glares in my direction. Usually someone their age would scream at me out of joy and ask for a picture and an autograph, not them.

But now, they are like friends to me, they know the most. I've made a deal with them, they tell me their shitty lives and the thoughts going through their scarred minds and I tell them all about mine.

They all sit in the circle, four girls and three boys. Their limbs are relaxed, eyes wild and mouths wide with grins. There's color in their skin now and clean clothes covering their bruises. It makes me happy, seeing them smile. It's consolation. "You know what, today we're gonna sit in a triangle. Screw the circle."

Brayden, the boy with the large Afro and a soul brighter than the sun, raises his eyebrows at me. "S'cuse me?"

"Brayden, you can be an angle today. Let's go people, move your chairs, we're going to end this vicious circle." I motion at them.

They move their chairs and somehow we form a crooked triangle. "So, who is going to tell me about their week first." I ask, looking at each of them, resting my arms on the back of the chair.

Hands go up around the triangle and I can't help the smile when I think of the first time I asked them this question and Brayden flipped a chair and Elle with the grace of a ballerina, spat at my feet. "Okay, Jamie first." I point at the boy with the burn marks down the side of his face and the hands that make art greater than Picasso ever did.