Trigger warning for mention of suicide, mention of sa, mention of death, and suicidal ideation. Stay safe <3

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As the next week passed, Lizzie and Scott were finally both back in school. Scott had convinced Mr. Harding and Ms. Gold to let him rejoin drama club, just so long as he agreed to stay after to clean up after each practice.

Jimmy opened the door to the theatre, only to be grabbed by the wrist and pulled aggressively inside the room by Grian. "Wha-"

"You know how to play guitar, right?" Grian asked.

Jimmy blinked. "Uh, yeah... Why?

As soon as he said that, Grian seemed to pull a whole guitar out of thin air and handed it to Jimmy. "Good, do you know any love songs?"

"I- love songs?" Jimmy asked incredulously and he took a look at the instrument in his arms.

There was a sigh behind them and Jimmy turned to see Mr. Harding standing there, almost looking embarrassed. "Listen, you kids don't need to-"

"Here, Timmy," Grian interrupted, shoving his phone in Jimmy's face. On the screen were tabs to a song called All of Me by John Legend. "Can you play this?"

Jimmy squinted at the small, cracked screen. "If you give me a minute to practice it, yeah," he said. "But why do I need to-"

"Good, good." Grian started to push Jimmy toward a music stand and put his phone on the stand so Jimmy could read it. "Hurry up, Ms. Gold is gonna be here soon."

Mr. Harding sighed again. "Boys, I appreciate the effort, but I can-"

Grian held up a hand to shush the teacher. "Every proposal needs a romantic atmosphere, Mr. Harding," he said matter-of-factly. "Just relax."

The drama teacher snorted. "Alright, alright," he surrendered with a soft smile; something that was nothing less than strange to see on his usually hard face.

Grinning proudly, Grian turned back to Jimmy. "Are you ready?"

"I need a tuner," Jimmy answered. "This thing is really out of tune."

Grian let out a loud, obnoxious groan. "Of course!" he said dramatically, making Joel snicker from the stage, where he was helping set up props. "Does anybody have a tuner?"

Scott looked up from one of the pews. "I have a tuner app on my phone," he offered.

"Give it!" Grian held out his hand and Scott took a second to realize he wanted his phone before handing it to him. "Thank you." He then shoved Scott's phone at Jimmy. "Tune it."

Jimmy started with the low E string, finding it was so sharp the tuner read that it was an F. "Damn, who used this guitar last?" he murmured as he turned the tuning peg. The rest of the strings were pretty much the same way, being so sharp that the tuner read them as the next note higher. "There we go," he said when he finished tuning the first string.

"So are you ready now?" Grian asked eagerly.

"Pretty much."

Grian smiled brightly then walked away. It was almost funny how excited he was about this. "I'm gonna go keep watch for Ms. Gold," he said, waving at Mr. Harding and Jimmy.

"So, you're proposing to Ms. Gold?" Scott said teasingly, leaning over the pew in front of him. He snickered when Mr. Harding blushed.

"Well, I was going to do it after opening night," Mr. Harding explained, "but Grian found out about it and convinced me to do it now." He sighed. "I just hope she says yes."

Scott rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, there's no way she won't say yes," he said. "She talks about you all the goddamn time."

"Language."

"She's in love with you, Mr. Harding."

Mr. Harding sighed for the umpteenth time. "If you say so."

Scott poked the teacher on the arm. "I don't just say so, she says so."

"Go back to your homework, kid," Mr. Harding said lightheartedly, rolling his eyes with a smile. He shook his head when Scott broke out into a fit of giggles.

Grian burst back into the room, Ms. Gold right behind him and looking confused.

"She's here!" he shouted, then pointed to Jimmy. "Start playing!"

Jimmy nodded and started strumming, staring intently at the tabs in front of him.

Ms. Gold laughed. "What's going on in here?" she asked, eyeing Grian and Jimmy almost suspiciously. She paused for a moment to listen. "Is that John Legend?"

"Amanda," Mr. Harding said softly as he took Ms. Gold's hand in his own.

Ms. Gold giggled. "Calling me by my first name in front of the students now?" she teased, smiling just as brightly as usual.

Mr. Harding let out a breathy little laugh. "Maybe." He took a deep breath, and glanced toward Grian, who looked happier than the both of them as he gave two thumbs up. "Amanda, we've been together for a while now," he started, "and I've been thinking..."

Ms. Gold tilted her head at him. "Where are you going with- Oh!" She gasped as Mr. Harding lowered himself to one knee and reached into his pocket to pull out a small, velvet box. "Nathan-" She covered her mouth with her hands, tears building in her eyes as he opened the box to reveal a beautiful diamond ring.

"I think I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he continued. "So, uh..." Mr. Harding spared one last glance at Grian, who was nodding frantically, and looked up at Ms. Gold. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes!" Ms. Gold squealed. "Yes, yes, yes, yes!"

Mr. Harding's shoulders relaxed as he slid the ring on her finger and hugged her tightly.

"Told you," Scott whispered with a wink.

Ms. Gold pulled away enough from the hug to kiss her new fiance, her face wet with joyful tears. "Is my mascara running?" she asked jokingly.

Mr. Harding wiped away a thin streak of black from her cheek. "A little bit."

Grian was jumping up and down, clapping his hands together, meanwhile Joel was laughing up on the stage at the younger.

"That's my kid right there."

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"Hm, can you move that bush over to the right a little bit?" Ms. Gold asked, motioning to her right. She giggled when the two students moved to her left. "No, no, my right, guys. There we go, thank you!" She turned to Mr. Harding. "What do you think?"

He blinked and turned to her. "Hm?"

She laughed. "The set, darling," she said.

"Oh, uh... It looks good," he said. "That bush over there looks like it could be moved to the left a bit."

She huffed and elbowed him playfully. "Jerk."

"What?!" he gasped.

"Kidding, I'm kidding!"

Mr. Harding sighed. "Good God."

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Another week later, Jimmy invited Scott over to his house for a sleepover, though not before going to Scott's favourite diner.

"I'm being adopted by Ms. Gold and Mr. Harding," Scott said as he set his fork down.

Jimmy looked up from his plate. "That's good," he said. "Now you'll have somewhere to actually live."

Scott nodded. "Yeah..." He sighed and took a sip of his milkshake. "But they said they're going to sign me up for therapy as soon as they have legal rights over me." He grimaced at the idea. "I don't need therapy."

"I don't know, I think everybody needs therapy," Jimmy shrugged. "I mean, it's nice to have someone to talk to, right?"

Scott tossed a chip at Jimmy. "Dork," he teased.

"I'm just saying!" Jimmy picked the chip off the table and tossed it back at Scott. "Therapy is a good thing, and with what you've been through, I think you probably do need it."

"Shut up," Scott grumbled. He looked down at his sandwich, the meal cold and untouched. "Jesus, I'm not even hungry enough for this."

Jimmy frowned. "But you haven't had a single bite of it yet," he said.

Scott shrugged. "I probably had too much of this milkshake."

"But... you just had your first sip of it..."

"Okay?" Scott rolled his eyes. "I'm not fat, maybe a sip is too much."

Jimmy's posture straightened, his eyes widening slightly in shock at his friend's sudden change of mood. "I didn't say you were fat," he said calmly. "Have... have you eaten anything at all today?"

"What does it matter?"

"Scott, you're going to get sick-"

"Maybe I want to!" Scott shouted, slamming his hands down onto the table and standing up. His volume gained the attention of everyone in the restaurant. "Maybe I'm trying to starve myself, maybe I don't want to be here anymore!"

Jimmy's eyebrows furrowed in concern. "Where is this coming from?" he asked quietly.

Scott let out a huff and stepped out of the booth. "Just leave me alone," he grumbled.

Jimmy stood up, reaching for Scott's hand. "Wait, Scott-" The latter whirled around, glaring at Jimmy. "What's going on with you?"

"I don't know!" Scott screamed, and everything went silent as Jimmy pulled him into a hug. Scott immediately clung to him, his bandaged fingers twisting tightly in the material of his jumper. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me," he cried.

"It's okay," Jimmy said softly. "Do you want to go outside and talk?"

Scott nodded.

"Okay, come on." Jimmy led Scott outside, trying his hardest to ignore the stares from everyone in the diner. "What's going on?"

Scott sniffled, wrapping his arms around himself. "I don't know," he breathed. "I just... what you told me in the hospital helped a lot, but I still feel like- like-" He groaned and kicked a rock into the parking lot. "Like I should've died, too, I guess. I don't know..."

"Scott, you survived for a reason," Jimmy said. "This all happened for some reason or another."

"And what reason is good enough for my sister to kill herself? Huh?" Scott looked up at Jimmy. "Why did she have to die? She never did a damn thing wrong. She was raped and abused her entire life, and she never fought against any of it. She always did what she was told, always listened and obeyed whoever was hurting her. None of it was her fault! She didn't do anything to aggravate anyone; they did it on their own."

Jimmy bit his lip. Maybe he didn't choose the best way to word that...

Scott rubbed his eyes. "She didn't deserve to die."

"And neither do you," Jimmy said instinctively. "You never did anything wrong."

"Except I did," Scott sobbed. "I hurt people, Jimmy. I hurt you. I did a lot bad things when I was with Zach. I-I-" He hiccuped. "I nearly killed someone once because I was too busy trying keep Zach happy." He turned away from Jimmy. "And even though I hate him more than anything, I still miss him and I'm miserable because of it. It's so stupid... I'm fucking pathetic."

Jimmy put his hand on Scott's shoulder. "Don't talk about yourself like that," he scolded gently. "You're not pathetic, you're literally traumatised. It's not really my place to tell you about your own childhood, but there's nothing you can do about being raised to think that the things Zach and your parents did were okay." Scott looked up at him finally. "And you're not stupid or pathetic because you miss somebody you loved, even if you know now that what he did was wrong. Just because you might hate him now doesn't change that you did love him at one point, and it's gonna hurt. But that's okay, because there is not a single thing wrong about hurting. What's not okay is calling yourself stupid because you're upset. That's not fair to yourself. I'd say it's even worse than saying it to another person who's grieving."

Scott let out a whiney sob. "But he hurt me," he cried. "I don't want to miss him."

Jimmy wrapped his arms around Scott. "I know," he whispered, running his fingers through Scott's hair. "Sometimes we can't help missing people. But you're going to get help, and you're going to feel better, I promise. It'll take some time, just be patient."

"I don't want it to hurt anymore," Scott wailed into Jimmy's chest.

"I know..." Jimmy sighed. "Listen, I know you probably don't feel like eating right now," he began, "but I think some food might make you feel better. Dad always says that to me and he's always right."

Scott pulled away just enough to look up at Jimmy. "Can we share a sundae after?" he asked.

Jimmy giggled. "Of course we can."

The smile that formed on Scott's lips was the happiest smile Jimmy ever saw.

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I promise, Scott gets better eventually... Just not in this book /gen/lh

I initially planned for Mr. Harding to propose in the last chapter but I didn't know what to write for this one so yeah. That happened lol

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and have a fantastic rest of your day or evening wherever you are! Love you guys <33 /gen/p