Page 74 of Hard Rock Fling

His hands trembled. I glanced up to meet his eyes, still glassy. From pain? From endorphins?

"You can't tell anyone."

"Ian…"

He grabbed my shoulders with both hands, paper towel fluttering to the floor. The wound had stopped bleeding, but it still looked painful. "Promise me you won't tell anyone.Please. If August finds out, he'll make me quit."

Did he mean quit the band, or quit cutting himself?

Ian clutched at me desperately. "Promise me."

I tried to speak in soothing tones, tried to reason with him. "You need to get help."

"I already got help!" He let me go, storming away the few paces he could in the small washroom. "We already went on hiatus once. We can't do it again."

"Maybe that's what you need."

"No." Ian's lips were firm, his eyes resolute. "You don't get to make that choice for me."

"Someone clearly has to."

Ian shook his head vehemently. He shoved his hand inside his pants pocket and pulled out a pad of white gauze. He'd been prepared. How often did he do this? He folded it over into a rectangle, thick but narrow. He pressed it to his arm with one hand and took his wrist cuff from the sink with the other.

"No one needs to know."

He put the cuff back on, buckling the straps tight. It completely hid the scars and pressed the gauze over the wound. It would scab over underneath the leather. He was going to hide it from everyone. He was going to go out there and pretend everything was fine.

"At least talk to your brother." Damon would know what to do. Right?

"What do you care, anyway?"

Tears stung my eyes. A vice squeezed my lungs. "I care. Of course I care."

"We're just a fling, remember?" He threw the words back in my face, sharp and biting.

"I can't sit back and watch while you hurt yourself."

He stared straight through me, expression blank, but I could see the distress in his eyes. "Then I guess it's a good thing you don't have to."

He turned his back on me and walked out.

I stared at the swinging door for long moments. Then I began cleaning up the few red drops in the sink with soap and water. I was on autopilot, my brain going a million miles an hour.

She won't find out!Ian had told his brother.

But I had.

Ian cut himself.

Doctors called it self-harm. The cuts weren't on the inside of his wrist. They were on the back of his arm. And not one or two. He must have been doing it for years.

Why? What would make someone do that to themselves?

Despite Ian's plea, there was no way I could keep it a secret. Not something as big as this.

I cleaned up the last of the paper towels and flushed them down the toilet. On the way out of the stall I caught my reflection in the mirror. My face was pale, my eyes wide, full of worry and fear. My hair was more frazzled than usual.

The two minute break was more than over by the time I gathered myself together. The interview was already done. The band members were getting ready to leave.