Kellin observed Rowan carefully once he returned to their booth with his slice of chocolate cake, noticing all the little things she did. His eyes zeroed in on her meal which, even after Kellin's much larger portion was clean and trashed, remained on her plate. Rowan didn't work to start any particular conversation, but she didn't stay still either. Her legs bounced rapidly beneath their table; she stabbed one or two shreds of lettuce up only to twirl them around and drop them again; she evened out the strings from the hood of her zip-up jacket; her thumb and pointer finger thumped out an even beat on her outrageously prominent collar bones; she chewed her nearly-nonexistent nails into oblivion; she sucked her cheeks in and gnawed on them ferociously. Essentially, Rowan was busy doing anything to avoid eating. Kellin felt almost sick to his stomach with worry.

"Ro?"

"Hm?" She smiled thinly, glancing up at him with mild interest.

"You want to play a game?"

Rowan narrowed her eyes suspiciously, "What kind of game?"

"Twenty questions?" Kellin smiled warmly her way, offering a silent promise that it wouldn't be as awful as she imagined.

After a half-hearted shrug from Rowan, Kellin grinned in thanks.

"Alright, so we need rules!" Rowan's eyebrow arched in response to Kellin's silly ideas, "Oh, C'mon! Humor me!" She laughed a bit, giving in with a flourished wave of her hand to continue, "Okay, so... I'll go first, then you, then me. And so on and so forth, okay? Also, you have to answer every question, and answer it honestly. If there's one you really don't want to answer, you have to... eat a few bites of my cake. Other than that, free reign. Ask anything. Yeah?"

"Hm..." Rowan used her left hand to stroke her chin where her imaginary beard was while she chewed the choice over in her mind. After much deliberation, Rowan heaved a heavily-acted sigh, "Oh fine! I suppose I'll play your stupid game!"

"Alright!" Rowan watched, bemused, as Kellin bit his lip, squinted his eyes shut, and did a small fist-pump in victory. She couldn't quite display it, but she was in fact thankful towards this man for the obvious effort he put forth to make her smile. Rowan didn't often feel emotions strongly enough to act on them, but she didn't want people to worry so she'd pretty well learned how to laugh or cry with the crowd.

"Yeah yeah yeah, so are we gonna do this thing or not?" Rowan rolled her eyes and pasted on a playful smirk.

"Right." Kellin sucked in an exaggeratedly deep breath, "So. Me first..."

Rowan gulped, there was no denying the truth in the wicked glint in the man's eyes as he thought over what his first question would be. "Hey, now, take it easy, yeah?"

"Sure, sure," Kellin waved his hand, signaling she apparently had nothing to worry about, though Rowan still wants too convinced, "Okay. Easy ones... Favorite color?"

"Seafoam." Rowan replied without a moment's hesitation, "Yours?"

"Yellow." Kellin replied, smiling as he began to see her loosening up a bit, "Weird talent?"

"This." Rowan lifted her arm, Kellin was confused as she grinned at him for a beat, before she quickly showed she was able to reach her tongue all the way to her elbow. She dropped her arm with a 'tada!' before proceeding, "Weird obsession?"

"Pokemon." Kellin answered, "Which I suppose wouldn't be so weird if I were like ten, but I'm definitely not."

"Meh," Rowan shrugged, smiling a bit, "Pokemon's awesome no matter what age you are."

Kellin beamed, "Damn straight." He gave her a nod of approval before asking a follow up, "Who's your favorite character and why?"

Rowan took a moment to seriously debate the cake option just to avoid giving him an answer, but the thought of swallowing even a crumb of that mess made her stomach churn. She knew she could just lie like she did to everyone else but for some reason she felt like she couldn't do that to him. Therefore, she eventually gave in, "Ash..." Kellin nodded, encouraging her to go on. Without Rowan's full knowledge or permission, her lips opened and she ended up spilling the embarrassing details, "I had the biggest crush on him growing up. I wasn't the Barbie-and-Ken-shipper type of kid, instead of sitting around at play dates making up sexist-house-wife-driven stories and dressing up otherwise naked plastic people, I was at home collecting trading cards and fantasizing about Ash."

Kellin had to bite his lip -with enough force to draw blood, mind you- to avoid laughing, which he feared could make Rowan throw her newly-knocked-down walls of steel back up. "Oh..." He couldn't help but chuckle a bit, but for her sake he managed to cover it with a half-hearted cough, "Makes perfect sense."

"Oh shut up!" Rowan had to nearly stand on her booth-seat just to reach across the table to smack Kellin's arm with all her little might.

"You know, that didn't hurt one tiny bit." Kellin grinned smugly, earning a scowl from Rowan as she sat herself back down in defeat. "Still your turn."

"Fine..." Rowan wanted to find something that could embarrass him as much as he'd done her, all whilst trying to cool her flaming cheeks with her own icy palms, "Uh... Most embarrassing story."

Kellin thought on it for a bit, but the images that came into his mind were most definitely not fit for any grown man's ears much less this small girl, so he stuck his fork into a chunk of chocolate cake and ate it.

"No fair!" Rowan protested, crossing her arms and stomping her foot under the table, looking even younger than she usually did.

Kellin shrugged as he swallowed, "Perfectly fair. It was in the Unwritten-But-Still-Totally-Legally-Binding-Contract-of-Twenty-Questions-with-Kellin-and-Rowan rule book mentioned earlier. So, HA!" Kellin let Rowan grumble inaudibly for a bit before he came up with a good one, "Most bad-ass trait?"

"Hm..." Rowan thought on it, knowing it was sort of a broad question but still feeling as if she couldn't tell. You see, any admittance of more personal information on Rowan's part made her almost queasy. She was so accustomed to keeping her true thoughts to herself that this bizarre game forced Rowan to think and feel and talk much more than she was used to. There was something, something that she could tell him but it made her nervous even thinking about letting that one out. She could just tell him about her skateboarding stunts and call it a day, but again she felt an odd guilt flicker inside of her... she just couldn't make sense of the fact that she could not muster up a simple white lie to tell him. Rowan realized she'd been running her own mind in circles for an embarrassing amount of time, Kellin still wanted an answer. Her eyes flicked up to meet his and it was in that moment that she blurted out one of her most treasured secrets, "I'm an artist. I can draw anything I've seen, even just once, to look exactly like the real thing."

"Seriously?" Kellin could feel his jaw hanging wide open but couldn't concentrate enough on himself to close it. He was too busy thinking about just how unlike everyone else Rowan actually was. Sure there are plenty of people here experiencing the world of cancer as he was, sure there were plenty of fucked up kids out there, sure there were plenty of artists that could be called talented. But none of them could hold a candle to her. Kellin couldn't help but grow more attached to and intrigued by Rowan with his every heart beat. Off Rowan's hesitant nod, Kellin shook his head in disbelief, "Well fuck. That's awesome..."

Rowan felt uncomfortable with such a personal thing out on the table like that, and was made even more so by the compliments from Kellin. She decided to ask another question, if for no other reason than to distract him from thinking too hard on what she'd said. "So! My turn?"

Kellin nodded, seeming to snap out of some sort of daze before his focus landed on her again.

"Well..." She tried hard to find a question that would require a lot of thinking on his part, so as to keep the attention from herself as long as possible, "What do you like to do?"

"Sing." Kellin replied, feeling himself get lost back into the game, "I sing in a band. I really love it. It's just always kinda been my thing, and I'm lucky enough to be part of something that lets me keep at it..."

Rowan listened as he talked about how he ended up in the group, and who else was in it, and what they did, and how they came to be there. As great of a distraction as this topic turned into for Kellin, Rowan too felt herself submerging into the depths off thought about Kellin's passion. Music. Singing. In a band. Huh... Rowan thought the idea fit quite well. She could easily picture Kellin jamming out in his garage with a group of friends. She thought it was funny that a grown man would still be so interested in having a little kiddie-play garage band, but it didn't bother her. Kellin was Kellin, and so what if most men his age had desk jobs and only talked about politics, so what? This was Kellin you're talking about, the word 'normal' just didn't sit with him, and that was one of the best things about him, Rowan decided. He didn't mention any sort of day-job other than his time he spent with his music, so Rowan figured he must be a stay at home dad. Again, it fit. She could not possibly imagine Kellin sitting in a cubicle with a button down and tie, it just couldn't happen.

"...Anyways, I really like that most I think. That and the aforementioned Pokemon obsession." Kellin finished with a chuckle. Rowan laughed a bit too, although hers was a beat too late due to her string of thoughts becoming so tangled. "Now that you've heard my long, boring story... time to hear yours. So I'd like to know... Hm... your biggest secret?"

Rowan's stomach did flips, as if she were dropping from a plane or standing at the edge of a the roof to a skyscraper. She rubbed her palms against her hoodie, wiping off some of the fresh sweat beading there. She could feel his eyes on her as she thought. First of all, she bit her tongue -hard- to keep herself quiet seeing as she had an awful habit of blurting out her honest thoughts when Kellin was around. She knew she obviously wouldn't be giving him an answer, what with her deepest secrets being horrifying to even herself and the sheer amount of secrets she kept anyways. So what choice did that leave Rowan with? Eat the cake? But she knew that her stomach would most likely reject the food after becoming so used to being empty. Everything she ate, at this point, would either be purged from her body by her hands or come back up by its own accord. She didn't want Kellin to see what a mess she was after a meal, so that couldn't be an option. Run? No. Kellin was watching her like a hawk, there was no chance she could get away before he could catch her and ask her all about what was so wrong that she tried to escape. 'Lie. That's all you have to do, Rowan, lie.'

Rowan took a deep, steadying breath, "I--" but she couldn't do it. She couldn't lie to him. She felt tears well in her eyes at the amount of effort she was putting forth with no apparent result, she kept opening her mouth only to discover no words would come out. 'Fuck you, Kellin. Look what you've done to me.' It was the only thing she could think, she dropped her head and let her hair fall like a curtain between them.

"Hey, hey... I'm sorry," Kellin reached across the table to tug Rowan's chin up carefully before he gently moved some of her hair behind her ear to clear her line of vision, "I didn't mean to freak you out. It was just a joke. No biggie if you don't want to answer!"

His obvious concern only made Rowan feel worse, she knew he meant it. He was just too nice to her, Rowan knew she didn't deserve Kellin's kindness or concern. But she had never been one to back down, so she would not let herself give up on this game. So, lying was no longer an option either. Cake it is, then.

Rowan looked back up to Kellin who smiled warmly at her, she stuck her open hand out to him, "Fork please."

Kellin perked up a bit, seeing that she was willing to eat something, and hastily passed her the chocolatey utensil with fervor for fear she would soon change her mind.

"Thanks." Rowan muttered, still uneasy with the prospect of eating. But what other choice did she have, really? Besides, Rowan had almost cried twice in one day, that was more than she could handle, it was more than she'd really done in almost six years, at this point she just really wanted to get on with it.

Kellin saw Rowan take the time to cut the smallest possible piece of cake, avoiding any icing or chocolate moose filling, and raise it to her mouth. She took her bite and chewed for what seemed like ages, all whilst wearing a grimace of disgust. Kellin really wanted to figure this girl out. She was obviously upset by the prospect of answering his question, so much so than he'd watched tears pool in her eyes, and was equally disturbed by the idea of a simple bite of cake. He knew by this point that there was no easy way to go about this, if he wanted to know Rowan he knew it would be no easy feat. He also realized that he'd somehow become so entranced by her that there was no other option anymore. He would get to know her, he had to. He had to save her. It was like the more he was with her the more he depended on his time with her. It was strange, this hold she had over him, but he couldn't find any part of himself that wished it away. Maybe he was selfish. This obsession of his had, in fact, taken his mind off of the circumstances at home. Though that wasn't what made him care for her so much, not consciously. He never cared for her so that he could use her, but that didn't mean the distraction hadn't helped him, it had. Or maybe he was a masochist. This was, after all, a doomed mission for the most part... He knew this girl would probably run from him as soon as he lost sight of her. He knew her type, he understood that Rowan was the girl who ran when people began to see through her thick armor.

Rowan swallowed hard, gulping down the cake, and immediately felt the lurch in her stomach. She wouldn't be able to keep it down for long. Rowan's focus finally lifted from the mess of calories before her to meet Kellin's observant gaze. His eyes cut her to the core, there was something in him that seemed to strip Rowan of the thick skin she'd worked for years to cultivate. She felt bare, exposed... And it absolutely terrified her.

"Um, 'scuse me." Rowan mumbled, slipping from the booth quickly.

Kellin felt his heart drop. He'd been right, she was going to run. He'd upset her and now he was going to loose her for good. 'FuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuck!' Kellin panicked, he shot up from his seat too, ready to catch her if she bolted. "You alright?"

"Yeah, sure," Rowan's lips tugged up on the right into a lopsided grin, "I just gotta pee. That's not against the rules right?"

"No, no," Kellin sighed in relief, dropping back into his chair as he felt the weight of the world leave his shoulders for a moment. He smiled back at her kindly, "Go ahead."

Rowan nodded before ducking around a corner and to a bathroom. Kellin noted that she left her bag and -more importantly- her board behind, he felt confident that she was not leaving. He smiled at the thought. He'd gotten her to open up, laugh, eat, and all without sending her running off. Maybe he wouldn't loose her so soon after all.

---

Kellin nervously clicked the home button on his cell again, for what seemed the millionth time, and saw that it'd now been fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes since she'd left the table. Fifteen fucking grueling minutes. He sighed, locking his phone and yanking his hand through his hair again.

'That's it. I'm going.' He was too worried about her to sit still another minute either way. It was either go and look for her or sit here and explode into a thousand pieces. He hopped up, threw Rowan's bag over his shoulder, and tucked her board under his arm before turning the corner she'd disappeared around before.

A moment later Kellin found the only door in sight, it was a door to the women's restroom. Good, Kellin'd been worried that Rowan couldn't tell the difference between a men's and women's room. Though there was a chance it wasn't Rowan inside, the otherwise empty area of hiding places led him to believe it was in fact her inside. Still, Kellin decided not to just call out or open the door or do anything stupid. He took a deep breath before he raised his hand, readying himself to knock, but stopped himself short. There was a sound that shocked him, he pressed his cheek flush against the pale lavender door to better hear.

There it was again. The distinct sound of vomiting. He was suddenly much more willing to knock. He did so, and was answered with a mumbled, "It's a hospital! There are plenty of other toilets! Go find your own, and dunk your head in while you're at it!"

Had Kellin not been so choked up with concern, he would've laughed. He liked the sassy side of Rowan.

Instead, he managed to knock again, but this time receiving a very exuberant response. There was a loud thump, the metal door clanging loudly with the impact of what Kellin assumed to be one of Rowan's shoes, and an equally loud, "FUCK YOU! GO AWAY!"

Kellin decided to slump down to the floor, his back against the door, and wait. She was obviously feeling ill, and upset, he didn't want to make it worse.

Rowan sighed in relief as the idiot who'd been knocking finally took a hint and beat it. The pounding in her head was enough to drive her up the walls without the added noise the imbecile felt it necessary to make. She plopped down onto the tiled floor in exhaustion, tucking her socked-foot under her stick thin legging-clad thigh. She was completely drained. She'd hoped to at least keep the cake down long enough to escape Kellin's notice but alas her stomach had other plans. Even feeling as weak as she did, there was one part of her mind that raged on with gusto. Not even starvation, lack of sleep, and three consecutive years of giving in to her dark craving could kill the monster living in her head. Even as she let her own living body rot away, that part of her that she so desperately wanted to destroy wouldn't be silenced. It was there now. Despite the fact that her last meal had been a week ago and her last night with more than two hours of sleep had been over a month ago that one little evil thought plagued her.

"Just shut up..." She whispered, wrapping her bony arms around her sickly tiny legs, "Please. Please just leave me alone..."

But it refused to comply. She handled it the only way she knew how. She pulled the duct tape (which was placed so as to hold the sole of her Chucks to the fabric of the shoe) from the bottom of her left, remaining sneaker, revealing a small blade she kept tucked away for such moments. Rowan felt her conscience completely vanish, leaving her feeling that all-too-familiar hollowness, as she shrugged her hoodie off one-handed, keeping the other wrapped around her metal salvation. Now exposed, Rowan allowed herself a moment of empty curiosity. She watched her own fingers trail over her scars and cuts as if she were watching a film, she distantly thought about the multitude of slices and wondered when they'd magically multiplied. She couldn't remember having that many before... Oh hell, it didn't much matter. She was only about to add even more, who cares how many there were to start with?

Rowan gnawed on her bottom lip as she drug the blade across her right wrist calmly. She felt no pain, no feeling whatsoever, only the awful emptiness she'd grown sickeningly used to. One cut, two, three... Rowan made them in straight little lines, perfectly placed and shaped and sized. Like tally marks on a white board. The last memory Rowan had of attending full-time school was one of her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Harborth. Ms. H was awesome. But she was also not one to be walked all over. She had a strict system. There was a large white board over her desk specifically dedicated to her 'three strikes' system. You started the day with a clean slate, but you got a tally mark by your name on that board for each offense. Rowan had been dealing with so much that year, her's was always the first name to be 'triple-marked.' Even now, Rowan liked the idea of that system about as much as she liked having teeth pulled. Still, she'd chosen now to sadistically play with her own mind by making her own three strikes.

Rowan just... broke. Right there on the grimy floor of a hospital bathroom where she'd churned up the snack given to her by a kind man who was much more than she knew she deserved, all whilst watching her own blood further stain the dirty ground beneath her with a grim satisfaction. She felt her walls shatter, her armor fall off, her thick skin stripped away, and her carefully created facade of happiness rip to shreds.

She threw her blade against the door with all of her might, watching as it clinked into the metal piece and tumbled to the ground with a silent grace she felt the evil thing was unworthy to posses. Rowan felt her face slick with tears. Fucking tears. For the first time in years, Rowan tasted saltwater on her lips and felt warm wetness fall to stain her ragged tank top. She couldn't take it any longer. Rowan jumped up and threw herself at the sink. Her blood left a Hanzel-and-Grettle-esque trail in her wake. Standing at the mirror, she was disgusted by what it showed her. She was fucked up and the mirror never let her forget it. Rowan screamed with all of her remaining -albeit dwindling- energy as she wound her arm back, curling her hand into a tight fist before bringing it forward.

SMASH!!

Kellin shot up, dropping Rowan's things as he hurried to throw the door open. It was locked, of course. Without stopping for a moment, Kellin jumped back and lunged forward, landing the knob with a forceful kick.

BAM!!

Rowan stumbled back from the door as it flew open. Someone stood before her, but she couldn't distinguish who though her blurry vision. Damned tears were clouding her sight. Or... maybe it wasn't the tears. She began to slip as she walked quickly back from the person, retreating to sink to the floor in a corner. She felt dizzy. Rowan looked down, seeing her arm had somehow been splintered with glass shards and was bleeding profusely. She blinked her vision clear, well more clear than it had been, but didn't feel the resulting sting as her salty tears hit her tender cuts. Rowan tried to pluck some of the glass out with shaky fingers but was stopped as another set of hands came into focus. She was startled but had nowhere left to run as she was literally backed into a corner. She was somewhat comforted as she looked up to see the mystery hands were Kellin's. She was too weak to protest to the stinging as Kellin slowly began to remove the mirror pieces from the slices in her skin.

Kellin choked back his own tears, trying to swallow the lump rising in his throat, as he worked to help the trembling mess of a child huddled before him. He knew this was all his fault, she would have been just fine if he hadn't made her stay with him, or play that stupid game, or eat that cake. As he sniffled, Kellin was finally hit with his senses full force. He was accosted with the acrid smell of vomit mixed with the coppery tang of blood, the room was hot beyond belief and he suddenly wished he'd taken his jacket off. He wouldn't allow himself the luxury of a break though, not until Rowan was safe.

He mechanically moved his hands over her destroyed arms, removing as much glass as he saw while trying to avoid aggravating the angry red slashes littering her body. Now that he could see Rowan without her protective hoodie, he was even more terrified. Her bones jutted out from her skin with such sharpness that Kellin worried they would break through. Her skin itself was already a mess. There were scars and fresh cuts running all over her forearms, biceps, shoulders... every inch that could be covered by cloth had been meticulously shredded. Her complexion was a pale, creamy, ivory mixed with a sickly yellow along her hollow cheeks and clammy forehead, it reminded Kellin of the color-turning, faded keys of an old piano. Along with her many self-inflicted injuries, others lined her arms and neck. Kellin could see small, round burn marks that appeared to come from a lit cigarette dotting her fragile body. To top it all off, there were countless bruises. From top to bottom Rowan was marked with them. Fresh red, stark blueish violet, and fading yellow-green. They were in all shapes and sizes. Some the size of Kellin's full forearm, others as small as fingerprints. Most distinct were the ones shaped like hand prints, some small and feminine, but some much too large to come from any female hands.

As Kellin finished up, he finally let his gaze wander up to meet Rowan's. She was more alert than before, but she was still a bit out of it. Tears streamed down her cheeks continuously, a constant torrent of hurt. Her eyes were wide though, and the ever-present strength in them was masked by something much stronger... her pain. Kellin couldn't help but tug her to himself in a comforting embrace. As much as she told herself to push away and run, Rowan felt her body fall willingly into Kellin's arms. In a moment she was there, being comforted by this strange man, in her world, men did not have hearts... but Kellin was different. He not only had a heart, but he had a heart that reached out to her when she needed it most, and for that, Rowan was nothing but grateful.

Kellin held on to Rowan with as much strength as he could while still avoiding contact with her many injuries, other than the pressure he was applying to her most bloody arm by holding his hand tight around her wrist. It terrified Kellin that his hand could wrap around her infinitesimal wrist twice over. He rocked her a bit, swaying just to better hide the sobs that were wracking his frame. Kellin scooted them to the side, lifting Rowan so she sat fully in his lap, and made himself able to lean back against the tiled walls. Rowan curled up in his lap, using her less injured hand to grip Kellin's T-shirt while her own cries flew from her lips and her tears joined the crimson stains that soaked the fabric.

Through her own sobs, Rowan clutched harder onto Kellin, terrified he would disappear if she let go, she managed to choke out a quiet, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry."

Kellin ran his fingers through her dark tresses as he sung the only words that came to mind just now.

"You can't fight the tears that aren't coming,
Or the moment of truth in your lies.
When everything feels like the movies,
Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive..."

And just like that, Rowan felt her shaking body calm. Her tears dried as this strange, caring man sang to her. With Kellin's voice vibrating through his chest and against Rowan's soaked cheek, the small navy eyed child was lulled to sleep in his arms.

"And I don't want the world to see me,
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand.
When everything's meant to be broken,
I just want you to know who I am..."

Notes

Shout-out to:
DontWantAnEnding

Thank you for seven subscribers! And 144 reads. And comments. And votes!! They are all much appreciated. You guys are crazy awesome. I hope you enjoyed chapter three.
Thank you,
MM.