[tw: suicide attempt, no silent readers please]

𝗜𝘁 𝗶𝘀 the night before her junior year of high school starts, and Montana Lestari finds herself drifting to sleep on the swingset in the old park. At 8pm, she received her daily notification, but by 6am, she has the reset her time. Two months wasted in one night. But she doesn't care; she's in one of those moods again. Maybe the doctors were right when they told her not to drink.

Because of her long record, people keep certain things away from Montana — especially Fezco. When she stays at his house, he locks every single thing he owns up and basically baby proofs the whole building. Which means she has to get creative with her attempts.

Water. You can't live without it, right? Like, you would literally die without this liquid. Well, you can also die by drinking too much of it.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five litres of water Montana has drowned her throat in now. She snuck out of Fezcoʼs an hour ago, and now she's starting to pass out from water intoxication in the pedo park as she tries to gulp down her sixth litre bottle.

She isn't too sure on what exactly set her off tonight — the drugs, the alcohol, the blood, she has no clue. All she knows is that right now her mind and her body are strangers, battling the debate of death and living. People scream at Montana from the inside; some are telling her to keep going, some are cheering her on, some are telling her to stop, some are telling her to look good, some are telling her people are watching, some are telling her she's part of a reality TV show and some are simply laughing. She can't think, she can't talk, she can't cry and she can't move. She feels like a robot, controlled by whatever mister lives inside of her, because she is trapped outside of her body, watching her do these things to herself, unable to stop it from happening.

Watery vomit dribbles down her chin and drops onto her leather shorts, spreading over her bare legs. She isn't cold, she's grown numb to the weather by now, and to anyone watching her, she already looks dead.

That's certainly the case for Lexi Howard, who wakes up at 6:30 on the dot to get ready for school, and looks out of her window to see the girl on the swing, eyes gone somewhere far away. Her body shines off the red sunrise and, for a moment, Lexi is sure she sees a ghost. Until she recognises the signature, black platform boots on the girl's feet.

Montana Lestari. Everybody knows her as the messy psycho of the school. Some even say she's crazier than Maddy, but Lexi has nothing to judge her from. At least once a month, her name spreads like wildfire and everyone bets money one whether they think she's dead or not as she makes her latest disappearance. Lexi doesn't bet, she thinks people betting on shit like that is sick. She's never personally spoken to Montana, but she and Cassie are friendly with each other, and from what from sister says, Tana is a little all over the place. People say that when the Lestari girl goes off the rails, you let her, you leave her, because she'll bounce back eventually.

But Lexi isn't just going to ignore and block out the image of a girl, seemingly dead, passed out on the swingset opposite her home, in the pedo park. No, Lexi Howard isn't the kind of person to leave people in need. She's a helper, she helps people, even if they don't want/deserve it.

So, when she sees the girl outside her window, she instantly throws on her dressing gown and runs down the stairs, ignoring her mother's drunken calls to be quiet.

Outside, it's cold, freezing, enough to make Lexi shiver under her thick dressing gown and fuzzy pyjamas — she cannot imagine how the girl in nothing but shorts and a bra is feeling right now. She doesn't waste any time before rushing towards her.

"Montana?"

The girl groans quietly in response, head rolling back, but her eyes stay to the side. Dead. She does blink. She doesn't open them more. They just stay there. Dead.

Lexi sighs, and tries shaking her awake. Throughout her entire life, she has always been known as the responsible friend, the mom of all her social circles, the one who people go to for advice and the one who always knows what to do and how to fix things. But right now, in this moment, Lexi Howard has no fucking idea how to help Montana Lestari.

"Hey," she shakes her shoulder lightly, careful not to scare or anger the girl with the bad reputation. "Hey, do you want me to call an ambulance?"

It takes a few moments — moments that feel like hours — before Montana finally responds. "No," she mumbles quietly. "No doctors."

Lexi nods and kneels down onto the mud, hands placed in a comforting way Montanaʼs as she stares up on her. "Okay," she says softly. "What do you want me to do, then?"

Montana rolls her head back around so she can finally face the girl talking to her. "Lexi," she smiles.

The concerned girl nods. She isn't too sure how somebody like Montana Lestari knows her name; she isn't popular, not like her sister, at least. "Yeah," she says, voice staying at a normal level, flat and soft as if it might help Montana. "Yeah, it's me."

"You're really pretty," she mumbles, blinking slowly at the girl in front of her.

For a moment, Lexi doesn't know what to say. She's dealt with Rue on drugs plenty of times, but this is a whole new territory. She isn't even sure if Montana is high or not, she doesn't smell like anything but cotton candy body spray.

"Are you going to save me, Lexi?" asks Montana after a minute of silence. Her voice is still lowered into a bearly-audible mumble, the only movement of her body being the way her eyes slowly close every few seconds.

Lexi nods. "Yeah," she answers confidently. "What do you want me to do?"

"You got a shower?"

(a/n: i'm still not too sure about this, how do you feel?) — tay <33