RADIATING VIOLET| t. stark ✔️

~Fin~

Two years later:

A little older brunette girl sat in a hard-backed chair. She sighed and folded her hands over her arms.

"Thank you for coming to group today." A woman said towards the children sitting in a circle.

Alyssa blinked her eyes a few times before remembering where she was at. Her messy hair now went past her shoulder blades and frizzed up slightly. It looked like it hadn't been brushed in days.

Her dry lips were peeled and cracked from the times in which she constantly picked at them. The girl had permanent dark circles and bags that laid under her eyes. The countless nights of no sleep were the culprit.

"Alyssa?" The woman asked.

She slightly grunted in response trying the hardest she could to give the woman a smile. Her dark eyes were foggy and no longer sparkled.

"Do you have anything you'd like to share with the group?"

"No." The girl piped.

"I'm fine."

She isn't fine.

She hasn't been fine for years now. 20 therapists, that's how many people she's talked too. They don't help. They just pump her full of pills.

Anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD.

Every single day. Take this, take that. Alyssa was sick of it. The anxiety medication doesn't help, it just makes her depressed and suicidal. She didn't use to suffer from depression. It's an aftermath of being so overly medicated.

Alyssa is a mess.

She tries to fight it. But, some days, she doesn't want too. Nothing worked. Pepper has tried every logical remedy and thing that she can.

The girl's mental health is declining. She had been hospitalized twice. The doctor's try to help but Alyssa fights them.

They don't help.

They make it worse.

***

"Alyssa, please tell me what's wrong?" Pepper asked as she dropped the girl off from school.

"I'm fine." She smiled.

What is wrong with me.

The girl doesn't know how to cure it. She's angry at herself for even struggling with her mental health in the first place. Pepper is worried. Tony is distant. She finally started calling him dad though.

It's a start.

Tony doesn't even know of the girl's issues. She hides them from everyone. Alyssa doesn't purposely hurt herself, it's just the aftermath of her nightmares.

Moving to New York hasn't helped either. All of the people she knew and loved from her old school was gone. Alyssa didn't have a lot of friends in the first place but she had to leave them anyway.

The twelve year old cries herself to sleep. White, crescent shaped scars stay etched in her skin forever. She even refuses to take her medication now. She would rather be anxious than suicidal.

Tony only really noticed Alyssa's problems when she started to fail classes. The normally straight A student was doing terrible in school. Alyssa was so incredibly smart except, she just doesn't have the will to work.

One day Tony got so confused and angry at the girl's scores that he confronted her.

"Alyssa, What is this?" He asked.