A/N: Posted on both LJ and FanWorks, so don't yell at me for plagiarism.

Let Him Cry

It had started out without me noticing, but I caught on quickly and could only watch as my best friend and bandmate sank into a seemingly irreversible depression.

I watched as you slowly retreated into yourself, never talking to me or letting me in. You'd been going out drinking a lot, probably trying to numb whatever pain you were in, and I'd found that that was the only time you'd really tell me anything. You'd tell me where you were and I'd pick you up. That was it.

Sometimes, I'd listen at your bedroom door as you played the guitar and sang the lyrics you had written and as your beautifully haunting voice took the words and formed them into eternally depressing songs, I'd feel tears falling down my cheeks like rain in a hurricane. It was killing me.

Sometimes, when you'd go to leave, I'd grab your arm to try to get you to talk to me, but you'd only have to look at me with your eyes, once so full of life, now so dead and dull, and say, “Let me go, Bren,” and I would. I always hoped it ease your pain. That never happened.

~

You'd left once. You'd left a note for me by the phone, saying that you might be back one day.

You'd walked in later that same morning, but I was too unsure of what to do when I saw you. I just sat there, staring at the wall, willing myself not to cry just because I was feeling sorry for myself.

~

I tried to leave once like you had. I had packed my bag, slowly, as if I was hoping you'd stop me somehow, and had barely made it into my car before I broke down, crying until everything was blurred and the makeup I had learned how to draw from you was only a smear on my shirt sleeves.

I knew why, after a while, why I couldn't leave. I'd fallen for you and something inside me just would not let me leave the one I love in such a sorry and depressed state. You walked right by me as I sat on the couch, the shirt sleeves and the knees of my jeans soaked through with tears, and walked up to your room.

~

I walked through the hallway and leaned against the wall outside your room, and as I listened again, I slowly slid down the wall, willing the tears to stay in, but those attempts were in vain. They slowly came out, though, and ran down my face as I heard you play a song we both knew so well, one that we could both relate to. And hearing you sing it was what broke me in the end.

“Let her cry...if the tears fall down like rain

Let her sing...if it eases all her pain

Let her go...let her walk right out on me

And if the sun comes up tomorrow

Let her be...let her be…”