Only Ones Who Know

Distance

Izzy's POV:

Two weeks had gone by since I'd arrived at Sheffield, and to be honest, I hadn't been doing anything else than visiting doctors and therapists. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and to make things worse, ever since I was told about it, I'd started developing symptoms of depression. I still had a huge team of doctors keeping an eye out for me as I also had my parents and Alex's, who were always there to support me, but most importantly, I had my head therapist, Jocelyn, who was in charge of helping me overcome my condition. Knowing I suffered from PTSD explained many of the things happening to me: depression itself, lack of sleep and appetite, fear of the possible repetition of the events I'd gone through, avoiding any similar events, mood swings, nightmares, flashbacks, being easily startled, guilt and shame, hating myself, having trouble remembering key features of my traumatic event, and many others. All in all, it explained everything and now it all made sense. Thanks to Jocelyn's aid, I was able to reconstruct most of my traumatic episodes which I'd forgotten about, such as the very last day I'd been on tour with the lads. The day I couldn't take it any longer. There were times in which I would recall everything and break down right in front of Jocelyn, but as she would tell me, the more I tried overcoming those fears, the faster my progress would develop, and it wasn't bad to cry about it if I felt like it. In fact, it was normal and expectable, and sometimes it was necessary to release all the pain I'd been holding in. It'd been the first time I'd talked about that topic so openly with someone, and I was glad to know Jocelyn was an expert at her profession and knew exactly what I needed and when.

To summarise, these past two weeks had been hectic and insane, but they had been helpful. Still, Alex didn't know a thing about it. I hadn't been able to tell him because we'd mainly been keeping in contact with each other by text messages, and it was so long and so hard to explain, that I would just tell him I was alright and making progress. Besides, I knew that talking to him would probably make me feel so nostalgic, and I kind of wanted to avoid that. It wasn't until Jocelyn suggested me to stay close to the people I loved that I finally gathered enough courage to call him, and even though I would curse at myself for being afraid of how Alex would react if I gave him a call, I couldn't help but feel so anxious about it when I first heard the phone's tone on the other end of the line.

"Hello?" Alex's hoarse voice almost made my heart stop, but somehow, I still managed to reply.

"Hey, Al" I murmured. "How are you?"

"Izzy?" Alex asked in amusement. "Iz, hey, what happened?"

"Uhh, nothing, really. I just thought I should call you"

"At four in the morning?"

"Oh" I gasped in surprise. "Oh, my God, I'm sorry! I totally forgot I'm literally eight hours ahead of you!" I facepalmed myself. "I'm so sorry, Al, I'll just call some other day"

"Wait, wait!" Alex hastily pleaded. "It's alright. Let's talk, Izzy"

"Are you sure? I mean, I can just call later"

"No way, let's do this now. It's not like I've been sleeping properly, anyways"

"What do you mean?"

"Yeah, I'm just..." I heard Alex sighing on the other end, making me yearn for him even more. "I miss you and I can't help but think about you all the time, Iz. It's getting sort of hard for me to get some sleep, lately"

"Oh" I let out. "Well... I wish I could help you"

"Just get better and that will make it, Iz"

"Well, yeah, that's also the reason why I was calling you"