when worlds collide [george russell]

Chapter 25

"Willow it's been a month. You can't go on like this. I know I can barely imagine how this feels but there's no point in wallowing in this. He didn't call and thats his problem. You can't keep hoping that every time your phone rings it's him" Carmen presented her thoughts to Willow.

"But I just don't get how he never called. We didn't even talk about anything. We could have figured this out. I'm sure."

"I know it sucks, but thats how it is now. It's hard but you should really try and demolish any thought of him. You're already doing better - look at you. You went out for coffee with me and you have almost all of your uni work done. If anything, he even doesn't deserve to justify anything to you."

Willow went home feeling a lot better about all of it. Carmen always knew what to say to make her feel better while still only telling her the truth.

The last time she had spent a whole day in bed was a week ago. Since then she had made incredible progress.  Over night, she decided she couldn't go on like this, so she made an alarm at 7.30 for the next day.

Although getting up early had never been her thing, this was probably the perfect time to adopt some new habits. 

So she got up early the next day, called Alex, her tennis trainer, again after two weeks and made two appointments for the same week. She went out and did some shopping for groceries, since she had been living off of toast and the tea for way too long now.

When Willow got back home from grocery shopping, she sorted all of her stuff for uni and got to work. 

That's how she spent the last week - getting her life back together. Since she got herself quite busy like that, she didn't even think about George a lot. The only times  her feelings caught up with her, was each time her phone rang and she hoped so dearly that it would be him and at night when she tried to fall asleep, but could think of nothing else but the good moments she and George had together. 

So although she seemed to do fine throughout the day, Willow fell asleep crying most nights. She still woke up the morning after at 7.30 though and tried her best to live another day like everything was fine.

After she got home from coffee with Carmen, Willow had half an hour to get ready and head out for tennis. When Alex asked where she had been for three weeks when she returned to the courts, she told him she had been sick. Not only would it have been to complicated to explain to him but she herself didn't quite now what had really gone down. 

Being at the tennis court, where she and George had met and went to together several times, did make her a little uncomfortable, but she tried to not let it show and did her best to beat Alex at a game.

"Considering you haven't played in three weeks, you still got all of your skills." he praised her good play. 

"It's fine I guess" she chuckled and gave him a smile, although it felt like her facial muscles had almost forgotten how to do so. Besides the late-night crying  she had been seemingly emotionless. 

Willow went home feeling a lot better. The physical activity always helped and she could also get some of her anger at George, which she had kept inside her, out by hitting the ball a little harder than usual.

She walked home while talking in the phone with a friend from her hometown, who actually just got engaged at the young age of 23. Hearing her friend talk about the engagement irritated Willow to a fair extent but she was glad she could listen and didn't have to talk about herself, because she wouldn't have a thing to tell.

Before she would cook her dinner Willow went to have a shower. She got undressed in the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror as she noticed the necklace she was wearing. She was still wearing the piece of jewelry George gave her at her birthday. This was now almost halt a year ago and she had never taken it off. 

As she looked at herself wearing it in the mirror now she debated whether to take it off or leave it on. She knew if she left it on, it would mean that deep down she hope that someday there would be something between them again but she couldn't take it off. She already had the clasp in her hand and was about to open it but she couldn't do it - just like one could bite off their finger like a carrot but our body stops ourselves from doing so.

She turned the necklace back around so the coin laid flat on her chest again. Willlow put her hand on the coin for a second and looked in the mirror once again as she felt her heart beating faster again. Eventually she ripped her eyes from the mirror and went into the shower to wash it all off - the sweat as well as all the emotions she suddenly felt. Willow hoped the water and soap could wash away the anxiousness and overwhelming feeling but she still fell all of it while making dinner and even until her eyes shut and she fell asleep.

Willow was woken up a few hours later by her phone ringing non-stop. Without looking at who it was, she picked up immediately - it happened quite often that some of her friends called her in the middle of the night with an emergency, because they knew she was a light sleeper and would be there to help them whenever.

"Hello? Is this Willow? This is Alex... Alex Albon." a shook up voice shouted into Willows ear through the phone.