STILL | NH |

FORTY NINE

**listen to the chapter song**

Rigby

Italy was the trip of a lifetime, one that felt like a vacation from everything that had been plaguing my mind, something that I felt like I needed to be able to really settle my thoughts.

It felt like a chance to finally be clean.

In all actuality, I was pretty sure that only about a third of my time was spent in meetings with Louis and Theo. The rest of my time I spent wandering around and just exploring every place that I could.

My favorite place that I found was this bakery that overlooked the sea. Small and quaint, I stumbled upon it the third day that we were there and found myself occupying the small bistro table that sat out front at least once a day after that.

The view was incredible and it made me feel like I could concentrate and focus. I found myself bringing a notebook with me every day, writing down lists and things that helped make me feel more organized.

And of course I thought about Niall.

About how ever since I saw him in the hospital all I wanted to do was talk to him.

I'd taken time to really dig deep into my own mind and pull all of the things that went wrong with us, things I wish that I could take back. Even though I can't take them back there is a way for me to be able to pinpoint those things and work on them.

So that's what I've been doing.

Over the last couple of months I made changes that best benefitted me and the effort that I was making to keep my life more organized and put together.

It took a lot for me to take control of my own schedule, telling them that there would absolutely be no last minute meeting and that I wouldn't take any meetings past three thirty in the afternoon. Something that as a workaholic gave me so much anxiety at first, feeling like my clients would drop me or have issues with me after, when in reality the reaction I got from them was nothing but positive.

Not to mention taking time off for myself.

I made sure to take time off and have been getting to go on little trips by myself to take the time and just do what I could even though it was busy to be able to relax and not be neck deep in paperwork.

But the biggest change I've made was buying a planner and a calendar.

My planner had everything written in it.

Every single time someone made plans with me — no matter what it was — it got written down in the planner. If I didn't have it with me, I made a reminder on my phone. Not only was I keeping track of it there but also making sure I wrote the same things on the calendar that I had bought for my fridge.

And you know what?

I hadn't missed a single thing since.

It was a little late now, but at least what happened with Niall was so eye opening to me that I knew there were changes that I needed to make in order to make not only my life better, but hopefully make the people that chose to be around me happy as well.

Niall and I hadn't had any contact since I saw him when I picked him up from the hospital and took him home, not to say that I hadn't constantly been up Harry's ass to make sure that he was okay.

Not only was that hard enough, but to hear him ask if what we had hurt me too is what led me to pulling the bottle of liquor off of the shelf when I got him that day, barely a month ago.