Lexie Reid lands a role in the newest Marvel movie and very quickly becomes attached to one particular person.
Overtime, Scarlett notices things about Lexie's home life that don't add up and things take a turn when she finds out what exactly has be...
"It's fine, Mom. You don't have to come. If I'm not allowed to work I can catch a plane home by myself, I'll be fine."
"Yeah, no way," she says. I can almost see her expression right now. "Now, do you think it might be a good idea to have a chat with Olivia? It doesn't have to be for a whole hour, but just for a little bit?"
"No. I don't want to."
"Okay, sweetheart," she sighs. "She's keeping the hour open though if you change your mind, so you can call her at any point." "Okay. Thank you," I mumble.
"I love you," she tells me. "I love you too."
I pass Lizzie back her phone and sit back with my coffee as I feel myself beginning to become more and more anxious.
My knee bounces repeatedly as I feel a pair of eyes on me. "You alright?" Lizzie's soft voice speaks.
"I'm gonna call Olivia," I decide, peeling myself off the couch and walking back into the bedroom to get my laptop.
"There's a couch on the porch outside if you want somewhere private. I'll be able to see you from inside but not hear," she informs me to which I thank her and make my way out.
I take a seat and cross my legs, opening up my laptop to FaceTime Olivia. We usually do sessions over zoom, but I don't have a code or a link to join this time since it's completely last minute.
"Hi Lexie." Her smile is warm as she rests her laptop in her lap.
"Olivia, I feel like I'm a gingerbread house," I start, letting out a shaky breath.
Her expression is amused but she urges me to continue on anyway.
"You know at Christmas time when you buy those really cheap gingerbread houses that don't taste very nice at all, and then when you put them together they fall apart whenever they're slightly knocked or you accidentally push to hard when you're trying to decorate it, the pieces break and you physically can not put them back together. That's what I feel like."
She purses her lips together and nods before taking out her phone. "Give me a second."
"Ah, here we go. I bought one of those gingerbread houses last year for Christmas to build with my little boy. I'll send you the photo so you can see it properly. We were pretty proud of it," she admits as the message comes through on my laptop screen.
"Woah, that's actually really good," I tell her with a half-hearted chuckle as I wipe my tears. "How did you do that?"
"The trick is, you have to wait for every piece to set completely before adding another, and thats including the very base of it. Some pieces will take longer than others, but in the end you get the result you want if you'll be patient and give it the time it needs. The same goes for you. You can't expect yourself to be this perfectly decorated 'gingerbread house' if you're not allowing yourself to take on one thing, letting yourself absorb it, before moving on to the next," she explains, continuing on before I can say anything.
"My point is, you have to tackle one thing at a time. I think you're trying to do much at once. You need to take a step back and start fresh, which is why I've suggested, or ordered should I say, that you take time off of work and school. You can't expect to get better when you don't actually have any time to focus on it. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"
I nod, "yeah."
"Good."
"I hate how good you are at your job."
She smiles with a slight chuckle. "Now, how's your eating going?" "It's better, still difficult though. It's been two weeks since I last purged which I guess is something," I shrug.
"It's more than 'something', Lexie. That's amazing. You're doing so much better than I think you think are you," she tells me, quirking an eyebrow.
__
The rest of my day was spent on the couch, cuddled up to Lizzie as we binged Only Murders in the Building. I haven't ever seen it before, but she introduced me and it's actually very good.
When we sat down for dinner, Mom informed us that she had landed and was on her to way to the AirBnb. It's only a short distance away so she was here just after we'd finished eating.
"Hi Mom," I say, smiling lightly as I open the front door. She immediately drops her bag and pulls me into her arms, holding my head against her shoulder. "Hi, my beautiful girl."
There's something so incredibly safe about my Mom's cuddles, and I can't stop myself from crying the second her arms are wrapped around my body.
________ Thank you so much for 200k reads!
The last two chapters will be out Friday and so will the first chapter of my new book!
Here's another snippet cause why not...
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