Lexie:
"Wow, could you be any more blunt about it?" I chuckle dryly, turning my gaze up to the ceiling.
Lizzie stays quiet as she turns on the coffee machine.
"I didn't even take any," I add under my breath.
"I know, Lex. But you thought about it and that's enough of a concern," she sighs.
Nothing else is said for the next few minutes until she comes over with a cup of coffee and sits herself down beside me on the couch.
"Thanks," I mumble, taking the mug from her and sit up myself. "You're welcome, babe," she sends me a small smile.
As I start to drink, my gaze is focused on the rug tucked underneath the coffee table in front of me as my thoughts race. The guilt I feel about what happened last night is immeasurable.
It's overwhelming.
I've probably made Lizzie freak out because it's my first time ever staying with her and on the second night she found me on the cold bathroom tiles with a bleeding arm and a bottle of pills beside me.
And as for Mom, I know her and I know that she wouldn't have slept after that phone call. Plus, she has to fly all the way back to Atlanta because of my stupid brain.
"Do you think Mom's going to be mad at me?" I ask Lizzie with some slight hesitation. "Oh Lex, no of course not. Why would you think that?"
"Well, she has two other kids that she hasn't seen in two weeks and now she's coming back here because I screwed up again."
"You didn't screw up, baby. You're going through a really hard time at the moment and you can't blame yourself for that," she says, placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
I take a few moments and try to allow her words to sink in.
"Can I tell you something, Lizzie?"
"Of course."
"Fifty percent of the time I actually feel fine. I feel somewhat happy and do want to get better. But the other fifty percent of the time my mind is dark, and that seems to outweigh any joy that I might be feeling because it's really, really dark. I can't reason with myself when it gets like that and I just do. I don't think about the consequences or results of it because I literally can't. It's so consuming."
I gather myself and take a deep breath before continuing. "When I went to bed last night I was happy. I didn't want to die and I hadn't even had a thought about it, but then I woke up a few hours later and it was like something switched in my brain and it was all I could think about."
Lizzie looks at me sorrowfully as she places her coffee down on the side table and shuffles up beside me, pulling me into her arms. "I'm sorry, Lex. You know, I don't even have any advice because I've not been in the position myself but what I can say is, you're not alone, even though sometimes it might feel like you are. I obviously don't know the complete extent of your circumstances but I can tell you that even though you're still a kid and only five feet tall, you're stronger than majority of the people I know. You're so loved, pipsqueak."
"Thank you, Lizzie," I mumble, resting my head against her chest. She takes a breath to speak before being interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing. "It's your Mom."
"Hello," she answers.
"She says Olivia's had a last minute cancellation this morning if you want to talk with her?"
"No."
Lizzie informs Mom of my answer which not to my surprise, didn't satisfy her so the phone was passed to me.
"How are feeling this morning, honey?" She questions. "Tired, but fine-ish. I'm sorry for waking you up last night."
"Hey, no. Don't apologise, sweetheart. I managed to get a flight early this afternoon so I'll be in Atlanta to see you by the evening."
"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...