The way to you

Control

"What do you mean, what am I doing here?!" she exclaims, her face is red. I don't think this has anything to do with my fainting incident. My anxiety heightens when I notice that she has a suitcase with her.

"Well, you see the problem is, I didn't know that you were coming or you know here for that matter" I chuckle nervously,

She stands up excruciatingly slow until she meets my eye level, "Alex, you haven't answered my texts, my calls, my mail, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED ME AT ALL! DO YOU KNOW HOW CONCERNED I WAS?! DO YOU?!" her entire face is red from anger, I guess this is what I get for ignoring her for 3 months. I should've expected this, honestly.

"AND THEN!" she continues, she throws her hands up in the air in frustration as she says, "I COME HERE TO FIND OUT THAT YOU FAINTED! FAINTED!!"

"Lily. What are you doing here? I know that you were concerned but I've been busy ok? I have a new music piece that we've been working on and on top of that I just wanted to leave you alone." I sigh, she comes up towards me and brings her arms around me.

She hugs me until I hear her breathing becomes shallow. Is she crying? I turn around and see that the rest of the guys are gone, probably because they wanted to give us privacy.

"really Alex, you scared the daylights out of me, I thought you were dead." she sobs, I hug her tighter than usual, "I know I'm sorry," I whisper, I hold her as her crying slows down.

Once we break apart we both sit on the couch, "have you been eating?" she asks suddenly, "yes?" I lie, truth is, I get so lost in my mind that I forget to eat, drink and do any necessary human activities that would usually happen normally.

"Alex," she knows me too well, she can tell I'm lying. I sigh in defeat.

"fine no I haven't, at least not as often as usual. I mean yes I've been eating, but maybe just maybe I forgot to eat for two days. But before you ask, yes I've been drinking water, and yes I've been showering. Trust me, I'm getting a lot better at managing everything." I finish.

She shakes her head in concern, "Alex, you know what happened last time, it doesn't matter if you got better at managing time, you need to use the app I made. It tracks the last time you ate and when you should eat again. Not to mention the water and drink tracker. I know that you don't want any help but it's here, I'm here."

When I was 18 and I had barely left the house to start a new life as my own person, I got so caught up in everything that I forgot to eat, drink and have any type of hygiene routine, in the beginning before I realized I could sing, or before I really understood what it meant to have passion, I was studying psychology.

I was miserable, I hated every second of the studying, of the essays, of the mental toll it took on my body and mind.

I still have problems with it since it became a habit, but my sister saw me struggling and created an app for me. Of course, by the time it was finished I had already switched to singing.

I happen to be the person who hates asking for help. I could be dying under a bus and if someone asked me for help I'd say no, just because I wouldn't want to be a burden.

So naturally, when she made me this app I refused to use it, even though it was already made. She had made it secretly behind my back so I wasn't able to stop her, I used it for the first few months, but things got... let's just say harder.

"Alex I need you to explain it to me. What happened?" she asks.

"I started to ignore everyone, I let myself dig a hole to live in, I'd answer mother every once in a while, only because I knew she'd call the police if I continued to not answer." I see her in the corner of my eye nodding to everything I'm saying. "You, on the other hand, recently just got married, and well... I didn't want to bother you with your new husband." I whisper, a bit ashamed of my stupidity, because now that I think of it, she'd never find me annoying or a bother.

"All of this started about 4 months ago, slowly but surely I eventually cut almost everyone out of my life. I'd show up for practice, I'd talk to the crew and I'd just live. I felt like I had lost myself but here I am, feeling motivated enough to give it my all at practice." I pause to catch a breath,

"I had taken a 3-week vacation from the practice, I spent most of my time practicing and cooking, I learned how to treat myself better. I learned to cope with myself." I finish.

A tear falls out of her eye, she smiles and nods, "I'm so proud of you Lexia," she brings me into another hug.

Now that I think of it, I hadn't planned on returning anytime soon, I was only going to learn the rest of the piece before coming back prepared. It wasn't until this morning that I decided to come. I had texted Mark the night before saying I wasn't going to rehearsal again, still he insisted on coming to pick me up the next morning.

I was going to shoo him away but after all the weird things that happened by myself I ended up going with him.

And those visions, maybe I need to eat more often, I think I'm starting to lose control again.