Always

31| Too Much

"Let's go people!!! We have less than a month to perfect this routine," Chelsea yells.

I get into position offstage as the music restarts once more. I don't make an appearance until after the ballroom scene so I go over the routine in my head until I hear my cue.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner which means that our rehearsal time before the performance is slowly winding down, and despite the fact that I'm watching the time fly by, it still doesn't feel true.

Time through my eyes has seemed to slow down completely. Like I've been stuck in the same day for weeks and while everyone's living their lives I'm trapped in some sort of simulation.

I wake up.
I force down breakfast.
I go to school.
I force down lunch.
I go to practice.
I force down dinner.
Throw everything up.
Repeat.

The music subtly changes from lively to soft and that's when I delicately glissade across the stage. I point my toes in preparation to make a graceful leap and—

—"Stop!" Chelsea screams halting the music. "Where's Allison?" she asks looking around even though I'm center stage.

"Right here," I say raising my hand.

"Are you really? Because don't get me wrong I see you, but I don't feel you. Your body's here, but your mind and emotions aren't. Find em and bring em back."

I give a stiff nod and head back offstage to start over again.

"From the top people. Let's go!"

I can't deny that she's right because she is. My mind and emotions are, and have been for a while now, all over the place. There's way too much going on right now and the fact that things are weird between Greyson and I tops it all.

With Thanksgiving less than two weeks away my mom's obnoxious sister and nieces coming over and I'm literally in overdrive. My aunt Sylvia and her daughters are the worst creatures to set foot on the planet and fortunately for me I'm going to spend a whole day with them.

Yay me!

Not only will I have to tolerate their existence, but I have to eat an entire meal in front of them. I have to sit at a table surfaced with an insufferable amount of food surrounded by insensitive scum that know about my eating disorder.

To make things worse, the only person I've ever eaten a full meal in front of post-rehab is spending her Thanksgiving in another state. It's like my luck just won't run out!

To be fair I have eaten in front of Greyson before but that's exactly why things are weird between us. I'm currently in the process of altering my dietary intake so that I'll be able to eat an unsuspicious amount of food at Thanksgiving. Hence why I've been forcing myself to eat three meals a day which I haven't done in years.

If I do that, then my aunt and miserable cousins would have no need to bring up my ED which will eventually not lead to a complete mental breakdown because they're awful people. This however comes with a price.

Weight.

And with weight comes fat and now you see how this all traces back to Greyson. And if I've realized anything about dickface is that he's super observant of me. I just know that second I gain weight he'll notice and hate me again just like he did three years ago and—

—"STOP THE MUSIC! Everyone take five, Allison you can go home for today. You don't seem well," Chelsea says.

I won't even argue because she's right, again. I simply nod, grab my gym bag and leave. I fling my bags and water bottle in the backseat of my car letting out a deep sigh.

I rest my head against the headrest of my seat and that's when I notice a pink sticky note attached to bag of sour gummy worms on my dash board. The note reads:

"I miss you.
x G."