𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 | f. w

xlii. a new friend

chapter forty-two
A NEW FRIEND

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» » EDITH WASN'T TOO SURE what actually lead her to accept the ultimate fate of her actions and the need to change her disastrous behavior. Perhaps it was the heartbroken looks on her friends' faces as they begged her to let them help her, the crystal-like tears flooding Violets' eyes that very same night they appeared at the flat, or maybe it was Freds' refusal to even acknowledge her until she screamed in his face.

She didn't want them to see her like that, and she utterly despised the look on their faces as they spoke of her; pity. They felt sorry for her, and she absolutely hated it. It made her feel small, child-like, incapable.

But she knew they were right. She needed help, and they were willing to give it to her, if only she let them.

So that's why she found herself at the front gates of St Mungo's hospital a couple of weeks later, no more than a few steps away from accepting the help the personnel at the psychiatric ward was willing to give her. She was going to rehab, and although she wanted nothing less than to be treated like a newborn baby for a few months, she knew that it was the right thing to do.

She needed the help, and she was getting it, no matter how difficult she knew the coming months would for sure be.

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Edith had never been so consumed by her own emotions as she was during those months she spent in rehab.  One second she was balling her eyes out, the next she was throwing a temper tantrum only to refuse to speak a word the following moment. It was all too much for the young woman, and she wanted nothing more than to leave. But she knew that would do more harm than good, she knew she wasn't going to get better on her own.

"I admit, the food here might be ghastly and I don't really fancy being told what to do twenty-four hours a day, but you get used to it after a while."

Marlena, or 'Lena' as she liked to be called, was a twenty-year-old girl who had spent years and years in and out of the hospital. She had been battling addiction since she was sixteen, and she became Edith's only friend at St Mungo's. The girls would spend pretty much all of their free time together, going for walks outside or just talking about their respective lives. There really wasn't much to do there except to try and get better, and Edith soon found herself enjoying the girls' company. They had a lot in common, they were both avid readers and talented pianists.

They were both seated on a park bench in the garden which the hospital overlooked. Edith was plopped up on the actual seat, whereas Lena sat herself down on the armrest. It was cool outside, not too warm for a spring day. Edith took notice of the flowers blooming whichever way she looked. She used to like the spring, it used to make her feel like anything was possible. As if all the troubles of her past didn't matter in the end, because the flowers always bloom, even the ones in the shadows.

Edith scoffed, taking a drag from the cigarette they shared. Edith had never been much of a smoker, she'd occasionally share a drag with her pals at parties, but that was about it. Now, however, she had started a perhaps too unhealthy habit of taking a puff every now and then. It was Lena who had first offered her one, and ever since they figured out that the nurses at St Mungo's couldn't give less of a flying fuck as to if they smoked or not-- so long as they didn't partake in any other drug-related activity---it had become somewhat of a form of escapism for the girls. It became their little corner of heaven, one of the few things no one could take away from them whilst staying there.