isn't it? [taylor swift]

the space between - 2020

January 2020

Leia had thought the hard part would be telling them.

Standing in her childhood home last August, her hands shaking as she looked at her mother, her sister, her father, and finally saying the words: I need help. I'm going to rehab.

But the truth was, saying it had been the easy part.

It was what came after that had nearly broken her.

The first few weeks in treatment had been a fog. A brutal, unrelenting haze of withdrawal, exhaustion, and therapy sessions where she had to sit across from a stranger and say things out loud she had only ever admitted to herself in the quietest, loneliest moments.

She hadn't really thought of herself as an addict until Georgie had said it so easily in the bathroom that night. Hadn't really thought that she could be an addict when she'd only had a few trips of taking cocaine here and there. 

She had spent her Mom's birthday in rehab, eating a dry piece of chocolate cake while the other patients sang halfheartedly, their voices dulled by their own exhaustion. She had spent Thanksgiving in the same chair she sat in every morning at group, listening to someone new tell their story, knowing they were all just trying to hold on. She'd spent months of her life in Upstate New York, at a stunning private facility that Adrian had recommended.

And not a single soul outside of her inner circle - and those that needed to know - had known a thing about it.

By Christmas, she had been clean for nearly two months. That had been her goal - to get home in time for the holidays, to be able to sit at the dinner table with Georgie and her parents and feel there, actually there, not the drifting, distant version of herself she had been for so long since Dylan had started taking over her entire life.

And she had done it.

She had made it through Christmas morning without sneaking a drink or slipping off to be alone. She had rung in the new year with nothing stronger than a sip of champagne, watching fireworks burst over the frozen lake outside the rented beach house that her parents had been staying in down in North Carolina, breathing in the cold air and letting it sting her lungs, reminding her that she was alive.

And now, somehow, it was January 31.

The fans had been worried. They'd heard nothing from her - and the paparazzi in New York had almost given up on seeing her leave the apartment now. They must have figured out that she simply was no longer there, especially since Georgie and Tate only ever seemed to be the ones entering and leaving. 

She was sure that the singular paparazzi that had decided to visit her apartment at the exact moment she returned with Georgie, Tate, Azul and Riven was about to have a field day of offers for those photos. 

The headlines would be splashed across every tabloid by morning: LEIA HUDSON SPOTTED FOR FIRST TIME IN FIVE MONTHS. She could already picture the speculation, the theories, the way they'd analyse her appearance for any sign of what she'd been through. That's why Riven had insisted on the oversized sunglasses, the casual but deliberately chosen outfit - a soft cream sweater that made her look healthy. An outfit that didn't scream 'hey, I've been in rehab for months because I got addicted to cocaine ridiculously easily'.

Tonight, she was sitting in her living room, which felt both achingly familiar and strangely new, like returning to a childhood home after years away. The furniture was the same – the plush sectional that wrapped around the corner of the room, the coffee table where she'd once spilled red wine during a particularly competitive game night, leaving a faint stain that no amount of cleaning could fully remove. But the air felt different somehow. Cleaner.