Piece By Piece || n.h.

4. Symptoms

It's been two weeks since I last saw Niall.

Within those two weeks, I guaruntee you that I did absolutely nothing but eat, breathe, read, watch Netflix, and repeat. It was bad. I had never felt so sick, tired, or queasy in my entire life. I guess you can call this the feeling of guilt and shame. Every time I would even think of what happened that week, I would feel this turning in the pit of my stomach, which only made things a lot worse. This is the real definition of "feeling like shit."

This past week, I have been stress eating so much more, and I was pretty sure I was putting on a lot of weight, but it almost seemed as if my body did not care enough to stop.

This is what Niall does to me.

"Lexi," Stacey interrupted my thoughts as she sighed and placed her fork down on the dinner table, "are you not going to eat tonight?" She asked me, giving me a sympathetic look.

I then noticed that I had been pushing my chicken around in my plate for the past couple of minutes. Sighing, I placed my fork down and shifted my head to rest on my other palm.

"I guess not," I replied sadly. "I don't know. My metabolism has been messed up lately. I eat when I'm not hungry, but when I'm supposed to eat, I don't." I shook my head. "There is obviously something wrong with me. Do you think these could possibly be symptoms of depression?"

She shook her head and shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I'm not a doctor. But Harry is! Do you want me to call him?"

"Harry is a dental assistant," I muttered, picking up my fork to attempt to eat something.

Stacey looked away, embarassed. "Oh."

I sighed and placed a piece of chicken in my mouth, instantly feeling regretful of even placing it in my mouth. Reluctantly, I chewed it down and forced myself to swallow it. It was surprisingly unappetizing, though I knew that Stacey's cooking is what I tend to live for.

"Wow, I honestly thought Harry was a doctor...or a nurse or something," she said through laughter. "I mean he would always come to visit with his scrubs on, and I honestly just thought that he worked at hospital."

"Yeah?" I answered, suddenly feeling a little uneasy. Trying to hide it, I looked at her and tried to look interested.

"Yeah," she repeated with a nod. "Literally, there was one time when I asked him about a sickness that I thought I had, and he looked so confused! Like I'm not even kidding, it make sense now!" She laughed and I nervously laughed along with her.

I was not feeling too good. The turning in my stomach just would not stop, and it was coming to me more often than before. The strange thing was that it wasn't from thinking of Niall. It just showed up out of no where, which frightened me.

"Oh shit! I have an idea," Stacey gasped with an amused grin, "maybe when we see him again, we should ask him all these questions about herpes and stuff. He'll be so confused! Then we tell him that we thought he was a doctor-"

I suddenly stood up and began making a mad dash towards the bathroom. This stomach thing was different from all the rest, and I knew I was going to hurl.

I threw open the bathroom door and tossed my entire body over the toilet, feeling my stomach lurch again. My head was spinning and my heart was racing to the point where I was worried that it would explode.

Then, I felt it.

The hot liquid surged up my throat and I gagged, throwing up in the clear water.

The bathroom door creaked open and Stacey gasped as she saw me. "Lexi! Dude, what the hell? Are you okay?" She asked and dropped on the floor next to me. "You just left me in the middle of a sentence-"