Finding You

Chapter 29: Make or Break

Notes:

I would just like to warn everyone that this chapter has past attempts at suicide mentioned and written about. There is a section of the chapter that is firmly set in Alex's past when she was suicidal. I really just wanted to warn those out there who might just have a hard time reading about that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every morning was the same.

Alex woke up to the sound of her alarm, My Lady by Exo blaring from her phone. Truthfully, it was her ringtone too and while she definitely didn't follow the group as closely anymore as she used to, she was simply just unmotivated to change it to something else. Making a new ringtone was a pain and with how much school work she had, she was lucky if she could get a single game of League of Legends in at night, never mind attend to something so insignificant.

Next, she took exactly five minutes to get out of bed. Some days she would just stare at the little bumps on her ceiling until the second alarm went off. Others, she'd try to go back to sleep only to be rudely awakened again. Most of the time, it was a fight with herself to get going; it made reasoning with her stubborn and independence-seeking niece look like child's play. Every morning she'd present herself with reasons to actually get up for the day and every morning she'd counter with why she shouldn't have to go to class.

Throughout the semester, three things had managed to motivate her to get out of bed. Firstly, if she wanted to talk to August she had to get her phone. Secondly, if she wanted to meet August she had to go to class and earn the recommendation to study abroad. Thirdly, she didn't want to make Jess or her mother worry about her and skipping class without a good reason would do only that, especially after the wreck that she called her previous year at university.

Once Alex got up, she'd shuffle into the bathroom, stretch so her back cracked and brush her teeth. She did it so slowly and with so little energy that she truly wondered if her teeth were clean but, usually, she would come to the conclusion that her breath smelled minty and she had been there for a couple minutes so it should be fine.

If her hair was greasy, Alex would have a shower. If it wasn't, she'd skip that step, do her makeup, make herself a shitty lunch and then get dressed for the day. Before she ran out the door to catch the bus, she'd gather her things and then check her Tumblr while she walked to the stop.

Alex was a creature of habit, so much so that Jess often teased her for it. She didn't like breaking routine and she was prone to getting very obsessive about the order in which things were done. In some ways, she felt like exercising that kind of organisation was the only control she could muster over her own life. She felt stuck often and like she was never advancing. Some days she felt like she was lost in a giant crowd and was just unsure of what direction to head in. Some nights she had anxiety dreams about being lost at sea with an undertow that was too hard to swim against.

But today was different.

Alex had never truly been so excited to get out of bed. She actually woke up before the first round of her alarms sounded, but that was probably due to the very little sleep she had actually gotten. Today, Alex was to board a plane, and after twenty hours she's set foot in Seoul for the first time in her life. Today, Alex felt like she was finally making progress. She felt like she was taking control after twenty-three years of living.

She had about two hours to drive before she got to the airport, and she needed to leave early enough to be there an hour before her flight. And she also needed to leave early enough to beat traffic on the 401 to get into Toronto or at least early enough so she wasn't late if she got stuck in it. In the morning, the traffic was atrocious. Alex absolutely hated the highway and driving on that particular one during rush-hour was literally the worst way she could think to spend her time. But at least she'd be able to play her music while she suffered. Not to mention, Jess would be there to suffer with her.