Black Into Gold // Demi Lovato // 3

1. Recovering (Part 1)

ONE MONTH LATER

I was out of the hospital and there were talks about Demi getting out of rehab in less than a month.

Of course she was pissed I drove while high, blaming herself, and she finally met Abby who helped me explain why I did it. Because the majority of my memory from that entire day was gone.

Demi asked what we talked about when I visited and I had no idea. She said that we agreed I would only smoke when I needed help getting to sleep. They had asked what reason I had to go out, when I knew I couldn't visit Demi at that time of night. No idea.

Abby filled in the gap, saying I had been so paranoid that something was going on with Demi and Wilmer and I needed to stop it. I had escaped her grip and ran out to my car, where I was nearly falling asleep at the wheel. This was assumed, since Abby knew I was tired. They assumed I cracked the window for some air and at a green light, a drunk woman drove through a red light to my left, plowing into my car.

It was totaled, sadly. The car I had since I was 20.

"I don't remember any of that," I said, in regards to what Abby told me and Demi about that night. My entire left leg was in a cast, I had small cuts all over my face, and my car exploded about two minutes after I'd been pulled out. I also had a brace on my right wrist because it had gotten stuck between the console and the seat as the car rolled and it was dislocated. It would heal quickly, and the pain meds would help, but I was worried I wouldn't be able to walk for months. I had to have surgery to fix the bones in my lower leg, having metal rods put in to keep them in place. It was a long surgery, almost seven hours, but it seemed like my leg would heal as long as I stayed off it. I had a gnarly scar down the side of my leg that was stitched up in a way that I was told would make the scar less visible when it fully healed.

My left femur had also been fractured, and a metal plate over the fracture. The incision wasn't big, and it had been stitched so the scar wouldn't be as noticeable.

As for the cuts on my face, they were mostly healed by the end of the first month, and only a few left noticeable scars, one on my left temple going into my hair, and one above it on my forehead, but they could easily be covered with makeup.

I was at home, now, after a month in the hospital. They wanted to keep me longer, but let me go as long as I came back once a week so they could make sure everything was healing okay. I couldn't walk, and with Demi going back and forth from rehab to Chicago, my mom was forced to stay and take care of me. Which neither of us were complaining about too much, since we never got to see each other.

However, there were a lot of complaints when I had to bathe. Mom hated how my hair dye bled and drops of purple water got all over her. She learned to wear something she didn't care about too much, but the color washed out fine.

She brought me food in bed and watched TV with me. Abby was allowed to come over, but both Demi and my mom said no more weed. I was okay with that, and I started taking the sleeping pills I'd bought. They took a while to take effect, but they worked.

The only thing that wasn't really working was me. Luckily, the magazine found someone to take my place until I was back on my feet. From what Abby told me, she sounded nice enough but she didn't care too much about having fun at work. She didn't talk about herself or really anything, and she always had her dark hair in a tight bun that was all business, no fun.

The biggest downside to being at home though, was Demi wasn't allowed to visit me like she could when I was in the hospital. We were able to FaceTime during her visiting hours and we both complained about how boring it was not seeing each other. I also complained a lot about how I would have to be in physical therapy for weeks. Which meant more time away from work.

I wanted so badly to do makeup again and my mom and Abby let me use their faces when I asked, but I felt so restricted because of my leg. It wasn't really supposed to move at all, so it was tricky to set everything up and have one of my models in a good place for me to reach without straining myself. But the occasional times I did their makeup kept me from losing it completely.