Sidemen Imagines

Just Carry On

You woke that morning with a heavy feeling in your chest. This was nothing new to you, you'd woken up with it for around 4 months now.

"It doesn't feel like a pain, just a kind of weight, right here." You explained, placing your weary hand on your chest. Your eyes glanced to the elderly doctor in front of you, scowling as he thought.

"Does it restrict your breathing?" He asked. Your mind flickered to a couple of nights ago.

"Harry, Harry help!" You gasped, sitting bolt up right in bed, smacking the slumbering man beside you repeatedly in a panic for him to wake up.

"What?! What is it?! Are you okay?!" He asked with his eyes sunken and squinted, his arms immediately grasped you and pulled you tight to his chest as your body began to shake.

"Breathe, darling, breathe." He cooed soothingly as his fingers ran through your hair. Your fists clenched tight around the soft cotton of your blanket, your face pressed into the warm bare skin of your boyfriend. A few tears slipped as you tried to hold your breath to stop it from being so rapid.

"Come on, breathe with me, in..." you inhaled sharply but held it until he told you to release.

"Now slowly let go" he instructed, although it was shaky and you gagged midway through, it was slow enough to earn a small squeeze and a 'good girl' from Harry.

He repeated this until your heart rate had slowed and you felt like you could breathe again. Finally settling into the sweat drenched mattress as Harry had gone to get you some water.

You wiped a tear from beneath your cheekbone and sighed deeply. Although the initial panic had gone, you still felt like something tight was around your chest.

"Here you go, sweetpea. Sip it slowly. What happened do you reckon?" He asked, stroking your thigh comfortingly as you took a mouthful of the icy cold water.

You didn't have a clue what happened, whether it was a panic attack, just a weird thing, you didn't know. But you knew you couldn't tell him, he would worry and you couldn't put that on him.

"Bad dream" you shrugged with a sad smile. He gave a sympathetic look before planting a kiss to the top of your head.

"Poor darling, wanna tell me about it?"

"Not really" you chewed your cheek as you nervously glanced at his concerned eyes.

"Well, from the tests we've done, it's safe to say there's nothing physically wrong with you." He concluded, a large pang of confusion still hung in your stomach like a weight.

"But I think you should take a look at this and get back to me, I'll see what I can do for you when you've read it." He handed you a small green pamphlet with large white letters that read 'Signs of The Black Dog". Immediately your heart sank. You knew what that meant. You sat there in sadness before accepting the booklet and thanking the doctor before bolting it out the door to catch a breath of fresh air.

You knew things weren't right but you never really considered this. What were you supposed to do now?

You reluctantly got up and rubbed the sleep out of your eyes before trudging to the bathroom. You stared at your sunken face in the mirror before sighing to yourself. You washed your face in freezing cold water just to feel the iciness stabbing away at your fingertips, the pain felt good. It felt nice.

You dried off before reaching into your makeup bag, it had been untouched for a while but still remained next to the sink. You were hiding something in there, something you didn't want your boyfriend to know about and knew full well he would never look in there. Your hand slipped into the black bag before pulling out a bottle that rattled as it was lifted.

You unscrewed the top and shook two small pills onto your hand. You stared at them with a burning hatred, you couldn't stand the tablets, you hated the fact that you needed them, you felt ashamed to need them. So every morning you would swallow them with as much despise as you could muster. You popped them in your mouth without water and swallowed hard. The routine of it had gotten so easy to physically do. It was the mental part you struggled with.

"Gorgeous?" You heard your boyfriend call as his footsteps on the stairs followed, you quickly reassembled the bottle and placed it back in the bag. You began walking out of the bathroom when you were suddenly met with Harry.

"Oh there you are, the boys want to go to Thorpe Park this weekend, wanna come?" You hummed for a moment before shaking your head. You were too exhausted for a theme park, let alone with his mates. They were all as bad as each other.

"Oh" you watched Harry's smile fade and his face instantly drop. There was a sting of guilt in your chest before you quickly tried to justify yourself.

"I have some things to do over the weekend, plus it would be nice for you to have some guy time!" You lightly kissed his cheek before pushing past him into the bedroom.

"Wait what plans do you have?" He questioned, leaping onto the bed as you laid back on it.

"Why do you wanna know? Trying to catch me cheating with another man!" You giggled, wiggling your eyebrows at him.

"Nooo, I wanna see if what you're doing is more fun!" Harry was a lot more of a softy than he lets on with his mates or on camera, he loved spending time with you and often cancelled plans with the boys to hang out with you. It's. it because he's whipped, he genuinely finds more enjoyment in your company doing face masks and watching the football together.

"I have a load of emails to Send and some general busy stuff!" You made up in the spot, proud of yourself for thinking so fast.

"Oh" he huffed, a sad look adorning his face.

"Yep so, you go and have a guys weekend, they probably miss you after you cancelled a crossbar challenge filming session to catch up on Orange Is The New Black with me" you ran your fingers through his hair, trying as hard as you could to convince him to go.

"I think Freya has a lot of work to do as well, want me to check if she can come over? You guys can work together and stuff!" He asked, looking up with innocence in his eyes. There was a wave of nerve washing over you as you quickly declined the offer.

"Uh, nah it's okay, I can work alone" you mumbled and stuttered, trying so hard to get the weekend alone. You wanted to hide. You wanted space. You wanted to feel that numb feeling without any interruptions, you wanted to let it consume you to see what would happen.

"Oh come on, you're always saying how you feel you work better with someone else in the room to bounce ideas with, I'll call her!" He beamed, jumping off the bed and grabbing his phone, planting a kiss on your cheek as he left to make the call.

You chewed your nails, anxious about how the weekend will go, desperately trying to find a plan. This weekend is gonna be hell.

Part two coming soon!