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chapter song biffy clyro: living is a problem because everything dies "everywhere i look someone dies / wonder when it's my turn"
1984
It was snowing, and El hadn't seen snow in God knows how long. Colorado was quaint, a type of easy living she could get used to, though this psychiatric ward, however, was something she could not. She voluntarily did this to herself so she couldn't be mad, but she would give anything to be in some cabin in the Colorado mountains right now sitting by a fire instead of this cold, empty, sterile place.
It had been a couple months since she arrived here. She wanted to call Nikki and tell him she was fine, but her therapist had revoked her phone privileges until she felt it was stable enough for El to call home. The doctor did get a message through to Jude, so at least somebody knew she was alive and well, and El was sure he had spread the word to everyone else. However, her message gave no indication to her bandmate as to where she was, only that she was being cared after and she would be fine.
"El," her therapist, Dr. Lewis, started, "in order to make any progress in your treatment, you are going to have to start opening up. Stop giving me the bare minimum. You came here to work through your issues and I know you want to call Nikki and speak with him." El sighed in response and the older woman rolled her eyes. "The only way you are going to be able to talk to him is if you start giving me real answers. We need to work through the root of your issues here."
El typically liked Dr. Lewis. She was an old hippie lady who used to live on a commune. And she went to Woodstock, which El thought was cool. She was always wore smock dresses and clogs and her silver hair complimented her well. Besides all that, she took none of El's shit and normally El liked that, but right now she was just feeling pissed off at the woman in front of her.
She raised her eyes to meet Lewis' and glared at her, gritting her teeth and picking her cuticles. "Fine. You want to know the root of my issues?" El challenged her. "My father was killed in an accident when I was 15. I had to uproot my whole life and move halfway across the country with my grieving mother and brother. My brother and I started a band, which was clearly a big fucking mistake. We played all the big clubs, meaning I had drug dealers breathing down my neck. Then we got popular and I had drug dealers sleeping in my bed. I overdosed at least four times before I was twenty years old and the rest of the band weren't doing that fucking well either.
"I cleaned up my act by going to rehab, but I was the only one interested in doing that. Suddenly, I meet this guy and he changed my whole life. We fall in love, life is happy, I'm doing great. I get in a car accident and almost die, but then I don't die and I go through a long recovery process which meant putting my band's career on hold. Then I'm fine. We release an album, go on tour, and everything becomes very un-fucking-fine. My ex-boyfriend/drug dealer shows up out of the woodwork and wouldn't you know it that I relapse? Ha! Who could've guessed it!
