Bad Decisions - Alex Turner

27. Friendsgiving

"Morning baby." His smiling face and messy hair illuminated by the soft morning light was enough to bring a smile to my face.

"Morning," I smiled, moving onto my back as he propped himself up on his arm to look down at me. One of his arms moved under the covers and wrapped around my waist.

"How's your back?" I'd been having a stiff, sore back for awhile now, mostly due to my mattress and sleeping in the wrong positions.

  "Doesn't hurt much," I said. Christian's bed was much softer than mine and whenever I stayed over that god awful pain would be gone and allowed me a comfortable waking up with the bonus of waking up beside him. Though, we rarely cuddled when we slept because Christian said it overheated him.

  "I'll go make us some breakfast," he smiled down at me and kissed me sparingly. Leaving the room to the kitchen.

  Ever since I made the mistake of taking Christian back and committing once again to fixing our relationship, Christian had been nothing but lovely to me. He was really trying to prove himself with this last chance and even though I suspected this was just a new honeymoon phase, it was nice not to be crying and arguing all the time.

  He couldn't always make time for me, I didn't blame him for that, but when he did he'd always be nice and charming and everything I wanted him to be. Sure the subtle insensitive comments were still there but I just ignored them in favour of pretending everything was perfect between us.

  I knew from the second I told him, Alex was disappointed in me. I was too. He and I had a long phone call right before he left to tour for a couple months where he told me how much it hurt him to be leaving me, knowing that if Christian did anything, he wouldn't be able to be there right next to me. I promised him things were better now and that if something went wrong again then I'd break up with Christian without hesitation. Alex preferred that idea but unfortunately, no reasons for me to outright break things off arose after I gave Chris this whole 'last chance' thing. And honestly, I still felt guilty about the launch party and felt I had to make it up to him too.

  "I'll be back round thanksgiving for just under a week," Alex said to me during that phone call. "I know yer probably busy but I'd love to see ya before I leave again."

  It was thanksgiving now, the guys and their girlfriends had gotten back yesterday morning. To tell you the truth, the month and a half or so that they were away touring was agonising. Every time they left it became so obvious how connected my life was to them and spending time with them that when they weren't here, I felt empty and alone even when I had company.

  Arielle stayed in LA for about three weeks of that month and a half and we spent most of it catching up and going out places together whilst talking about all the things we had in common. We were becoming really good friends and she didn't hesitate to talk me through all my internal wars about Christian and anything else.

  Upon the suggestion of Saorise, Megan, Natalia and Jackson, I started seeing a therapist every now and then without Christian's knowledge just so I had someone I could talk to who had no bias and that I could tell everything to since my friends noticed that I'd hold back several bits and pieces when talking to them in fear that they were going to call me stupid for staying with him. And I couldn't exactly confide everything in Alex or Arielle or any of the rest of them either as Alex ended up becoming a point of discussion.

  I felt stupid going, like my problems weren't justifiable enough for what I thought was such an extreme step but after the first session I realised how freeing it was just to get everything off my chest — even when Christian and I were currently on good terms. I knew he and I had been viciously toxic over the past year or so, so I wasn't really surprised when my therapist started trying to tell me how I could get out of toxic relationships and what aspects made it bad for me. Of course, as soon as Christian was nice to me, all that advice was forced into the back seat in preference of my denial.