BLOOM • awsten knight

89

JUNE 2019

Elle is having a bad day.

Well, a bad couple of days. She's barely been sleeping, because every other hour, she's jolting away with bad dreams; mostly flashbacks, of twisted memories with Alex.

She talked about it in therapy with Colleen, yesterday afternoon, but saying most of it out loud has only made her feel sick; a contributing factor to how she's feeling could also be how hard she's worked recently - she hasn't given herself much of a break, and now it's all catching up to her.

As a result, she spent most of the afternoon curled up in bed yesterday, in her dim and empty apartment.

Taylor and Ethan are out of Los Angeles for the weekend, taking some time away together, leaving Elle by herself. She doesn't mind; if anything, a part of her is glad that they aren't around, because else she would just feel like a burden on them.

She manages to get up and get dressed this morning, wearing a pair of leggings and Awsten's sweater.

They haven't seen each other for a couple of days, since Awsten has been busy filming for his podcast over the long weekend, as well as working tirelessly on his album.

Elle wouldn't normally go out wearing his sweater, but admittedly, she misses him a little bit, and she feels like she needs as much comfort as she can get.

It takes Elle twice as long to get to the studio as it normally would; she takes a slow walk, because her stomach is still in knots, and her head feels fuzzy, but she's got an idea that won't leave her alone.

"Are you okay?" Zakk frowns, as soon as he lays his eyes upon her.

"Yeah, hi to you, too," Elle waves, tiredly.

"Hey, sorry, you just—"

"No, I know," she works up a smile. "I know I haven't been sleeping great."

"Do you wanna just go home? We can do this another day," Zakk suggests, gently, but Elle shakes her head.

"I really need to get this out," she insists. "It's been bugging me so much. And, my voice is fine. Can we just keep everything dark?"

"Yeah, that's fine," he nods, turning off a few lights, and making sure the recording booth is as dim as he can make it.

With some input form Zakk, Elle changes and adds a few lyrics from what she already has between her notes app and voice memos.

They build on layers of sounds for the instrumental, and loop it, while Elle sings over what she has.

She's drawing inspiration from some things Colleen has said to her, that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about; it's lead her to falling down a rabbit hole of self reflection, and she isn't quite sure whether that's good or bad.

When Elle heads into the booth, she's glad that Zakk dimmed most of the lights, because it's making her head feel a little less like it's spinning. It helps her focus, too; she wants this song to be raw, and to show off her vocals.

She sings through the first verse a couple of times, before she's happy with it, but before moving onto the chorus, she pauses.