Her eyes fluttered open, she felt pain through her body, through the light she saw a familiar face, Eliza lay sleeping on the side of her bed. Suddenly the room door burst open and Diana walked in, James behind her. Both donned their smiling masks, their caring show for the world, Alisha knew that this mean that the press had heard of her collapse. Beside her, Eliza woke up, she stared at the couple, rolled her eyes and went back to sleep. They were somewhat irked by her behaviour, both had a huge amount of pride, and felt insignificant to their own daughter.
"Eliza, wake up!" Diana hissed whilst jabbing her daughter's shoulder. She gazed coldly at Alisha, whose expression had not changed, James couldn't see her face but he had a good idea about how his wife felt about his other child. He placed his hand on her shoulder and ushered her back, he turned to Alisha, his face blank like a plate.
"You collapsed." He stated the obvious. Alisha nodded, as she clearly did collapse. "Why?" he asked.
"I don't know, I just woke up." She replied, already tired. "You don't even want to know, just leave, you've done your part visiting, the press will be good." She groaned as she tried to sit up. James' heart ached, but he couldn't bring himself to help her, he simply couldn't. Diana rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, tugging it slightly. She never liked Alisha, she felt like Alisha brought down her family, her picture perfect world had become less picturesque since Alisha broke into it.
After sighing, he simply turned to leave, Alisha tried to hit the button on her left to call for a nurse, but she felt too tired to even lift her arm up. Eliza woke up again because her parents were gone, she was just pretending to sleep so that they didn't talk to her. She found them to be quite the bore, always asking if she was feeling okay, if she wanted anything, always saying yes even if she asked for something unreasonable. She understood that they loved her, but she had lived with the differential treatment her whole life, it felt disgusting to her now, Alisha was her sister, not a stranger.
Eliza quickly called in the nurse that had helped Alisha, she had also taken the fallen phone that Eliza had called on and informed her of the situation. After sending Annabelle home, Eliza had rushed over to her sister. She couldn't believe that Alisha had collapsed, the doctors had told her that it was most probably due to stress, but they had to run some more tests.
"Ms Richards, how are you feeling?" The nurse asked, she felt pity for this young girl. Her mind was a mess, there were traces of anti-depressants in her blood, and her blood pressure was incredibly high. Someone that was nineteen years old shouldn't be living the way she was.
"Why is my body so weak?" Alisha asked, genuinely curious. This hadn't happened in her last life.
"You seem to have been incredibly stressed over the course of just two days, and it's taken a toll on your body. Have you been sleeping properly? Eating? How are you taking care of yourself?" Alisha shrugged.
"Eliza, could you get me something to eat? I'm starving!" Alisha asked naturally, Eliza didn't detect anything odd with her tone and left. Alisha turned to the nurse and answered, "I haven't been able to sleep lately, I've been eating less than I used to. I have been exercising my normal amount."
"There were traces of anti-depressants in your blood as well as sleep tablets, you've been taking non-prescribed doses. You're nineteen miss, you should be taking much less especially if you aren't eating as much as you used to. What shocked us was the amount of adrenaline and cortisol in your blood stream, almost an unnatural amount of stress accumulated into your body causing some of your functions to break down... I have the prescriptions from our doctor, please ask your sister to buy these. It's important to keep care of yourself and your body, your sister should be here for this. You need a family member to make sure that you stick by our prescription and someone that is aware of your situatio-"
"No." Alisha interrupted. "Please leave the responsibility for all this to myself. Eliza doesn't need to know, if she asks please just tell her that it was because of stress. Nothing else." Alisha knew that Eliza would freak out, so she kept the information to herself.
Eliza went to the canteen at this time, she knew what Alisha liked to eat. Suddenly she was approached by a young girl, she could tell the girl was nervous so she flashed one of her signature smiles. "Um, are you the supermodel Eliza Richards?" she asked, her eyes filled with respect and awe. Eliza nodded.
"Nice to meet you, what's your name?" she asked politely.
"Felicity... could I take a selfie with you?" Eliza nodded, she was in a rush but she had to be polite to fans. Even a small scandal could cost her career. She smiled and took the selfie on her phone, uploaded it to social media and tagged Felicity, the caption, 'met a fan!'. "Why are you at the hospital Ms Eliza?" Felicity inquired.
"My sister collapsed so I'm taking care of her. I'm here to grab some food for her actually." Eliza replied. She grabbed a tray and went to the soup section, Felicity tailing her like a shadow. She smiled again and asked Felicity why she was at the hospital. Felicity answered, "My mum... works here. Full-time. So I hang out here a lot." Eliza nodded and said goodbye, she wasn't always fond of random people approaching her. But that's how it was for celebrities. She managed to catch the doctor who checked up on Alisha and asked him about Alisha's situation.
The doctor, who knew that Eliza was Alisha's sister, told her everything based on the tests. Eliza was astounded, as anyone would be, and unsure about what she should do. She was outside the room when she heard Alisha tell the nurse not to tell her so that she wouldn't freak out. She curled her fist, she felt helpless all of a sudden. Why would her own sister not want to rely on her? She turned around and waited till the nurse left before re-entering the room with a smile.
"Um, Annabelle will be dropping by later. What did the nurse say?"
"Nothing much, just stress y'know."
Eliza nodded, she felt terrible for her sister, why was she so stressed that she had taken too heavy a dose of anti-depressants? Why can't she share some of her burden? she thought.
Suddenly the door opened, in walked George and Bryan.
"Hello ladies." George smirked whilst holding a balloon.