*****Erika''s POV*****


    The phone didn''t stop ringing.


    I hissed angrily and kept it far from me. I didn''t bother picking it or checking the caller ID again.


    Alex was just so stubborn, calling me just to berate me over Serenity''s current situation, as though it was my fault. An angry hiss escaped my lips again.


    "It''s okay, Rika. You''ll be fine." Pa patted my hand.


    "Don''t allow yourself think about him, darling. He''s not worth it." Kat added.


    And they were right, but I could barely control the anger. It was as though it had forcefully unleashed itself after so many years of being calm and almost subservient.


    "Yes, I know."


    “Let''s talk about something else." Kat opened the second bottle of wine and filled our wine sses.


    I downed mine in seconds, I caught the look on my best friends'' faces. "What?” "You downed that in seconds." Kat pointed out, looking quite surprised.


    I shrugged, I had always been the wary drinker of the three of us. Pa was the normal drinker but Kat was the crazy drinker, gulping everything that is remotely associated to alcohol.


    I needed that shot of intoxication coursing through my veins, I wanted to forget everything I had gone through. Everything I was struggling not to remember but Alex would not let me forget.


    “That, I did.” I stood and ignored the incessant buzzing of my phone. “He''s annoying me. He should stop calling me." I eyed my phone in annoyance, pacing my room.


    "Just ignore it, he''ll get tired and stop calling." Pa advised.


    "Or you can cklist his number, he would not be able to reach you." Kat suggested.


    Her suggestion was a quite the problem solver but something was holding me back from actually going through with it. I sighed and went back to the bed. "Pour me another ss."


    I extended my empty ss to them, specifically Kat. She was the one holding the bottle, she poured into my ss. "Don''t gulp it down" She warned.


    "Yeah" And I did gulp it.


    "You realize your alcohol tolerance is not high. Soon, you''ll begin acting up." Pa stated, taking a gentle sip of her own wine.


    "Of course, I do know and that is why I want to get drunk." I could feel myself getting there already. I just wanted to sleep it off.


    "I''m quite surprised she''s not fully intoxicated andughing like a loon already, especially after taking the first bottle with us." Kat said.


    "Another one." I extended the ss again, my head was getting light, my eyes were beginning to close, it was exactly what I wanted.


    "No." Pa snatched the ss out of my grip. "Go to bed and sleep it off."


    "Sleep what off?" My words were beginning to get slurred.


    "The amount of alcohol you have taken into your system, you need to sleep it off." Pa was keeping the ss out of my reach as I struggled to get hold of it.


    "Give me back my wine ss, I want to drink more." I whined.


    "No, you can not drink more. Go to bed, Rika." Kat firmly ordered.


    "No, this is my room and you both will not tell me what to do." I eyed the both of


    them, determined to get my ss from Pa.


    "Yes, we can and we will. Go to bed." Kat insisted in that same firm tone.


    "You''re not my mother." I told her, quite upset.


    "An established fact, but I am your best friend and I am that for a reason." Kat countered.


    "Another established fact." Pa supported.


    I groaned in frustration. "The both of you are just so infuriating."


    "That''s what best friends can be when it''s time to do the right thing." This was from Pa. She had stepped out of the bed and was holding the ss higher, I was trying to reach it.


    That would have been very easy if I was not inebriated and struggling to keep my bnce. I understood what my friends were trying to do and though, I really appreciated it, they would not understand.


    I was tipsy, not as drunk as I wanted


    to be yet. I could still think of him,


    picture him in my mind''s eye and did not want that. I wanted to be so drunk that it would be impossible to think of anyone, especially him. So wasted that all I''d do was sleep off as soon as my back touched my bed.


    That was what I wanted. Naturally, I was not the bottle kind and just as Pa had said, I had very low tolerance for alcohol so I was easily intoxicated, unlike Pa and Kat who had high tolerance.


    "I don''t need you two to be infuriating, I just need you to be supportive." I folded


    my arms when Pa was being tenacious, and stubbornly holding on to my ss. "We are supportive." Pa imed.


    "Which is why we do not want you anywhere near this ss anymore. At least, not for today." Kat put in.


    They were ganging up against me. These two supposed best friends of mine were teaming up against mez Two against one, was it? I hissed and moved away from them. My backrested against the headboard, one of my pillows on myp.


    "Don''t be like that." Pa had this glint in her eyes, she was trying not tough.


    "Give me back my ss."


    "That will not be happening. We understand you want to drink to forget everything but we can not let you keep drinking especially when you have low tolerance for it." Kat stated, refilling her own ss, her gaze locked on mine. She too was teasing me and she was trying not tough too.


    Iid down on the bed, my back to them. I was going to fall asleep eventually but I


    woke up and had to suffer from the pain that Alex''s memories brought.


    The door opened suddenly and I rolledzily to stare into the face of my


    stepbrother looking so harried and angry. "Where the hell did you leave your phone?!"


    "Calm down Jace, what is it?" My brain was aware of what was happening. I wasn''t that drunk.


    "No, Erika. I can''t calm down because there is trouble!"