I haven't spoken again in a day, for my throat feels like it's on fire. Maybe I should have made my first words a whisper, much less a yell. My head is pounding from the vodka, and i've thrown up three times in the night. My stomach feels as if it's going to vomit itself out of my body, my back aching. Not only that, but my hearing is wicked sensitive. I can hear Luna downstairs, the sound of her chewing a piece of toast making me cringe and the newspaper page turning causing my head to slice itself open into multiple hundreds of pieces and blow up in a fiery volcano of poison.

So, yeah. It feels like hell warmed over. I force myself to stand, holding my stomach and forcing the naucious feeling away before walking as slowly as possible to the bathroom. Damn, I look bad. My hair is in tangled knots around my face, eyeliner smuged from crying late in the night. I have a piece of dried drool on the corner of my lip, some of it probably vomit.

Drinking? Never again.

After washing my face thouroughly and taking a long, much needed boiling hot shower, I dress in my hangover clothes: Navy leggings, fuzzy socks, and a plain, knitted grey sweater. With my hair in a bun, I brush my teeth, drying my hands and stumbling slowly down the stairs and into the kitchen. Luna gives me a stern look, glancing at me once before averting her eyes back to the paper. The ibeprofin is half empty on the counter, so I take four, popping them dry in my mouth and swallowing them before pouring a cup of black coffee.

Because nothing cures hangovers better than coffee. Luna raises her eyebrow as I purposely stay in the safety of the kitchen, gripping my coffee in both hands and making the sleeves of my sweater curve to my knuckles. "Sit," She orders. I don't even have to look to know i'm in huge trouble, hanging my head slightly as I pull out the wooden chair and take my place across from her.

"Last night. Care to explain?" She asks somewhat sarcastically, putting down the paper and staring at me through her gorgeous hazel eyes that I always envied.

I clear my throat, ignoring the burning sensation crawling through it, and force myself to speak. "I, um, got drunk." I state the obvious, raising my eyebrow. "I thought that much was obvious."

She rolls her eyes. "Alexxa. You aren't usually like that. Did Gabriel force you to?" She questions. As if on cue, he staggers in tiredly, rubbing his eye and nodding adorably.

"Did someone say my name?" He asks groggily, taking his place imbetween us at the table and nonchalantly taking my coffee from my hands. I glare at him as he drinks it, too out of sorts to notice my hateful stares. Eventually, he puts it down, sliding it back to me and sending me a small smile. I can't help but return it, playing with my fingers underneath the table.

"You're not off the hook, either." She tells him sternly.

He sighs. "Yes, mom."

She sends him a glare exactly like mine, turning to face me once more. "Why'd you get hammered?"

I shrug, thinking of an excuse to make. "I wanted to." I say finally, voice still quiet from not talking for the longest time.

"That's bull." Her tone softens after a moment, looking into my eyes. "Did it have to do with..?" She trails off, as there are unknowing ears in this room. I decide to tell the truth, nodding slightly. A sigh escapes her lips, and she shakes her head. "Two days. No phone, no iPod."

My eyes widen. "What?" I exclaim, holding my little blue iPod nano to my chest as if it's my child. "You can't take my music, Luna."

"You too, Gabriel. Hand it over." She holds out her hand, palm side up. I let out a dramatic sigh, pulling out my phone and deleting all of my messages just to piss her off and then dropping it in her hand on top of Gabriel's. "The iPod, too." She reminds me. I give her a sour look, putting my tiny iPod on top.

"What if I need to call someone?" He whines, pouting out his lower lip.

"Dammit, Gabriel, then you can use our landline!" She mutters, standing and walking into her room. "You aren't allowed anywhere, either, so don't even try."

Letting out a overused breath, I push down in my seat so my eyes are level with the table. "This fucking blows." I mumble.

He smirks. "I like it when you talk."

Rolling my eyes, I give him the finger. "What do you want to do?" I ask, ignoring his fake hurt look.

He shrugs. "I was going to get gummy bears, but we're on lockdown." My eyes brighten, and I stand, walking over to the counter. Unfortunately, I forget about the hangover symptoms, having to grip the countertop to regain my balance and not throw up all over the sink. He comes over to me, running his hand on my neck. Although my breath hitches in my throat, my stomach feels ten times better.

"How did you do that?" I ask quietly, shrugging his hand off my shoulder.

"My mom was a reiki healer." He says simply. "She taught me a few things." I nod, in awe of his many talents and perfections. I've yet to see him screw something up. It's like he's God..Or even better, Jesus. Oh, shit! My crush is Jesus Christ! Wait, I frown, examining him. He's too hot to be Jesus. He doesn't have that beat up look to him, the one Jesus always has on his face in pictures. Nope, not Jesus. Something..Better.

Anyhoe, back on topic. My hands reach up to the counter, pulling out a plastic bucket labeled 'raisins' in my old handwriting. Grinning, I open it up and show him my collection of gummy dinosaurs. He gasps dramatically, picking out a yellow one and popping it into his mouth. "Oh, yes." He moans, as if having some sort of foodgasm, and grins. "Let's watch a movie." He says after a moment.

I nod, taking my bucket of gummy dinosaurs and following him up the stairs to my room. We sit on my bed, putting in the original Exorcist and settling down on my bed to watch the movie.

------

When I wake again, my head is on a warm, hard figure known as Gabriel. I don't pay attention to the warm tingly feeling, the sensation of vomit rising to my throat too much to bear. Immediately, I jerk away, standing and rushing to the bathroom only a couple of doors away. My hands tremble as I let my body take over, hurling into the toilet with a disgusting sound.

Hands pull back the loose tendrils of hair, making sure I don't get anything in there before letting my stomach go again. A cry escapes my lips at the feeling, in which I angrily flush the toilet, preparing myself to apologize to Gabriel. "I'm sorry.." I mumble, taking a paper cup and rinsing out my mouth with mouthwash.

"For what?" He asks. "You're hungover- That's expected. Besides, nobody holds my hair when I vomit, so I thought you might want yours."

I roll my eyes again, making sure my breath is fine before responding. "Your hair is too short." I point out.

"Touche." He runs his tan hand through it, smirking at his reflection in the mirror and whistling. "Oh hot damn," He mutters cockily. "Look at this body."

I sigh, resisting the urge to kiss the smirk off his face.

Wait, what the hell? I just thought about kissing him. About kissing Gabriel.

Oh God- I am insane, aren't it? "Move out of the way, you egotistical weirdo." I mumble, trying to push past him to get back into my room. He refuses, instead smiling and grabbing my shoulders. His arms stretch out so i'm as far away as he can still hold, my arms not stretching far enough to push him away. Instead, I push myself forward in place like a retarded animal, eventually giving up with a huff and crossing my arms over my chest.

"Hah, how does it feel to be short?" He teases. I don't reply, slamming my mouth shut and looking anywhere but at his face. "Awh, don't be like that."

Raising an eyebrow, I glance at him through the mirror. He sighs, dropping his hands and letting me pass him. As I pass by, I let out a deep, nervous breath. Why am I acting like this? This boy is the one thing that annoys me most- Why do I have to be imagining what it would be like to hug him again?

"Children!" Luna yells.

"What?" Gabriel matches her volume, making me cringe and send him a glare. He gives me an apologetic look, hopping down the stairs with me following behind.

Luna's gripping her car keys in hand, a somber look on her face. "I can't drive." She mutters. "I need you to go to the store for me."

A smirk reaches my face. "Oh, but I thought we weren't allowed to?" I question, hinting she was at fault here.

"I think I liked you better quiet." She snaps, but I know she doesn't mean it. I let the words roll off my back, sighing.

"What do you need?" I ask.

"Milk..Eggs..Bread.. Chicken." She hands me a list, in which I read over with a grimace.

"Bacon?" I read aloud.

She bites the inside of her cheek. "Unlike you, I enjoy meat."

"Murderer." I mumble, pulling on my combat boots.

"You know what, Gabriel can just go alone." She decides, tossing him the keys.

"No!" I grab the sleeve of his tee shirt. "Don't leave me alone with her!" I hiss quietly, teasing her.

He rolls his eyes, wiping something off my cheek and flicking it towards the ground. I immediately let go, blushing. What was on my face? "Be back in twenty minutes, or there's another day added onto your groundation." She warns.

I nod, taking the twenty from her hand and pocketing it. "I love you, Luna!" I call out.

Her face softens. "Love you too, R-Sweetie." My eyes bulge out of their sockets as she almost says my name, but I try and hide it with a cough. Gabriel immediately notices somethings up, but says nothing, walking in front of me down the stairs and into the driveway.

We get into her car silently, turning on the a/c and driving off. He lets out a sigh, tapping his hands awkwardly on the steering wheel. "Can I drive?" I ask, voice filled with excitement.

"Do you know how to?" He questions with a raised eyebrow.

I shrug, playing with the stud that replaced my lip ring for the day. "You could always teach me."

He shakes his head, giving me a stern look. "I'm not letting you wreck Luna's car."

I rolled my eyes at that. "I'll be fine. Besides, I was taught a little bit from Chri-"

My voice died out as I felt a lump in my throat. I hadn't said his name, not since he died. I can't go around freely saying his name, as if it was a common thing to. At one time it was, but he's gone now- everything's different.

I looked out the window instead of finishing, blinking the tears away and focusing mainly on the trees that rushed by. The hungover feeling was still in my stomach and rested on my tongue like a deadweight, but it didn't matter to me anymore. I shouldn't be complaining about the pain when my brother is six feet under the ground, lifeless.

It's all my fault- it has to be.

"Alexxa?"

I looked up, where Gabriel had his arm over me, opening my door. "What?"

"We're here." I nod, looking at the huge supermarket and getting out of the car. It starts to rain lightly, wetting my probably horrible bed hair and clothes that hung loosely off of me. "You okay?" He asks as we walked through the lot and into the market.

I nod again stiffly, not meeting his insanely blue eyes. In fact, i'm anything but alright. Without my music, I had nothing to calm me down. Luna of all people should know I can't live without my music- especially now, when it was the only thing I had left. Did she think because I started talking again, I didn't need it?

Taking the list from my pocket, I ran my eyes over the things we need. "Will you get the meat?" I ask him, biting the inside of my cheek. Even the smell of the stuff disgusted me, made me want to vomit. It wouldn't be a good mix for me to go into the butcher area, hungover, with a repulsion to the stuff.

He smiled slightly, nodding, although it doesn't meet his eyes. "Meet me where the candy is, okay?"

"Kay."

He looked like he wanted to say something more, or do something. His arms twitch slightly, but he hid it by crossing his arms over his chest and smiling once more before turning and walking over to the meats. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, biting the inside of my cheek and looking up at the signs telling me where things are located.

"Bread.." I mutter to myself, glancing around until I find the aisle. When I'm in there, I almost groan aloud: Luna hadn't specified the type of bread she wanted. So, for the hell of it, I grabbed the strangest type of bread I could find: Panda bread.

It's just so freaking adorable, with the little faces colored into the bread, I can't resist it. Ha, serves her right for taking away my iPod, I thought smugly to myself, putting it in the little red basket and setting off in search of milk.

"Hey!" A chillingly familiar voice called out behind me. My eyes widen, and I turn around quickly to see a gorgeous, black haired girl with green eyes wander over to me, confusion written all over her flawless features.

Kira.

"Um, hi," I say, deciding to play the dumb card. She won't recognize me, not when I dyed my hair back to it's natural blonde..Right?

"Is that you?" She squints, mouth open in a small 'o'. "Ohmygod, R!" She squeals, throwing her arms around me. "I thought you were dead! I'm so sorry about them.."

I force her arms off me, although I missed my best friends touch. "I'm sorry.." I mumble, scratching the back of my neck and looking around desperately for Gabriel to come back. "I don't know who you're talking about."

Kira's face falls. "B..But..Shortie.." She uses my nickname, the one I always used to get an annoyed feeling whenever she said it. I couldn't help the twinge in my stomach- I guess old habits die hard. "It is you. Why are you trying to get away?"

"Miss, I honestly don't know who yo-"

"Alexxa, I got the mea- who's this?" Gabriel walks over to where we stand in the produce section. "I looked for you, but you weren't in candy."

I bit my lip at her confused look. "Why did he call you your mom's-"

I cover her mouth with my hand, giving her a warning look. "Gabriel, I, uh, just.."

"She's having a-ehm-girl problem," Kira lied, taking my arm. "We'll be back soon."

"Kira!" I hissed, blushing like a maniac.

His mouth hung open in shock and embarrasement, color flooding his cheeks. "Oh, um, want me to get the rest of the...um.. stuff then?"

I nodded, handing him the list. "Thanks!" I called out as she pulled me through the aisles and into a bathroom, where she looked around and locked us into a stall.

"I know you know who I am." Her eyes narrow. "I want you to explain this to me. Why did that guy call you Alexxa, and why are you trying to avoid me?"

I feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I held them back and swallowed the lump in my throat. "Kira.." I mumble, wiping my eyes and looking anywhere but into her green ones. "I..It's hard to explain."

She hugs me to her again, murmuring things into my ear. "It's okay. We have time."

I nod, letting the tears fall and burying my face in her shoulder. She smelt so familiar, so welcoming, like I remembered her.

Every blonde needs a brunette best friend, and I had completely forgotten how much I need mine.

----

Ohmagawd, you guys. I haven't udpated since the end of March.

I'm so bad v.v.

Vote, maybe comment, because this is the longest chapter ever?! And this'll be the last time I write in present tense, because I'm so used to writing in past and this is just screwing me up.

Sooo..love you, bye! The song is on the side, as usual.