Aly's POV

We're not going to be able to see Jane (or Mom, considering I still don't know what to call her now) until she's released, so Beck, Gwen and I decided we had had enough of the white walls and nauseating smells. We went back to the hospital to drop our respective love interests off so they could claim their cars and go home.

"Drive safe," I told Sean after devouring his face, as Gwen would call it.

Sean smirked before stepping out of the car. "You know it. You coming, Dave?"

"Noooo," Gwen whined, clinging onto David's arm as if her life depended on it. "You endangered his life once, you're not doing it again!"

"Sometimes endangering your life can be fun," Jade commented completely serious. Beck shook his head at her a little, but smirked before kissing her. With that, she left and walked back to her mom's car, since she was nice enough to let her use it, since this was kind of an emergency.

Gwen looked at Beck, still clinging onto David as if he was a stuffed manatee. "Can we give him a ride? It's on the way home."

"Yeah, sure." Beck nodded. He didn't seem necessarily enthusiastic about it, though.

"Uh, thanks for the ride, Sean," David said to Sean, who was still lingering.

"Any time, man." With that, Sean shut the door and walked back toward his dad's Jag and I prayed that he wouldn't get pulled over by a cop or murdered by his dad.

I noticed Beck hadn't said anything about Sean's illegal driving spree. Either he was too busy thinking about everything else to care or he was blissfully ignoring that minuscule detail. I hope it's the second one.

I slipped into the passengers seat, leaving Gwen and David to have some alone time in the back. Beck started to drive and I watched through the rearview mirror until the hellhole of a hospital was out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind.

Right?

Not right.

From how the doctor was acting, our mother is injured pretty badly. There's no way she's going to be out of there by tomorrow. Then again, we didn't actually get to see her. It might not be that bad.

But it might.

And Beckett's staying in the house tonight. Gwen's probably happy about that. Even if she sure doesn't look happy.

From the rearview mirror, I can see her peering out the window, looking as if she's a million miles away. David was glancing at her every couple of seconds, just to make sure she wasn't crying or contemplating tucking and rolling out of the car while it was still in motion, but didn't talk. He knew she didn't really feel like it.

Gwenny had been a little happier at lunch. We went to her favorite restaurant, she got her favorite meal, she ate it with her favorite people... And Rex.

And then we had to go back to the hospital and remind her that everything isn't okay.

Even though it was completely silent on the ride to the Shizuka home, Gwen and David's hands never loosened their grip. I could see him give her hand a tighter squeeze every couple of minutes, and she'd limply squeeze back.

The kid was a wreck.

She's emotional enough as it is. For something like this to happen, it's gotta take a toll on her.

We finally arrived at David's house and he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving without a word. He probably didn't know what to say.

I don't think Gwen was really all there, anyway. He could have told her that Glee sucks and she wouldn't have even batted an eye.

Once David was inside and Beck started driving again, I twisted around a bit to look at my sister. "Gwen?"

Gwen still looked out the window.

"Gwen? Gwenny? Gwenners? Gwendolyn? Gwendo?"

"Huh?"

Thank you. I was running out of variants for Gwendolyn.

"Things are going to be okay." That was all that I could think to say. Hopefully it would be enough.

Beck kind of nodded after I said that and soon enough, Gwen gave me a little nod too.

She definitely didn't look reassured.

/ /

Once we arrived home, the three of us silently headed inside. We awkwardly sat in the living room, where we had been laughing and goofing off moments before getting that damn phone call.

We didn't really know what to do. What are you supposed to do after spending the day at the hospital because your parents are idiots and were drunk driving? Play Pictionary?

Gwen always kicks our butts at that, anyway.

Gwen was on one end of the couch, knees pulled to her chest. She knew by now that Dad/James was going to be okay. My guess was that she was still worried about mother dearest.

But she obviously didn't want to talk about it. Neither did Beck or I, so neither of us questioned her about it.

I was on the other end of the couch and Beck was in the middle, so I grabbed the remote off of the end table. "Um, maybe there's something good on TV."

"Turn it on," Beck said, speaking for the first time in a while. Maybe he was finally getting over the shock.

Gwenny silently nodded. "Yeah, uh, but I have to do something upstairs first."

Sitting the remote down, I raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

"Last minute schoolwork and stuff," she quietly said, getting up and walking towards the steps.

I knew she was lying. After a day like this, she wouldn't care about finishing her math homework.

I almost stood up to go after her and see what was really bugging her, but Beck sort of held up a hand to tell me to sit back down. "I think she just needs to be alone," Beck said, given me a serious, yet soft look.

"I just want to..." I trailed off, not really bothering to finish my sentence. He probably would have made me stay down there, anyway. "She's taking this way too hard."

"None of us have even spoken to them since Thursday night. And the way that seeing Dad went today wasn't exactly an ideal reunion."

That's true. Most dads would have hugged the crap out of us, thanking the Lord that he lived so he could see his precious little babies again.

But our dad isn't like most dads, is he?

Gwen's POV

I walked up to my room and didn't bother shutting the door as I sat on my bed and grabbed my manatee.

"Why aren't we enough for Daddy?" I asked, as if Walter had suddenly gained the ability to talk. "I mean, after getting in a pretty serious car crash, you'd want to see your kids, right? But no! He just wanted to see Mom... I mean, I can't blame him for wanting to see her, since she's really hurt, but he hasn't seen us since like, Thursday." I stopped looking into his beady black eyes and hugged him. "Why doesn't he love us?"

It felt good to say this to someone, even if the someone is a stuffed animal. I didn't want to talk about it with my brother or sister, since I've already been enough of a baby today.

Today was stressful enough on them. They didn't need my dramatics on top of it. We already got enough of that from Aly.

But I'm really starting to think it's true, that our parents don't love us. If they do, they certainly had a weird way of showing it, since they hardly pay attention to us and spend more time getting drunk with their friends and chizz.

"I don't need them," I quietly said to Walter. "None of us do. We've been doing just fine without them. Things have been better than ever since we started avoiding them." I got an icky feeling in my stomach from badmouthing my parents, but the thing is, I didn't really care at the time.

I was sick of their crap. I was sick of how they'd pretend things were okay when they weren't. I was sick of how they treat us like nuisances when they're drunk, especially Aly.

I was sick of how their dumb little addiction kept ruining everything for us.

Then, I did something a little stupid. Actually, a lot stupid.

Without thinking it over, I tossed Walter on the end of my bed and stood up, walking into my parents' room. I found what I was looking for in the drawer of their nightstand.

A lighter and a box of cigarettes.

Please don't be like, "Oh, Gwen, don't start smoking. It's bad and blah blah." I know. I'm not gonna start smoking. That's stupid.

I'm just gonna have one.

My dad's not a chain smoker. He only has one every couple of weeks, when he's mega stressed and the Chardonnay won't cover it. People on TV have the occasional smoke when something bad happens.

And finally figuring out your parents are terrible people is pretty bad.

I poked my head out the door to make sure my siblings were both still downstairs and sprinted back into my parents' room. After shutting the door and locking it to make sure one of them didn't walk in, I looked down at the lighter, then the box of cigarettes.

This wasn't me. I didn't do stuff like this. I was the good one. The innocent baby of the family.

Well, we can't be angels all the time.

Was I finally hitting my rebellious phase? I was pretty mad at my parents, and thought maybe if they found out I had smoked one of their cigarettes, they'd finally give me more attention, even if it was just to yell at me. I certainly wasn't getting ready to do what I was about to do because of peer pressure or any of that jank.

But there was no way Beck or Aly could find out about this. That would end in disaster.

To make sure the room wouldn't reek of smoke, I opened up my window, perched myself on the sill, and leaned my head out. After pulling one of the little white sticks out of the box, I slipped the carton into the drawer, back where I had put it. At least I think I put it in the right place. Whatever.

I placed the cigarette in my mouth, trying to remember how Dad does it so I wouldn't smoke out of the wrong end. Bringing the lighter up to the end, I flicked it until I could see the flame, and then lit it.

Everybody has their rebellious moments. Aly had her booze party, and Beck moved out of the house and into a tin can, for goodness sake. One stinking cigarette is pretty tame, compared to what my siblings have done. And it's not like I wanted to dye my hair black and pierce my face all up and threaten to stab people with scissors. That's Jade's territory.

I just wanted to be bad for once.

To start off, smoking isn't fun. I think I wasn't doing it right, because I kept hacking and wheezing after each puff. It made my lungs burn and my eyes water.

But I probably looked cool. So woot. I guess.

I just hope neither Beck or Aly barge in. Besides the fact that Beck would kill me and Aly would smack me upside the head for being an idiot, I didn't want to add to the trials they had been through today by having them think their sister is some sort of smoking smoker.

Which I'm not.

Well, I'm smoking right now, but you have to do it more than once to be a smoker. And judging from the experience I'm having, I'm never doing it again.

After a while, I think I finally got the hang of it. I at least stopped coughing every ten seconds. Every twenty wasn't so bad.

I still didn't get the big deal about smoking. It didn't feel good and it certainly didn't make me feel better. Do people only do it to make themselves look cool? That must be it, because I'm not figuring out any other reasons.

It was then that I realized how stupid of an idea this was. I know, slow reaction, right?

Maybe I should try thinking before doing stupid chizz like this. I could have rebelled by, like, drinking straight out of the milk carton or something.

My anger at my parents had fizzled away with my ability to breathe properly. And now I was left regretting swiping one of these cancer sticks. Especially now that I realized my dad had several opened boxes of cigarettes and would probably never even notice that one of them was gone.

After hacking for the billionth time, putting the butt out and resting it on my window sill, I heard a knock on the door. "Gwen, you okay?" I heard Beck ask.

"Yeah, we could have heard you coughing from Alaska," Aly commented. I saw the doorknob jiggle a bit and she asked, "What up with the door? Why'd you lock it?"

Oh poo.