Chapter Five

"Teresa! Are you asleep?" Teresa's mother called from the kitchen on the bottom floor. When she heard no response she decided to check on her angel. She climbed the stairs slowly, as if knowing that nothing were to be wrong. When she quietly swung open the bedroom door, her face turned a blank shade of white, and frantic tears started to mould in her face. "Teresa! Teresa!" Teresa's mother shook her lifeless child restlessly, but then decided it was no use. She ran to the nearest telephone:

"Help! My daughter OD-ed. Help!" Teresa's mother quickly gave the police officer her address and with a frantic yelp screamed, "HURRY!" Her face was wet with tears, as she looked at her daughter, who had been crying also. The pills were scattered innocently on the bedroom floor. Teresa's mother dragged her daughter the best she could, lifting her occasionally.

"Teresa! You'll be okay!" Teresa's mother tried to soothe her motionless daughter, but most of all tried to soothe herself unsuccessfully. Soon the sirens started to holler in the background, but Teresa's mother was in a haze, not able to hear anything but the silence of her daughter, "Please Teresa! Wake up!" She begged, and soon a set of arms grabbed the hollow girl, and soon Teresa's mother felt herself drooping as her own eyes starting to twitch. She felt herself being grabbed by some one, but she didn't know what was going on anymore. She willed to stay awake, to stand by her daughter's side, but her body refused.

"She's waking up." Teresa's mother soon heard from the paramedics that were crowded around her- she soon saw them too.

"Where's my daughter? Where's my daughter?" Teresa's mother echoed as she lay flatly on the hospital bed. Her hair was tangled, and she had a burning feeling on her forehead but she couldn't care less.

"Your daughter is in desperate need of surgery. We need consent." A paramedic asked frantically.

"Go for it. Just make her okay!" Teresa's mother started to feel incredibly dizzy once more, and before she knew it her reflexes shuddered her quickly to the side of the bed, where she deposited her breakfast, lunch and very brief, lonely dinner. Now she had a blazing feeling scrounging in her throat, but her head soon flopped on the nearest pillow. She was then again, out cold.

"Ryan, what are you afraid of?" Marissa asked incredulously, wrapping her finger in her hair.

"Seriously?" Marissa nodded, "Pain. Death. Basically what every human being fears." Ryan admitted.

"That's not what I meant, Ryan. All of the guys that I would invite into my home would be naked on my bed by now. Why are you so different? Why do you actually have different intentions with a girl?" Marissa asked disbelievingly, and Ryan was completely shocked by this.

"I don't know," Ryan thought for a minute, "I bet when you invited me here, that's what you wanted?" Ryan eyed Marissa Cooper down like a hawk- when his eyes met her flesh she could feel a tingling sensation powder her skin.

"That's not it." Marissa technically lied, because that was what she expected.

"You know what?"

"What?" Marissa asked curiously, knowing she ruined moment. She then sat guiltily with silence on her bed.

"Maybe I am here for the wrong reasons. Maybe you invited me here for the wrong reasons. Maybe this whole thing is just wrong to begin with." Ryan shrugged and got up. He grabbed his coat, and turned to leave.

"Ryan," Marissa got up with him, but she couldn't just let him go. "Wait." Marissa ran up to him, and placed her hands quickly on his cheeks. She soon met her lips, with his embracing him in a long, busy kiss. Ryan, didn't know where to place his hands, in order to not violate the girl's space. He just awkwardly stood, positioned with Marissa Cooper wrapped around him, kissing him ever so gently. When her tongue entered his mouth, he pulled away. Ryan just gave her a confused, yet hurt look, before leaving. Ryan was hurt because he knew all this girl wanted was sex. Ryan wasn't ready for that, especially after Teresa. He wasn't that kind of guy. But he didn't yet know the kind of girl Marissa was.

"Ryan please," Marissa whispered, but her silent call was answered with the slamming of the door. Marissa melted into her sofa. She sat thoughtlessly on the couch, enduring hardcore confusion.

Why doesn't this guy want this, Marissa thought? She started to tease her hair, pulling it gently to relieve her stress- lately it happened to be a hobby. Marissa looked around deviously- nobody in sight. She decided to grab a cup, and pour herself some whiskey. When didn't some alcohol soothe stress? Apparently, Marissa didn't know the difference between take a sip, and getting wasted. After refilling her cup several times, she decided to ditch the cup and go to her bedroom- but not solo. She took the whiskey bottle, which was half full by the time she went up with it. As she watched old soap operas, she laughed unsobrely at the heart broken baboons that trailed the television screen. The hours went by, and Marissa only got drowsier, her eyelids heavier. Within a matter of time, Marissa was catching some Zs.

"Honey, I'," When Julie walked into Marissa's room, she froze at the sight of the empty whiskey bottle, the booming television screen, and her passed out daughter laying on the floor. She smirked, and decided to give her daughter a break tonight- she was probably too drunk to listen. She's deal with Marissa in the morning. She wrapped her daughter in a blanket, and gave her a good night kiss, ceasing to breathe when she smelt Marissa's breath carrying the alcoholic stench. Marissa seemed to sleep soundly, but when the first rays of sunlight, penetrated to the room in the morning, it blinded Marissa who was undergoing a powerful hangover. As she tried to resist the sunlight, she got up and attempted to close the curtains. Then she noticed the stabbing pain in her mind- the Hangover Headache. Instinctively, she gripped her head, as the pain gnawed at her skull.

"Sh it," Marissa said as she looked around, seeing no whiskey bottle, but a quiet, clean and serene bedroom. Marissa realised her mother had been there the night before. Marissa collapsed on her bed once more, and decided to skip a nasty day of school. Julie, however, wouldn't allow it. She came in, perkily, and jerked open the window curtains exposing the room to a new level of intense brightness.

"Rise and shine, princess." Julie said grinning, as she saw Marissa motionlessly lying on her bed. Marissa groaned seeing that her effort to close the curtains had vanished. "Wake up, Marissa." Julie chanted in an annoying sing-song voice. Marissa moaned again, louder. This meant: 'Screw you mother. I'm having a hangover, and I know you saw me out cold yesterday.'

"Maybe next time you shouldn't drink a swimming pool worth of whiskey. Your little body should really wait until the legal year of drinking alcohol is before actually drinking alcohol. Now you're such a smart cookie!" Julie said sarcastically. Marissa tried to say something, but only another groan escaped her mouth.

"You're not a caveman Marissa, you can use English- I understand that fine." Julie said, as she folded a few of the clothes patching Marissa's floor. "Marissa. Don't mess around! You drink, you pay. Sorry love." Julie said, and Marissa sat up on her bed.

"For once you can ditch the 'I'm a b itch' persona, and actually be a caring, loving mother for like ten seconds of my life." Marissa said coldly, as she took ahold of the neatly stacked and folded clothes. She then scattered them over her room again, "It's my room, mom." Marissa reminded her, and Julie looked at her daughter for a little longer then a moment's time.

"Honey, you're going to school whether you like it, or not. Because I don't care. You're going. Or I'm telling your principal you're having a hangover. Say bye-bye to that prissy award you wanted." Julie threatened in her 'I'm-capable-of-everything-sweetie' kind of voice.