Paranoia

Polska – the full story is that I suffer from clinical depression and have been for the last 5+ years and only recently have I been able to rekindle my love and passion for writing. It has been very hard for me, especially these last couple years, but I feel so much better than I have in years. I do not want to make promises I can't keep but I have been writing a lot lately, and I certainly hope it continues. Thank you for your continued support of this story, even when it hasn't been very good.

In order to make this story easier for me to write, I have decided to alter the format.

CONSEQUENCE

n. an act or instance of following something as an effect, result, or outcome

CHAPTER 9

"Close your eyes and I'll kiss you 'cause

With the birds I'll share this lonely view."

-Scar Tissue, Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Butch lit the cigarette that dangled precariously from his mouth. It drooped past his cracked lips and threatened the stubble that painted his chin. A sigh escaped his lips in coherence with a deep exhale of smoke, a breath of wariness and futility. He drummed the brick of the exterior hospital wall with his fingers and passed the cigarette to his redheaded brother, whose sagged skin beneath his eyelids and unkempt hair guided him closer to collapse.

Brick accepted the lit cigarette gratefully, taking it to his lips and sucked in the toxin until it hurt. He felt the burn scrape his insides and released the pain through his exhale. He'd given up smoking years ago but the little painful buzz that came along with this cigarette felt like the exact reprieve that he needed. He would smoke this cigarette until he forgot how to think.

"Forcibly removed, eh?" Butch said suddenly, noticing Brick's tight grasp on the cigarette and deciding to light one of his own. "We've been forcibly removed from a lot of places in our lives, buddy, but a hospital has got to be a new low." He met Brick's gaze with his own hooded one.

Brick had to chuckle, which caused him to cough out a new load of smoke from his lungs. There were light grey tendrils curling around his head and his brother's, connecting the pair of them by a mere cloud of cigarette smoke and nothing else.

"Don't think I don't still hate your guts though," he warned, pressing his head back firmly against the wall. "You're still a little bitch who needs to keep his fat mouth shut."

But they didn't even seem like fighting words anymore; instead, the words stilled the air with reluctant, tired force, like the speaker certainly did mean them, but had exhausted every way of saying it. There was no longer any hatred etched into them, no longer any fiery rage burning them into darkness. The fight had gone on long enough and the disgust that repelled the two men from one another was slowly beginning to sink with defeat.

Butch sighed again. They smoked in silence for what seemed like an hour while the lamppost lights across the street flickered and the silver stars twinkled longingly above them. The world was silent before them. Not even the air whistled lullabies in their ears. In the distance and only to strained ears, the intercom inside the hospital building sounded once to alert the doctors of a Code Blue.

"What are you going to do about the baby?" Butch asked after the long silence. His question was not acrimonious or sarcastic, dripping with secret venom; he looked up at his brother with an unfamiliar curious wonder, almost worry.

It was Brick's turn to sigh. That was a question he tried to avoid asking himself even; there was no certain way that he could possibly answer it truthfully and yet…and yet, he knew he had to try. Running away from it like he had run away from Blossom in her hospital room like a weak, weak coward was simply not an option…even then, he felt his fingers tremble and his heartbeat quicken as he thought about her tearful gaze and pale, pale skin, like death warmed over…he felt a desire to slam his head into the brick wall over and over again.

"Can't be a selfish prick anymore, can I," he said bitterly. He didn't deserve a woman like Buttercup and he certainly didn't deserve a woman like Blossom any more. He strung them both along on intertwined strings like a puppeteer performing a show, cruelly and explicitly, like he was above any consequences. It made him sick to his stomach. How he was able to look in the mirror after fucking both women who so desperately loved him was beyond him…

"You know," Brick continued in a lost tone. Butch turned his head towards his brother, sensing a story unburdened with lies and secrets.

"Before I went back to Blossom, I never did want children. I didn't want snotty-nosed brats running around my apartment or my house or whatever, little look-a-likes of me and probably growing up and becoming bigger dicks than I was," said Brick, shaking his head ruefully. "I just knew Buttercup and I would be terrible parents. She wanted kids even less than I did. There was no warmth between us, only pure, uninhibited sex and…you know, the need to prove to everyone that we were so much better than them because we're beautiful and rich."

Butch nodded shrewdly. He understood that vibe, having felt it from the pair of them on more than one occasion.

"But with Blossom I was able to let my guard down and I didn't have to put up this stupid, fake, better-than-you façade…and I kind of started to see what I was missing about having a real family, and I started picturing little redheaded Brick-Blossoms running around the house…" Brick trailed off, looking at his brother helplessly. Butch put a hand on his shoulder encouragingly.

"You're not wrong, you know," Brick continued after a long pause. "I can't have everything I want."

"I can't either, buddy," Butch replied, taking a final drag of his cigarette before stamping it out under his shoe. "We've fucked up too much to get anything we want at all."

They stood in silence for even longer now, spoken and unspoken words drifting aimlessly between them, the knowledge of a daunting future looming over them, and the edges of this perpetually unbroken world finally cracking.

Bubbles does not notice that the moonlight has disappeared until she feels warm sunshine bathe her in its glow. She does not notice that the kitchen has been dressed in darkness until the sun begins to robe everything in familiar colours. Even then, when day breaks and nightfall disappears, she does not notice that her head has been pressed against cold floor tile and her back aches from lying against it all night until she hears someone wander into the kitchen.

"Bubbles!" a voice cries from somewhere up above but Bubbles can't bring herself to look up. There is a distant hazes that has seemed to fog her senses, like she has gone partially blind, deaf, and mute all at once. She stares at the ceiling but the glassiness in her eyes proves that she doesn't know what she is looking at. Her mind is totally blank. Not a single thought creeps through the blackness, hoping to shroud it in colour like the sun.

A shadow hovers over her, blurred completely in her eyes. "Helloooo! What's wrong? Why are you lying on the floor? Are you okay?"

The voice seems familiar and Bubbles' lips part in an attempt to respond. Her throat feels dry and raspy, as if words have not escaped in years. Every part of her seems strangely empty, like she is now a hollowed out shell.

Buttercup kneels down next to her and places a hand on her forehead, motherly in a way that is totally unknown to Bubbles, whose eyes have now sharpened her sister into focus. There is a look of concern painted onto Buttercup's perfectly etched features, an uneasy pout curled into her pale lips beneath dark circles encasing her bright green eyes. Her black curls are pushed over one shoulder and she is still dressed in the same satin corset and velvet lounge pants as the night before. Yet despite her somewhat unkempt appearance, she looks as beautiful as ever.

Looking at her sister causes a single thought to drift into her mind despite Bubbles' intentioned efforts to keep it empty. The night before…she does not want to think about her hospitalized sister…her crying, tough sister…her angry, aggressive fiancée, hurting her, screaming at her in rage…her dead father…no, no, no. She won't think about that.

"Bubbles, it's nine in the morning," Buttercup says gently, lifting her sister into a sitting position or at least attempting to. She pulls out a chair so that Bubbles can rest her back against it. "Have you been lying here all night?"

Bubbles still can't speak so she shakes her head instead.

Buttercup stares at her, concern mounting on her face with each passing second. The air is stilled with unspoken emotion.

"What happened?" Buttercup asks again, a little rougher than before.

But the words will not come out and will only echo in her head. John passed away...passed away, like he'd turned the opposite direction on an intersection. Why couldn't she have just said it like it was? He was dead. He did not pass away as though he intended to come back.

All those letters and wasted words with no receiver…that's all it seems like now, Bubbles thinks. Those words I wrote went into oblivion with no other eyes than my own. She feels a little shameful, remembering the painstaking anger that went into each letter and each line, the noticeable lack of an "I love you" at the end of every succeeding note…it makes her a little sick. Her stomach churns and, with a surprising amount of strength, Bubbles bolts up to the sink and throws up.

"Bubbles!" Buttercup shouts, rushing after her. She grabs Bubbles' shoulder and turns her around. Vomit drips from her lips.

"M'fine," Bubbles murmurs, wiping her mouth with a dish cloth. She rinses her mouth with water from the tap for as long as she can manage it, for as long as it takes for Buttercup to stop asking questions. After what seems like hours, she pulls away, water caked to her face instead of vomit, and looks at her sister again.

"When Blossom is out of the hospital, let's all go up to visit…Dad," she says quietly. Buttercup looks surprised but not suspicious.

"Sure, but—"

Suddenly, the front door slams open and footsteps thud down the hallway like a herd of elephants. Boomer appears in the doorway, visage as pale and as angry as ever. His blonde hair sticks out at all angles and his baby blues are rimmed with red and shadowed with black. His eyes dart between Bubbles and Buttercup suspiciously.

The tight knot that had formed in her throat to keep her from speaking suddenly releases. Anger like she has never known clouds over emptiness like a thunderstorm on a grey day. For a brief second, she hates this man in front of her, his chest heaving like he can't catch a breath and his clothes old-looking as though he has not changed in days.

"What are you doing?" they shout at each other simultaneously. Boomer's eyes narrow as though disbelieving of her audacity to yell at him again.

"That's none of your damn business," he hisses at her, brushing past the pair of them and to the refrigerator. Bubbles watches him rustle through the fridge for a moment before an unfamiliar crimson rage begins to seep through her veins again.

"You were out all night again, weren't you," she says coldly, a statement, not a question.

She can see his back stiffen momentarily and he pulls his head out of the fridge and slams the door shut. Glass bottles inside clang and bang against each other. He fixes his gaze upon her again and there is no kindness within it. His body quakes with unresolved fury.

"Didn't I say that that's none of your fucking business?" he says again. His tone remains level but the wrath behind his words is so apparent that it could be written on the wall.

"Don't speak to her like that, you piece of shit," Buttercup spits out suddenly. He affixes his narrowed gaze on her instead, a new expression of rage morphing his features into someone nearly unrecognizable. His face darkens into scarlet and his fists clench at his sides.

Buttercup speaks again before Bubbles can stop her. "Were you out doing drugs and fucking prostitutes again, Boomer?" she nearly shouts. The anger on her face is unmatched to Boomer's. Bubbles braces herself, wishing that she could have stopped the words from pouring out of Buttercup's mouth and onto the floor, where they creep up Boomer's legs and torso and seep into his skin.

With a roar, he grabs the vase filled with daffodils on the countertop next to him and throws it at the wall. The two women duck as glass shatters onto the ground opposite from them. He smashes his fist through the wall behind him, cracking through the plaster and ignoring the dust dispensing all over the table. Boomer's rage takes him around the room, running his fist through the wall again and again until his skin cracks and blood smears through dust particles.

Bubbles' whole body has gone cold. "Stop! Stop!" she screams, voice echoing around the room. She pinches at her skin, nails digging sharp grooves into her arms, drawing blood. Boomer can't seem to hear her. She runs at him without thinking, just wanting him to stop. He turns to her and his eyes are black and cold and emotionless but he doesn't stop; he pushes her to the side with such apparent force that her skull cracks against the fridge and Buttercup rushes to her side. Tears have broken through their restraints and are falling freely down Bubbles' face.

"What is wrong with you, you fucking psychopath?" Buttercup screams. Her words are enough to freeze Boomer momentarily; he draws on her, snarling and spitting.

"Shut the fuck up, you little whore," he spits at her.

"Don't talk to her like that!" Bubbles yells out before she can stop herself. Stars begin to dot her vision as the pain in her head explodes into her brain and down her neck.

He upends the table and it flips against the wall with a bang of shattering wood. Amid the destruction, he whirls around to face them.

"I'm fucking leaving and I'm never coming back," he hisses and, taking the chair and slamming it against the wall, he leaves the room and them amid a destroyed kitchen and equally as destroyed hearts.

I was drunk and we were married…

Brick was carrying me down the hotel's halls, whispering sweet nothings in my ear. The last few guests were still in the ballroom twenty two floors below us, drinking away their eventual regrets. We had managed to escape them after hours of partying and I had been waiting all night to get Brick alone with me in our rented suite…

He set me down at the door, kissing me a little clumsily as he fumbled for the key card. I giggled against his kisses and slid my hands underneath his loosely buttoned dress shirt. Click. The automatic lock sounded and he pushed me through the open door. The suite was enormous, dressed in shades of white for the occasion. The en-suite bathroom greeted us as soon as we walked in, its marbled floor decorated with rose petals and unlit candles decorating the edge of the bathtub.

Suddenly I found myself facing the wall with my dress down at my ankles. He had been fumbling with the satin buttons all the way up to our room on the elevator and his hands were now roaming across my white, sheer chemise, softly but so surely that I shivered beneath his touch. He pushed me against the wall, pressing his body so tightly against mine, his breath hot against the back of my neck. One hand was pressed against my inner thigh while the other stroked my breast and stroked my waist and…

He whirled me around and kissed me. His kiss was ferocious. I gasped into his lips as he lifted me up by the ass and carried me away from the wall and into the enormous open space of the suite. The floor was padded with white plush carpeting and the king bed was dressed in white Egyptian cotton and silk with a heart made of rose petals decorating its center. I found myself bouncing on my back against the mattress dressed in nothing but a silk white chemise and white garter around my left thigh. The overhead lights went off and the mixed scent of jasmine and vanilla filled the room as I watched him light all the candles surrounding us.

"I love you…" I murmured out loud as he climbed onto the bed. He looked at me and brushed a loose strand of black hair behind my ear. His touch against my skin electrified me.

"I love you too, baby," he said, his voice thick with what I assumed was emotion. I let him climb on top of me, let him trail kisses down my neck and my chest, let him slide his fingers deeply, but slowly, inside of me…our bodies entwined against the cotton sheets, his forehead pressed against mine as he fucked me, my hands on his ass, clawing into his back, my breasts hard against his chest…crying out my name, panting out his…this moment…this moment was where I wanted to be and never wanted to leave…

X X X

"What do you mean we can't go on a honeymoon anymore?" I whined as I watched him type away at his laptop. Our wedding had only been three weeks ago and though he had postponed going to Paris twice, it seemed so unnecessarily premature to cancel the trip forever.

"Honey, there's just no chance I'll be able to leave the country when de Vito is swamping me with this much work," he replied, his eyes never leaving the computer screen. "I know you had your hopes set on Paris, but I promise I'll make it up to you. I just know that the old dick is trying to line me up for a promotion and if I leave now, then that fuck boy, Adam Copular, is going to start riding de Vito's dick for the promotion. You understand, right, babe? I'll make it up to you."

Still, he did not look at me. I understood what he was saying but a part of me wouldn't cease being disappointed, couldn't help being disappointed…this life, so far, had been everything I wanted. This penthouse suite with its four bedrooms and spacious floor plan and incredible city view, the sweet doorman Phil who always greeted me with a smile and a charming southern lilt, the black, gold, and platinum credit cards in my name and let me buy whatever I wanted to my heart's content and yet…

I came home to an empty suite almost every day. I did not initially start going to bed alone and it was more often than not that Brick would climb in next to me, his chest pressed against my back, the sheets curled around our bodies. Those were my favourite moments, when we were vulnerable in each other's arms, no deadlines, no distractions, and no workaholic bosses to keep us away from each other.

But eventually this project had to end and Brick would finally take me to Paris like he promised and things would be perfectly okay. I just had to trust him.

X X X

I tried to recreate our wedding night on more than one occasion. The first project ended in three months and I thought I could have my husband back, but he seemed to disappear even more so than usual. There was always something else, always another late night or an extra project, especially after he was finally promoted to Head of the Department. They said that he was a shoo-in for CEO in a few years after de Vito retired, and though I know I should have been proud, it was hard when I simply never saw him.

I'd try to kiss him as we lay in bed but his continued mumbles of being exhausted or not in the mood were limiting. It was true that he looked bedraggled whenever I saw him, dark circles encasing his eyes and his lips pulled tight against his skin with exasperation, but this was not what married life was supposed to be like. I had not prepared for this inexplicable loneliness.

On one night I decided I'd had enough. He had come home early enough and was sitting on the couch watching the evening news, feet up on the glass coffee table with a glass of red Shiraz in his hand. He did not look as tired as every other day; contrarily, his red eyes were shining a little brighter than normal. I could not have figured myself luckier today.

I walked over towards him and nestled in beside him on the couch. He wrapped his arm around me in welcome and leaned over to set his wine glass down on the table, which surprised me, as it was not often that he made such loving gestures towards me. I suppose that was part of his charm, being aloof and mysterious and making you crave him so deeply.

"Do you still love me, Brick-y?" I said in a slightly husky voice, not necessarily intentioned that way.

He looked down at me, surprised. "Of course, babe."

I leaned up to kiss him and he kissed me back, lips soft against mine, the taste of berry wine lingering on my tongue. I moved my hand to his pants and rubbed over his crotch and his lips pressed tighter against mine. He shifted me up into sitting position and pulled me over onto his lap where I straddled him against the couch. He ran his hands up and down my back, riding up to meet my crotch with his…it had been too long since we'd touched like this, since we'd kissed so passionately.

He pulled my shirt over my head and was nestling his face between my breasts, his fingers thumbing at my nipples. I arched my back into his face as he moved his lips over to each breast, sucking, swirling, using his tongue…

He lifted me back onto the couch so that I was lying on my back. In one swift movement my pants were off and I was dressed solely in my underwear. His hand moved over my panties, down my panties, rubbing me the same way I had done to him. He lowered his lips to my ear…

"So wet…" he murmured and his breath tingled my skin. I no longer wanted tender passion, I wanted him to fuck me wildly, clinging onto my ass and my hips and us screaming each other's names until our voices went hoarse…I wanted him to make up for the last three months of near-solitude, of abandonment…it was our wedding night and I needed to forget who I was.

He flipped me over, panties off, and soon I felt him inside of me, bucking madly against the couch. I laid a pillow beneath my stomach and clung to the edge of the couch as he fucked me over and over and over again…there was something wild and crazy in his thrusts. He was pulling at my hair and choking me from behind, an angry passion that I had not felt from him in ages. I allowed him to take me in a way that I realized I had been longing for, not knowing when the next time would be when I could scream his name into the air from this unadulterated sex instead of red-hot rage.

X X X

The fights were getting worse and worse. I could no longer drag him into bed with me; he accused me of spending too much money. I had taken to smoking a pack of day simply to cope with the resentment that was seeping through me with no apparent end. It had been half a year since our wedding and still the disappearances continued. The promise of Paris seemed now to be only a distant hope, something that I could find only in my dreams at night when he couldn't hear me.

"Maybe if you had a job yourself you would understand why I'm never home!" he yelled at me one day after pouring himself another glass of wine. There was never a shortage of wine or cigarettes in our house; Brick told everyone that he didn't drink and I never denied his story, even though I knew when he came home that there would be another empty bottle of Shiraz or Sangiovese in the recycling.

The comment stung. I had taken to involving myself in committees at the country club, petty little endeavours that took my annoyance to new levels at these catty, childish women. I had not had a job in so long that it seemed too strange and foreign to try finding one; nor did I need a job to be powerful. Brick knew this and he had never pressured me otherwise. But now…

"How do I know that you're even at work? How do I know that you're not out with some other woman?" I screamed back, my rage at his commentary working its way into my words.

He turned even redder. "How dare you!" he shouted, slamming down his now-empty glass of wine with such force that I was surprised it didn't shatter. "I work my ass off so that you can spend all my money on shoes and purses and you dare sit there on your little high-horse and accuse me of cheating on you?" He glared at the eighteen karat diamond earrings that pierced my ears. I had a sudden urge to rip them out and throw them at him.

But the late nights continued and if anything, they got worse. I had taken to calling his work and his friends at work on different occasions but the story was true…Brick was working hard. Yet the paranoia had begun to set in…months and months of empty promises and lonely nights had taken over. Every now and then he'd take me into the bedroom for an angry fuck and we'd roll over almost instantly and fall asleep. But the knowledge still lingered between us. I loved him so deeply, cared for him with every fibre of my being that it was beginning to hurt, and there was an intrinsic part of me, forever and consciously dominant, that was beginning to doubt his love for me back.

"You are free to go, Miss. Utonium," Dr. Layton said as he signed her discharge papers with a flourish. "There does not appear to be any long-lasting or short-term damage to the baby and you seem to be recovering remarkably well. Remember to rest and stay hydrated! No amount of work is worth your health or your baby's." He fixed her with a firm gaze that she returned with a reassuring smile. The hospital gown lay discarded on her bed and she was back in her familiar pencil skirt and silk blouse that Bubbles had brought for her the night before. It had been hours since he told her that he was discharging her and finally, after being fraught with paperwork with his nurses, she was free to go.

She wandered through the hospital hallway, smiling at nurses and patients alike as she made her way to the front door. The cool morning air stung her face but it was a welcome change from the stuffy, antiseptic hospital scent. She was going home.

Except home had been empty. Blossom doesn't know what he had been expecting. Perhaps after last night's breakdown, she had still been expecting Butch, having nowhere to live, to have taken over her couch with football on the television. The house is dead silent, as empty and clean as she had left it.

The cheerfulness that had filled her body from her abrupt hospital discharge is slowly leaving, replaced by a familiar sense of dread and unhappiness. Blossom's eyes sting with unshed tears. It is almost like she has been expecting last night to have been nothing but an unrealistic nightmare, a vision of forewarning from which perhaps she can draw a morality lesson. But instead, she is greeted with more cool, stilled and silent air. She is as alone as ever.

The urge to hurt comes before she can stop it. She makes her way to the bathroom and slams open the medicine cabinet. The Xanax is there, smiling brightly at her from behind its protective plastic bottle. Its friend, Percocet, gleans for attention beside it. She takes them both; they are better friends than anyone else. They never let her down.

She washes the pills down with cold tap water from the sink. They taste bitter in her mouth but swallow smoothly down her throat. She stumbles back out to the living room where she collapses against the soft, faux fur rug, remembering the whispered words and soft touches that had been proffered to her on this damn thing. A familiar buzz tingles through her brain.

Boomer dumps a small pile of cocaine into palm of his hand and snorts it. He shakes his head as the drug moves through his nasal membrane, dripping down the back of his throat. A blast of adrenaline fills him. Rudolph cheers from the other side of him, one hand on the steering wheel of his shitty Plymouth.

"Way to go, kid! That was fucking bomb," Rudolph shouts. He sifts a bit of cocaine on the dashboard for himself and shorts the line. Boomer sits back in his seat, heart thumping madly through his chest, a heavy, stimulating buzz clouding his thoughts. A rush of invincibility fills him, seeping through his blood. He wants to forget his own fucking name.

Rudolph drives a few blocks until they come up to a weathered looking trailer park. A sign hanging off a chain-link fence reads "Evergreen Trailer Park" in forest green scripted writing. However, the writing on the sign is so chipped and flaking that it reads more like " ve gr n Tr il r P rk" instead. The trailers inside are small and white and equally as battered looking. Some have attempted to stray from the norm and maintain a decent uptake as if trying to convince onlookers that it is more than just a trailer, and others have even strung holiday lights across the doors of their trailers. Boomer knows he is in the right place. He pats Rudolph on the back after paying for another gram of coke and begins to make his way through the park.

His heart is pounding and his mind is racing. He feels fucking incredible and wants to shout from the rooftops how amazing he is. He wants to talk and sing and laugh and fuck and do everything to prove that he isn't worthless.

Finally he comes to an especially weathered-looking trailer adorned with empty beer bottles and bits of shattered glass on its browning surrounding grass. He can hear raucous laughter coming from inside and knows that he has found the right place. Boomer makes his way up to the front door and pushes it open. Inside, a group of people are surrounded by half-naked women, bottles of beer, and a table decorated with white lines. A strong pungent smell of weed, sex, and alcohol permeates the air. A few people look at him when he walks in.

"Boomer, you fuckin' dick!" a voice crows from a few feet away. Boomer looks over to see Mitch Mitchelson walking over to him, a bottle of beer teetering in his grip. His black hair is long and has a slightly greasy sheen to it, and the pupils in his brown eyes are dilated and wild looking. Like Boomer, he is dressed in a dirty shirt and old jeans. He embraces Boomer tightly, like two brothers meeting for first time in a long time.

Mitch appraises Boomer carefully (or as carefully as he can for being high). "You fuckin' high already, bud?" Mitch yells, slapping Boomer on the back. "Come over and hang, you fuckin' druggie!"

One of the prostitutes surrounding the table is blonde and slim, reminding him only briefly of his crying fiancée, but before he can dwell on it, he's invited into the white party, and more powder begins to decorate his nose and he's numb to every thought but these people and his racing mind and his blood-pumping dick. He laughs along with the crowd, Mitch offering him a few tokes of a tightly-rolled joint, a black-haired, blue-eyed prostitute with a pair of angel wings tattooed onto her lower back settling herself on his lap. She runs her tits across his face, rubs his dick with her hand, and does a couple of lines of coke herself. Minutes later, when he's fucking her against the bathroom sink, snorting coke off her ass, smashing back beer from the bottles, he doesn't make eye contact with himself in the mirror, consciously afraid of what he'll see.

A sharp pain snaps through her stomach and Blossom runs back to the bathroom where she throws up in the toilet. She keels over in front of it, the buzzing in her head still clouding her senses. A gasp of pain emits from her mouth. Suddenly, she can't breathe. Then the doorbell rings five times.

Knees shaking, Blossom gets up and rinses her mouth. She makes her way, shakily but steadily, to the front door where two shadows are outlined in the translucent glass adorning the side of her door. She opens it with stable fingers, trying her best to remain collected. She floats only a little aboveground now, having stabilized enough to seem normal.

"Blossom!" Bubbles cries, launching herself at her sister. Blossom pats Bubbles' back a little awkwardly.

"We went to the hospital but they told us that you had been discharged this morning," Buttercup says breathlessly. She has a large velvet hat pulled over her forehead, which looks a little ridiculous with her corset and lounge pants but Blossom is not too high to realize that Buttercup can still pull the whole look off. She shakes off her sister's grasps and leans against the wall, hand to her neck.

"What are you guys doing here?" she asks. "I would have called but I only just got home."

"Why didn't you call us from the hospital?" Bubbles demands. "We would have come for you."

Blossom notices an obvious desperation behind those bright blue eyes. She shakes her head and leads her sisters to the living room, where they settle in among crimson pillows.

She wants to curl up in her sheets and fall asleep until she has no choice but to wake up, but she realizes that cannot avoid her sisters' prying gazes. And yet…something seems off. There is no sincere elation in their expressions, no familiar determined bossiness or sly smirks from Buttercup, no cheerful concern from Bubbles. They are looking at her with a mix of sadness and distress. Blossom supposes she should have expected this.

Her eyes meet Buttercup's. There is knowing behind them. Buttercup's lips part as if to speak…

And then the doorbell rings again. The three women glance at each other confusedly as Blossom lifts off the couch and makes her way to the door again. Two more outlines are blurred from behind the glass. Heart pounding, she opens the door. Her eyes meet Brick's as he walks over the front stoop with Butch in tow. Buttercup stands up from her seat, a mix of shock and rage burning in her expression. She looks as if she wants to scream, run, and hit something all at once, but settles for simply affixing the pair of them with a contemptuous look.

Butch walks over to the living room and stands in the middle, locking everyone in with a single look.

"We need to talk."

TO BE CONTINUED

Polska – I maintain that this is my best chapter to date. I finished it in approximately five hours and I am hoping for this pattern to continue. It went a little more 'M'-rating than the other chapters so I hope that it wasn't too much for some of you. Thank you reading and reviewing. I hope to have another chapter up soon. I'm in my second last year of university so things are getting a little hectic, but I'm writing regularly now.

Please review!

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SOLITUDE