Ever have one of those hangovers that leaves you inches from death?! Get out your favorite drinks, girls! It's liquor time! Den and I shall have margaritas, and as long as I remember to put the cover on the blender, there should be plenty to share...

Read and review. This is one of my favorite chapters, and there's plenty more to come!

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Bella's POV

Shit shit shit! I had twenty minutes to make a forty five minute drive, or I'd be late for my meeting with my mentor. Traffic had been worse than usual, an overturned trailer on the I-10, so the drive to Kenner to take Edward to the airport had taken longer than anticipated. I dialed Emmett's number to leave him another message; I knew he'd be worried. I told him that I'd see him again after my meeting with Dr. Marshall. I had to get the preliminary findings finished, so that I could continue to do research for my paper. Pulling into a parking space, I all out ran up five flights of stairs, still in the same scrubs that I'd worn yesterday.

"I'm sorry that I'm late!" I cried, wheezing noisily, the door to his office not even half way open. My hair was wild, only a few strands still pulled back in a useless ponytail, my face was flushed, and I suddenly felt very thirsty. I leaned heavily against the chair, clutching my chest to keep my heart inside. I swooned; the exhaustion was about to take me. I plopped into a chair before I could make an ass of myself.

There he sat, in his wrinkled, crotchety glory, my ancient mentor. He didn't look upset by my tardiness, but then again, he was rarely angry with me. He didn't even flinch when he noticed that I was wearing exactly the same scrubs that I autopsied in yesterday, and that was obvious because of the stain on my left thigh. I was embarrassed, totally mortified.

"Good to see you, Miss Swan." He smiled at me like I'd entered the room in a clown costume. "Your brother called. He told me there was an emergency, and that you might be a detained.

God bless Emmett.

"I trust you've had time to do more work on that report we've talked about?"

Ummmm... Truth? Lie? CRAP! "No, I didn't have a chance to get to that last night. I had to meet my brother, and then I had that issue yesterday..." Please don't let him ask me what the emergency was. If I have to explain to him that I spent the night comforting a stranger instead of working towards my future career...He'll dump me in a crazy house for SURE!

Perhaps he wouldn't be too far off...

"I need the next section completed by Friday, Isabella" He clicked his pen on the desk in irritation, "You've really fallen behind; I'm so disappointed in you. If you don't catch up, and quickly, you'll be dropped from the program."

"I'll keep that in mind, Dr Marshall. Thank you for your time." Properly chagrined, I exited the office, head down. There was no paper to discuss; I couldn't bring myself to write it. I couldn't bring myself to write much of anything anymore. Couldn't concentrate in my classes. Hell, I passed out in the autopsy room twice last week. I was on serious overload.

I was supposed to be preparing a series of works to provide to the group I wanted to do my residency with. I haven't been doing my job, and my mentor was letting me know that my dream was falling farther from my reach. Slipping between my fingers, as my mother had.

I already had two bachelor's degrees. I was exhausted, and in debt up to my eyeballs. Truly, I needed to get my crap together or I'll be paying off unfinished medical school bills until I donated my body to science. "Alice!" I whined into the phone, as I spoke to her answering machine. "I need some therapy! Please!" My voice rose shrilly on that last note. "Pick me up when you get this message." I drove back to our house; the only thing our mother had been able to leave us. It was tiny, and falling into disrepair. Neither one of us had time to put the work into it that it needed.

I loved my house. I loved my brother; I was so thankful when he came back for me—thankful that he let me stay. This place had always been my home, and I couldn't imagine ever living anywhere else. My father was devastated when I told him that I didn't want to come to Washington to be with them.

Emmett stood by me, and took time off of school to help me. He took a job on the river as a welder, just to support us. I felt my life slowly slipping away to sheer burnout. "I need a vacation, Em."

"But what about school, Bella? You can't just take off in March! What about your residency? Are you going to just let all that go?" He'd never say it, but I could hear it in his voice. He'd given up everything so that I could spend my days in school.

"I can't handle it anymore, Emmett! I bit off more than I can chew!" I fumbled with the stereo; radio was the only thing to cure my anxiety these days. I popped in my Cake CD, and shuffled to "Short Skirt/Long Jacket"

"I think I'm done, Em. I can take the Praxis and teach! I can't do this anymore! I need a break." Digging through the fridge, I could find nothing that appealed to me. I stuck a can of tuna in the can opener, and proceeded to take two bites, then threw it away in disgust. The pizza in the back of the fridge wasn't too moldy... I grimaced as I took the first bite, but when you sliced out the molded parts, it wasn't so bad...

"Sleep on it, hon. Don't give up now; not when you're so close."

"I'm gonna go shower. See you when you get home, ok?"

"Gotta work tonight, Izzy. It'll be late. Wait up for me?"

"Yeah, sure. I love you, Bro." I hung up the phone, and blasted my favorite song, crying into a pillow. I put it on repeat, and took a long shower. I didn't even know how to drop out of medical school. I figured it was a permanent thing, like slavery. A yoke you bore until you either died in the process, or graduated to watch some other poor schmuck suffer.

I stood in the kitchen, cutting celery for my breakfast drink. A couple Bloody Marys couldn't hurt anyone. I glanced up at the 'It's five o'clock somewhere' sign that I'd made a few years back, and smiled. I'd lost count of how many I'd consumed, and the proportions of the drink became more wild, as I continued to imbibe.

"Dammit Emmett!" I swore as I answered the phone again. 'I want a girl with a short skirt, and a loooooong... looooooong!' the windows were rattling, and threatening to break, the stereo was on so loud.

"Jacket!" he cried brightly. "I much prefer their track 'Never There'. Cake is good!" Shit shit shit! "Who's this?" His velvet voice was unmistakeable, but I felt the need to ask anyway. I buried my face in the pillow, and was about to fix myself another Bloody Mary. I was nearly out of V8, and I didn't feel like running to Win Dixie to get more. Certainly couldn't drive there--I couldn't even see the button to answer the phone; thank God I had it set to answer when I unflipped it... I would move onto margaritas next, despite the early hour. Or perhaps long island iced teas.. Those'll do me in for sure!

"It's Edward Cullen. How are you?" I lay there on my couch wearing nothing but a short bathrobe, my face buried into a pillow. All I needed were those pink hair curlers, and I'd be an old lady—an old alcoholic shrew, shriveled, crazy, and bitter.

I was so piss-drunk that my words were slurring... "Yank?" I'd sat bolt upright, but felt myself falling sideways because I'd moved far too quickly in my alcohol poisoned state. I didn't feel the floor when I hit it, but the corner of the coffee table, before that, was a different story. It knocked me out--cold.

Edward's POV

I snorted when she used my nickname, but I noticed that she sounded off somehow. Something didn't feel right. Her speech was rushed, and almost impossible to understand between her gentle accent, and the slurring... "Bella Swan, it's not even noon. Are you drunk?!" I felt the stares of everyone in my father's hospital room, and my cheeks burned.

CRASH! SMASH! Thud. I heard the phone go rolling, and I knew she'd fallen. More likely, she'd passed out. I also knew that I was too far away to catch her. "Bella?! Are you all right?" More stares. No answer from the other end of the line, either.

"Edward? Who are you talking to?" My mother whispered, as her church pastor left the room with his eyebrows and hands raised, as if he wanted to exorcise whatever demon was lurking on the other end of the phone. If anyone could smell a scandal, it was him.

"Bella? Are you there? I'm calling Emmett!" Panic was beginning to well up inside me, and now that I'd established that my father was going to make it; I'd made plans to come home tomorrow morning. I was calling her to schedule a ride. Judging by the retching on the other end, I wondered if she'd be capable of driving tomorrow.

"Yank? That you?" She sounded far away, probably stumbling around searching for the phone.

"Yes, honey, it's me." My mother's eyes went wide with shock. Great. She'd think that Bella was an alcoholic, and I hadn't even started dating her yet. 'Yet' might be the wrong word; it gave the implication that I had plans to begin dating her in the first place. What a heavenly thought...

She wasn't an alcoholic--was she?

I heard hysterical laughing and retching, and the sound of a blender whirring in the background. The same song was repeating over and over again. '...Who is fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack. She's playing with her jewelry. She's putting up her hair...'' What I wouldn't give to be experiencing the hilarity first hand!

That was when the screaming started. When I figured out what happened, and I ran out of the room to avoid my mother, and I laughed till I pissed my pants. She'd filled the blender with ice, alcohol, and pink margarita mix, and forgot to cover it before she turned it on. Pink alcohol flavored shit was now plastered all over her walls. She just kept mumbling about pink dots, and tequila. Something about the walls. Understanding anything she said was a challenge, when she was inhibited like this.

"Bella! Are you there?!" More retching, laughing, and fumbling. The sound of her side door opening, and closing reverberated in the distance. Thank God, Emmett came home.

"Who's this?" Another female voice took control of the phone, very high pitched, and obviously sober.

"Who's this?" I repeated. Shocked that someone other than Emmett had free roam of the house.

"Alice Boudreaux (A/N: Boo-dr-Oh). Bella's best friend. You're not the reason she's plastered in drink mix, right?"

Was I?

"I don't think so.. She sounded fine when I dragged her out of bed this morning."

Oops!

I heard Alice hissing questions at Bella, as she struggled to sit her upright on the sofa. "You slept at a stranger's house last night? Are you kidding me? What? Are you nuts?!" Much lower, but loud enough that I still heard, "Is he good looking? What does he look like? Does he have a brother?!"

"Alice?" I was beginning to struggle with not laughing as I spoke. "Can you ask her to pick me up from the airport tomorrow at noon?" She repeated the question to Bella, who said something unintelligible, as she threw up into some kind of container—metal by the sound of it.

"Alice; get me a cosmo to wash it down?!" Bella's voice sounded so far away, and so drunk.

"She'll see you tomorrow. Call her later." The phone went dead just after I heard another thud, and grimaced.

"Edward? What the hell is going on with you down there?" My mother was grinning like a Cheshire cat, and had obviously heard most of the conversation, as I'd put it on speaker to hear Bella better.

"Oh, I don't know mom." I grabbed my keys out of my pocket and started twirling them with my fingers. "Yesterday I finally spoke to the girl I'm going to marry...That's all." She grinned at me, and I grinned back. I'd never been so honest in my feelings about a girl, but somehow I knew, even this early on, that Bella would be something truly special in my life.. Love at first sight, and all that. We both laughed till we cried; clutching onto each other for dear life.

I did call her later, but there was no background music. Emmett answered the phone, speaking with less volume than a whisper; I had to put it on speaker to hear him too, though at least I understood the reason. "Hey Cullen, what's up?"

"How's Bella?" I heard him chuckle, and I heard her shush him far into the background.

"She's not feelin' too good, bro." I started laughing, and told him about the scene I'd heard this morning. "This is so not like her. I gotta figure out what's up with her, man. How's your dad?"

"He's doing good. I brought him a baseball cap, and we kinda made amends. He's a little more supportive of me being there. That's why I'm calling. Bella said she'd pick me up from the airport tomorrow. If she won't be well; I'll just take a cab." Thank god I had a spare set of keys...

"Bella! Put that down! I've got enough of that shit on the walls to last me a lifetime! You're still puking, and you're trying to chug tequila?!" He'd covered the phone with his hand, but I heard anyway. I bit my tongue so hard that I tasted bood, but I managed not to laugh.

"Jesus, Em. Don't talk so loud... It makes the walls-----spin." Another thud.

"One of us will be there, man. Glad your dad's better. We'll talk to you soon, ok? Have a safe trip."

"Wait!" A strangled half dead hiss came from the other line. "I wanna.. talk.. to Yank.."

Sounds of the handset being passed around, and then the sound of heavy breathing. My oh my, was it hot in here? "Yankward?" I'd bitten my tongue clean off, and had moved on to my cheeks.

"Yes hon, it's me. Feeling better than this morning, Bella?" My mother was shaking in her seat next to me. She'd been quite the drinker in her day, so she appreciated a good bender now and then.

"No. Worse! I wanna.. die.. Please?"

"No ma'am. Not on my watch, you won't."

"Everything's so PINK!" she squeaked.

"I hear strawberry margaritas will do that to a kitchen. I'm coming home tomorrow; maybe we can go to your place, and I can help you clean up?"

"I didn't know you could operate a bulldozer, Edward." Something similar to a death rattle escaped her lovely lips, and I watched my mother fall out of her seat. "I got you something, just like I promised. I can't wait to give it to you." I'd been ignoring my mother, but she poked me from the living room floor.

She whispered to me, "Edward, I peed!! Oh my god! Help me up!" I helped my mother off of the floor, and she went to go change.

"Get some rest. I'll see you at the airport at noon, ok?"

More puking into the unidentified, infamous metal container. "Noon. Got it." the line went dead.

My siren; I missed her already.

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