Daria opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by darkness. An unidentified sound had woken her up. She put her glasses on. The door of Jane's room was half open but it was dark out in the hallway too.
She got out from the sleeping bag and looked at the bed, trying to find Jane but she was not surprised when she noticed that Jane was not there. She stood up and turned on a small lamp with a weak light that Jane had placed next to the bed "in case you need to go to the bathroom or something so you don't wake me up turning on the light of the room". Jane's room looked pretty much the same but she noticed some clothes on the floor, clothes that weren't there when she had fallen asleep. It was a black shirt and gray shorts, they looked wrinkled and dirty, with multiple stains on them.
Daria frowned and took the shirt from the floor barely touching it with her fingers and then smelled it. The smell of alcohol was certainly there, but she could also smell a lot of perfume on it, as if someone had tried to cover up the first smell.
Dammit, I knew it, Daria thought, feeling disappointed, angry and betrayed, because Jane assured her she wasn't going to drink. Now where the hell is she?
The brunette girl walked to the hallway, not knowing where was she supposed to look at to find her friend.
God, is she even in the house?, she asked herself, but then assumed that if her clothes were there she probably had already returned.
Penny's room was in the end of the hallway, she remember, in the opposite side of the house, so she figured it'd be easier to check in the rooms right next to Jane's, in the side of the house where she was, and then check the others. She already had a mental image of a drunk Jane whom had passed out somewhere in the hallway or inside one of the other rooms.
I wonder why didn't she just pass out in the place where she changed her clothes, though.
Daria opened door after door and found herself in front of several rooms with no one inside. But then she opened one and was surprised by what she found. It was Trent. With all the anger and distress over Jane she had completely forgotten about Trent, about the fact that he was Jane's brother and that he lived in the same house.
He had left a blue lava lamp on next to his bed.
I didn't know he had this, she thought.
He was lying in his underwear on his bed. The mere sight of Trent being almost naked in front of her made her open her eyes widely and her mouth opened to pronounce an involuntary "eep!". She quickly covered her mouth, worried about waking up Trent, but he didn't even move. She couldn't see much detail due the lack of light in the room, but the soft light from the lamp was enough to see more than, she thought, she should've seen.
Is he even breathing?
She noticed a purple blanket on the floor that had fallen from the bed. It was a little chilly, even inside the house, and Trent was only wearing his underwear. As some kind of natural reflex, she walked in, took the blanket and covered Trent with it. She had a smile on her face. She felt like she just wanted to lie down next to him and be with him. The whole Jane thing had her under stress and she was worried and sad about her friend. She didn't have anyone else to help her go through that, just Tom and Trent.
"Shit, right" she whispered remembering she had gotten inside Trent's room looking for Jane.
She ran out of the room, noticing a light coming from downstairs. She tried not to be noisy while going down the stairs, but the distress came back and made her forget to go slower so she wouldn't wake up Trent. When she was finally downstairs she was trying to find where the light came from and noticed it was a kitchen at the same time she heard a noise coming from that room.
She found Jane wearing only her back tights and a black bra. Her hair looked messy and her red lipstick had smudged the mug she had been drinking from.
"Daria" Jane said clearly surprised, almost scared.
"Hi" Daria replied dryly with a dark expression.
"Hey, what's up with murderer gaze?".
"What are you drinking?" Daria asked, still dryly, ignoring Jane's question.
"Whoa, Daria, relax, it's just coffee" said Jane, once again upset by her friend's skepticism on her ability to stop drinking.
"Why are you drinking coffee" she stopped a moment to check the clock on the wall "at 3:00 AM? And I'd like an explanation about that shirt on your room that smells like alcohol. God, I knew it, Jane! Why can't you accept that you can't just stop drinking so easily?".
"Okay, you're losing your shit, Morgendorffer. First of all, I'm drinking coffee because there is absolutely nothing else to drink and I'm hungry as hell and there's nothing to eat but mac n' cheese, so I needed something until the mac n' cheese is ready. About those clothes, I found them under some canvas in my room, maybe from a few weeks ago and I put them there to remember to wash them in the morning. I'm not drinking, Daria, and I know you do this because you care but give me a freaking break! Why can't you trust me?".
Daria calmed down, touched by the last thing her friend had said to her.
"But then why are you wearing the clothes you would be wearing after taking off the ones on the floor? And why do you have lipstick on? Also I cleaned your room and I'm pretty sure I didn't leave anything that smelled like alcohol in there. I'm sorry I'm acting like this but I really don't want what happened to happen again" she said more sad than angry, with a weak voice.
Jane also looked sad, realizing she had to say the truth.
"Fine, you win. I admit it. I sneaked out around midnight thinking about having a last drink so I went all the way to the Zon because they normally don't charge me all I drink but when I got there they told me Trent told them not to let me have any alcohol if I went there and I realized how much it means to Trent that I get better and to you too. Some drunk guy spilled half of his drink on my shirt so I left and when I got here I took off my clothes and put some perfume I found in the bathroom so you wouldn't smell it and think I was drinking. I guess it didn't work. I'm sorry I lied to you but I was scared you'd assume that I can't do this. The coffee and the macaroni things were true though".
How am I supposed to believe you didn't drink if you lied to me in the first place?, Daria thought, but her friend was right. She needed to trust her more and be supportive instead of making the whole thing a witch hunt.
"Okay, I believe you. But promise me you won't sneak out anymore".
"I won't" she promised ". Now, do you want to join me and have a 3 AM snack together?".
"It's not as good as pizza, but how could I refuse?" Daria agreed with a smile.
Daria and Jane went upstairs after eating, but before entering her room, Jane told Daria she'd be there in a minute, because she needed to go to the bathroom.
Jane closed the bathroom's door and then took a small, pocket-sized steel container she had been hiding inside her bra. With a gaze that showed guilt, Jane smelled the scent from the alcohol within the container and then, enjoying every second of that burning feel going down her throat, she finished all the vodka, then brushed her teeth and went to bed.