When Daria woke up, after she took her glasses and put them on, she saw Trent with his black eye lying next to her in his bed.
Oh, so it wasn't just a dream.
She was wondering why the hell had she agreed to sleep in the same bed with Trent. Probably the same reason why she'd agreed to hold his hand. It was all because of the stressful conditions, nothing else, right?
What about Tom? Why am I even thinking about Tom? Just because we hung out a few times it doesn't mean a thing. Trent is important to me again, Tom and I are just friends. Wait, did I just admitted that Trent...? Oh crap.
She got up and exited the room, going to see if Jane's was still sleeping.
She probably is, even I'm tired from last night.
But when she got to her friend's room, she only found messy blankets on the bed instead of Jane. She was not there. Daria got scared, fearing her friend would be drinking again from the booze in Penny's room, so she ran to the other side of the house. But she also found it empty, with the only thing related to Jane in there being the stain of alcohol on the floor.
Oh, hell, what if she left?
She ran down the stairs and felt released when she found Jane in the kitchen, sitting on a chair in front of the table and drinking a colorless liquid from a shiny glass and a jar with the same colorless liquid in front of her. Jane was looking to the wood table like there was nothing else to look at, not even her friend standing in the entrance of the kitchen. Daria noticed that Jane had the same look that she'd seen in Trent. They both chose a place to look at, somewhere they could look at with their heads down, and either closed their eyes or looked at the particular thing with cold silence in their eyes. But Jane had some tears running down her cheeks and falling on the table.
Jane hadn't seen Daria yet, or if so she was ignoring her.
Daria was using that time to analyze the situation and decide how to react, what to say. She could be harsh, tell her how disappointed and angry she felt, she could be supportive or she could simply tell her they were sending her to rehab and walk away. But she couldn't. The mere fact that she was now there, in her friend's house and that even when trying to be cold she was still trying to do something to help her was enough to prove her that she cared, she cared an awful lot and she couldn't help it. She had cleaned her room two times so her friend could feel comfortable when trying to recover, she had waited for her to wake up in the hospital, she had carried her to the bathroom and cleaned her, then had dressed her up and put her in bed. She wanted to help. And only a couple years back she would be frightened to notice that she cared so much for someone. Her sarcastic friend needed her and she was not going to run away and hide in her bedroom buried in books.
"Jane" Daria called.
Jane got her head up, with her face soaked in tears. Her blue eyes opened and she put her hands on her cheeks in an attempt to quickly dry her face, but her eyes were read and she couldn't dry that redness away. She seemed to try to speak, but she couldn't. Her friend didn't know how guilty and ashamed she felt, so much that she felt like she didn't deserve to speak to Daria and she couldn't look at her in the eye for too long.
Daria noticed it, even though it was a strange situation, she knew her friend well enough. She walked across the room and sat next to Jane, looking curiously at the liquid Jane was drinking.
"It's just water" Jane's weak voice swore.
"I know" the brunette replied ". Jane, I'm not going to say this is okay, because it's not. You screwed it up. But I screwed it up and Trent did too. We want to help you, but we obviously aren't qualified to do it on our own".
"I'm sorry about this. I'm really sorry. I didn't want this to happen".
"I know you didn't. That's why we need to fix it. Just let us help you and we'll go back to normal".
Jane sighed.
"Okay. You're right. I agree, I'll let you help me with this... problem".
Daria smiled and hugged her friend. Jane first opened her eyes confused, but then just closed them, smiled, and wrapped her arms around Daria.
Daria then stood up and went to heat some water.
"Do you want some coffee? I'm still a little tired but I felt like I needed to go check on you".
"Nah, I'm okay. By the way, how's Trent?" she asked, with a worried look on her face, recalling the punch she'd given him.
"Don't worry. He's got a black eye but he seems to be doing alright. I didn't know you could hit that hard".
"Neither did I. I really need to apologize to him. And how are things going between you two?".
"What do you mean?" Daria asked while she went back to sit next to Jane.
"I'm not stupid, you know? When I woke up I went to see Trent and saw you sleeping next to him so I just came downstairs".
"Oh".
Shit, Daria yelled in her mind with an awkward look on her face and her cheeks colored with a red tone.
"So...?" Jane inquired after Daria didn't give any answers.
"So what?".
"What happened?".
"Nothing".
"C'mon, Daria, are you telling me that you were in his bed just sleeping? I promise I won't tease you about what you did".
"You won't because nothing happened. You know I wouldn't be up for doing anything".
"You normally wouldn't be up for sleeping in the same bed with my brother, so how could I tell that you haven't been replaced with a sex-maniac alien?".
"I swear we didn't do anything. I was tired and confused so I may have agreed to sleep in the same bed, but we did not do anything. Even if I had been up for that, I would've been too tired for it. By the way, you didn't tell me you had a tattoo".
"What tattoo?".
"You know, that tattoo you have on your right..."
"Oh" Jane interrupted ". That tattoo. That's partially Trent's fault" she laughed nervously ". Hey, can we order some pizza? I'm starving and I'm too hungover to make myself feel worse by eating from the fridge".
"Sure, I'm up for pizza".
"I'm up for pizza too" a slow, deep, raspy voice said.
Both girls turned their heads and saw Trent standing next to the entrance of the kitchen. Jane's jaw dropped and she went back to look at the table and took a sip from her glass.
"Trent" said Daria wondering how much of the conversation had he heard ". Wow, it's only 9 am and it's saturday, what are you doing awake?".
"I wasn't going to get out of bed but then I didn't see you there and I came to check if you were here" he explained, making Jane smirk despite of her shame. Trent looked at Jane and walked across the room, next to her. He then hugged her for a long moment, with watery eyes. "Janey, this is not your fault. Don't feel bad about my eye, I'm okay".
"I'm sorry, Trent" she broke down with some tears ". I really don't know why I did that".
He stopped hugging her and made her raise her face so he could look at her.
"Hey, no hard feelings, little sister. Everything will alright. Now I am really hungry too, where's the phone?".