It felt like the life just went out of me. 

I was now just a shell of what I once was. My future seemed like an endless sea of questions. I was taking sleeping pills every time I go to bed. I was ignoring calls from my mother, Dad, Jeremy and Tristan. I was calling in sick to work, every day. I found it hard to rise from the bed in the morning, and I cried in the shower, fooling myself, as I let my tears mingle with the water. 

I was not okay. Not. Okay.

Which is why I uncap a can of beer. I was not okay, and my head hurts, my body aches and my heart bleeds. I needed some sort of release, an escape, an outlet. And now, alcohol was my only choice.

I am halfway through my sixth bottle, when my thoughts wander to Archer. He had prepared enough food for me to survive the day, before going wherever he wanted, doing god knows what. Coming to think of it, I wonder what he did. For a job. I never asked, he never said. Maybe that makes me a shitty person. 

Crap. I am a shitty person. 

He was new to Cali. I never asked him how the city was treating him, whether he liked it in here, with me, whether he wanted to grab lunch. I never even made him a cup of coffee but here he was: making me dinner, holding me when I cry, never saying a word.

That wasn't the Archer I knew. 

The Archer I knew was obnoxious, outspoken, arrogant and hated me with a passion. I have seen fleeting shadows of the person he was - when he trashed my place, for example - but that was it. He never hurt me since he moved in, not with his words, nor with his actions. 

And to think that I believed that me sharing an apartment with him would be the greatest calamity to ever befall me.

Seventh bottle.

Tristan. Tristan. Tristan. 

His hands were smooth on my skin. He would hold me like a flower, gently. He would smile when he looked at me, before he kissed me, causing the butterflies in my stomach to happy-dance. He was mine.

It was funny how things could change. He was mine one day; and the next, he wasn't.

My phone rings. My finger hovers over the decline button. 

'Ah, fuck it.' I press the phone to my ear. 'Hello?'

'Are you drunk?'

Mom. 

'I recognize your voice. So, apparently, not drunk enough.'

'Why aren't you answering Tristan's calls? Or mine, for that matter?' 

I throw the empty bottle to the side and look around for a new one. 

'I broke up with Tristan.'

My mother gasps over the line. She must be deeply saddened. For all I knew, she must've had already booked our wedding chapel.

'Scandalous! The poor boy made an honest mistake! It's such a terrible thing to do to him over such silly - '

I grit my teeth. She knew. She knew and she chose to side with him.

'A mistake like yours?' 

'Pardon?'

'Well. It seems that you made the same honest mistake before, mother.'

I can hear her angered breaths over the line.

'Don't you take that tone with me, young lady.'

'Or what? Maybe you won't throw me any more of those birthday parties? Well thank heavens, you just made my life easier to deal with.'

'Kaitie Elizabeth McBarrow!' My mother yells, and I wince - even my drunken self knows that I'm so much in trouble.  'I can't believe you. Breaking up with Tristan, cutting off Leah, talking back to me like that - you are not acting like yourself. God, it must be that Miles boy, isn't it? It all began with him.'

Thoughts cloud in my head. It did begin with him. The dreams. I saw him, after so long, and I began having the weird dreams. On the very same night. 

Dreams that came true. Nightmares that took over my life. 

I am too drunkenly thinking that I don't hear my mother rant on. 

'I need you to be here. With Tristan. Make up with him and apologize.'

I snort. 'You don't dictate my life. Not anymore.'

'Kaitie. Stop being so stubborn. The party is essential now. I don't want more scandals in the family.'

'Other than the ones you caused? Sorry, mom. As for whatever party, I don't give a single flying fuck.'

The door shuts. I look up, Archer kicks off his shoes, his mouth frowning at the sight of all the empty bottles.

'Kaitie! Mind your -'

I cut the call and throw the phone across the hall. 

'Now, that was a complete waste of an Iphone XR.'

I stand up and I stumble back into the couch. Maybe I was a wee bit more drunk than I would care to admit. 

Archer picks up a bottle from the floor, clearing up the space. 

'Seriously, how drunk are you?' His eyes scan the room and I know he is counting the bottles. 'Jesus, Kay. What were you thinking?'

'Shut up.' I grumble, 'You sound a lot like my mother.'

I try to stand up, and this time I do not fall back. I take a wobbly step forward, and then another and another, and then the floor is rushing at me, at the speed of 720 km/h. I close my eyes and get ready for the impact, but my body does not hit the floor. 

Archer pulls me up, his hands around my waist. He steadies me, looking into my eyes. He is talking, probably yelling at me to stop drinking, stop whining, stop crying but I don't hear anything. My gaze is locked in his dark, dark eyes. Those brooding, dull eyes, that had always seemed so lifeless. They were shining now, and they were deep, like an infinite black hole, and it was sucking me in, into its vortex. 

My gaze wanders. It runs over his prominent cheekbones, his sexy stubble, and his sharp jawline. I watch his Adam's apple bob up and down. I look at him, at Archer Miles. His hands are still around me, and I realize how close we are. 

His eyelashes are long. His eyes are sucking me in again. His lips. They're moving. They're saying something. They're red. They must be soft.

I am way too drunk.

'I need you stop this madness! Kaitie, you've drunk ten bottles of beer, in one single day! That is bad for you.' He snaps. 'What? What are you looking at?'

I don't think before I lean in and meet his lips with mine. My hands loop around his neck as I go up on my toes, kissing him. Archer goes completely rigid under my fingers, his hands falling from my waist, his eyes wide open in shock. His lips don't move. 

I pull away, my breathing uneven. Okay, so I did that on an impulse. But yeah. Archer Miles had soft lips. 

That settles it. 

'I am sorry.' I take a cautious wobbly step back and point to my head. 'I went cuckoo for a moment there. I wasn't thinking. Like at all. I just wanted to know whether they were soft. You know. I wanted to -'

Archer grabs my hand, and pulls me to him. His hands grab my jaw and tilt my head up, before kissing me. When our lips meet again, my whole body explodes. I feel like I'm on fire, and Archer is the fuel. My fingers curl in his hair, and his hands grip at my waist. He pulls me up and turns, pushing me up against the wall of my living room. His tongue slips into my mouth, battling with mine for dominance. We kiss like there is no tomorrow, him holding me up and I weighing him down. 

Mutual need for air makes up pull apart, our breaths both uneven this time around. The darkness in his eyes seems to swirl, I think it's lust and I think that mine looks the same way. 

'That.' I begin, my throat hoarse. 'That was...'

'I've waited an eternity.'

I look at him through my lashes. He looks painfully beautiful, with his full lips and messed up hair. 

'What do you mean?' I slur.

He sighs, leaning his forehead against mine. His hands fold over my skin and I feel electricity crackle up my veins, igniting a wild torrent of emotions in me.

Tristan never made me feel this way. 

Tristan... Tristan who?

'I've waited long enough.' He says, his voice a whisper. 'But I'm not going to do anything that will make you regret it the next morning.'

I lean forward. 'I'm not even going to remember this tomorrow, Archer. Just make me forget the pain.'

Archer clenches his jaw, but says nothing. He pulls away from me, leaving me suddenly cold and tingling. He turns and begins to leave.

'Archer. Archer, wait. Archer.'

He turns back around so fast and this time, his eyes are blazing.

'You are drowning, Kaitie. Isn't it high time you started fighting back?'

/*\*/*\