For the first night in a long time, I fought my fears and fell asleep. The announcement on the news made my hands shake, but the mixture of sobbing and fatigue prevented me from keeping my worried eyes open.

"God, I love you," he whispered, kissing behind my ear.

I let out a light moan instead of a response, earning a breathy laugh from my lover. I ran my fingers through his thick curls as he continued to passionately plant kisses down my neck.

He tugged at the waistline of my underwear, asking for permission to take them off. I nodded before burying my face in the spot between his neck and shoulder.

He moaned before tugging my panties down to my ankles. My hands found his belt, but he pushed my hands away as I started to unbuckle it.

"What's wrong, baby?" I asked as he fiddled with his belt.

"I have an idea that's better than sex," he said, his eyes sparkling.

He planted a kiss on my lips before pushing my underwear back up to my waist and picking me up bridal style. I latched my arms around his neck as he carried me down the hallway.

"What are you doing?" I cheerily asked as he opened the front door of our flat.

"You really deserve this," he smirked.

He climbed up to the roof of our apartment complex. There was a red tablecloth placed neatly on the rocky surface of the roof, along with a bottle of champagne and a picnic basket. I shrieked as he walked towards the display.

"This is beautiful!" I said, trying to jump out of his arms to enjoy the wonderful picnic.

His grip on my body tightened as I squirmed and whined.

"Stay still," he demanded.

My heart rate increased as he carried me over to the railing of the roof. I was shaking in his arms and begging him to move, but he seemed to be enjoying being close to the edge of the building.

"You deserve this," he exclaimed, before letting go of my trembling body.

I woke up, shaking and reaching for something to hold on to. My body was covered in a thick layer of sweat, my hair sticking to my cheeks and forehead.

I opened my eyes and a relieved sigh escaped my lips. Creme hotel walls surrounded me, not a busy Brighton street. I was laying on a bed, not pavement. My dream had seemed so real that part of me had expected to wake up with my body bloody and medics surrounding me.

At first, it was a dream. Harry was kissing me and we were giving in to pleasure. His soft, plump lips were touching every inch of my skin and his strong hands were delicately touching my hot skin, but the moment was interrupted by a spark in his eye and the need to do something different. He carried me up to the roof of our flat. A picnic was placed nicely in the middle of the roof, champagne and candles laying neatly on top of a silk tablecloth. I was trying to get down to enjoy the wonderful date that I thought he'd planned, but he walked past and took me to the ledge of the roof. My heart was pounding with fear as he shouted in excitement, throwing me over the ledge. The only thing I felt as I was dropping eight stories was betrayal. Harry killed me.

I quickly got out of bed, rushing to the bathroom. I heaved over the toilet, bile being the only thing that came up.

I lay down on the dirty tile floor, feeling very weak after all of the vomiting I'd just done. My head ached, but I didn't feel dizzy, which was a good sign.

I groaned when I heard the sound of my phone ringing in the other room. I sluggishly pulled myself off the floor and got the cell phone out of my bag.

"Hello?" I answered, not bothering to check the caller ID.

"Hi, Miss Edwards. This is Officer White from the police station again. We really need you to answer these questions," he said, too quickly for me to try to interrupt.

I understood his urgency. They'd put the entire city on lockdown and I could've held the last piece of their criminal investigation puzzle, but I didn't feel well and thinking of my mother's dead body didn't help.

"I understand. Ask away," I replied, hesitantly.

"Was your mother brutal with restaurant reviews? Did they make people angry?" he asked.

I tried to remember her talking about anyone calling her with a complaint, but she never shared that type of information with me. She gave me orders and criticism instead of telling me about her day and how the people she dealt with behaved.

"She could be rude, but I don't know if anybody got angry with her about them."

"Okay, what about family? I know she really didn't have any, but are you 100% sure that none of her distant relatives held any grudges?"

I sighed as I tried to think back to conversations that I'd had with my mother. All of them were about work or Harry's schooling, nothing too personal.

"Not any that I know of. Listen, I'd love to help, but my mother and I didn't talk about things that weren't work-related. I don't know of anyone who hated her and I don't think I'll be able to answer any other questions."

"You're making this extremely difficult. There are family members skipping sleep to scrape up evidence and you have put forth no effort whatsoever," he sighed.

Tears filled my eyes as the realization of how right he was hit me. I hadn't been trying, at all. The only thing I'd done was sob about how distant my mother was from me. I'd liked to be blame it on everything else that was going on, everything with Harry, but none of that should've got in the way of me helping put my mother's murderer behind bars.

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm just a bit of a baby when sad things happen."

He sighed heavily before thanking me for my time and hanging up. I felt very weak after that conversation, like everything he said was a truck that had just ran over me.

Usually, Harry would sit behind me and rub my back with his thumb after I'd talked to the police officer. I hate to say that I had expected him to, but of course he never did.

I plopped down onto the bed, listening to the TV that had been left on the night before. None of the reporters had mentioned the city-wide curfew since the press conference, but I knew it was still in effect because of Officer White.

The queen sized bed was so big I felt like I was drowning and my headache had not faded in the slightest. I needed to drive to free my mind, but I couldn't without a car.

I rushed to the bathroom and vomited again, gagging and sputtering until I was weak and shaking. I messily put some tap water in a paper cup and drank it to make the acidic taste leave my mouth. My throat burned as the cold, metal tasting water slid down it.

I took off all of my sweaty clothes and sat down in the empty bathtub. It felt gross and unsanitary, but it also felt necessary and calm. I felt like the round shape of the hollow tub would catch my screams and cries, but of course it didn't. It only amplified them, making me scream and cry more.

I wanted to sleep. I wanted to drift off in the dirty bathtub, naked and sad, but the possibility of having another nightmare prevented me from doing so. The idea of Harry couldn't start scaring me. He wasn't scary at all. He was just angry.

I wasn't sure who exactly he was so mad at though. He promised that it wasn't me, but it was always me he screamed at and stomped off on. It was me who he ignored completely. It was me he screamed at while throwing Christmas ornaments. It was me he kicked out of the house. But at the same time, it was me he made soup for. It was me he massaged in the shower It was me he asked to marry him.

The thoughts swirled around in my brain and I wanted him to wrap his arms around me more than anything. I thought about calling him multiples times, but I stopped myself. If he loved me, he'd call.

I started screaming again, louder and more pain stricken. I screamed until my voice gave out and I was left with sobs and an empty bathtub.

A knock came from the living room and I quickly threw on some wrinkled clothes before going to answer it. A police officer and the man at the front desk stood in the corridor.

Once again, I probably looked like a mad woman. My hair was in a nest on the top of my head, my sleepy eyes were bloodshot, and I was wearing stained clothing.

"There was a report of screaming coming from your suite. Just wanted to make sure everything is okay," the police officer said, gripping his belt.

"Oh god. M'sorry for alerting anyone."

I almost started crying in the doorway. I was such a mess. Constables were being called because I was screaming in the bathtub.

"Why were you screaming ma'am?"

The love of my life broke my heart, my mother was murdered, and I don't have anybody anymore.

"Nightmare. Just a nightmare," I half said, half whispered.

The officer nodded a goodbye and the manager shot me an awkward, concerned look before scurrying away. I closed the door and slid down the wall, collapsing to the floor.

Everything was just so wrong and weird and not at all what I had always had. People thought I was lazy and insane, and there was no one there to tell me they were wrong. The room was so big and empty, and there was no one there to fill that void. The TV and the city street were loud, so damn loud, and there was no one there to whisper in my ear to make them fade away.

I was so dependent upon other people that the new feeling of loneliness was more than I could handle. It felt cold and empty in every corner and I was lost. I hadn't eaten and my sleep was filled with nightmares.

I ended up sitting on the flat, shag carpet for hours, sobbing. My stomach was still turning and my head was still throbbing, but I managed to get up and change into a clean pair of clothes. I grabbed a few pounds out of my purse and left the hotel room.

I strolled about the block, looking for a fast food restaurant, but the only thing in sight was a liquor store and a 24 hour candy store. I figured I didn't have anything else to lose and slipped into the shop with racks of alcohol. A weird scent of pine air freshener and booze filled my nostrils as soon as I swung the door open. There was a display of bottles of wine, each one worth five pounds, so I picked two up.

I carried the heavy paper bag back to the hotel, trying my best not to drop it out of my shaking hands.

I was scared to be drinking for the first time. My dad was a drunk and that fact had always convinced me not to go anywhere near the poison, but I needed something to make everything a little less.

Once I was in the safety of my hotel room and I had checked every nook and cranny for an intruder, I popped the top off of one of the bottles and lay the other one on the bed. Sitting in the floor with my back pressed against the bed, I took a swig of the wine.

It tasted like really bitter grape juice, but it was warm and made my throat feel soft. My head started to feel fuzzy after half of the bottle was gone, like everything was lighter. I kept chugging the wine like it was a competition with the wall or something.

The whole bottle was gone in less than a half hour and I felt like I was on Cloud 9. I tried to dance multiple times, but each attempt ended in tripping and stumbling. I also took a shower, cleaning myslef with conditioner rather than body soap. As soon as I got out, I threw up in the sink. The putrid smell filled the bathroom, making me throw up another time.

After I had cleaned up to the best of my ability, I stumbled into the living room and plopped down on the bed. I changed the channel from the news to the Spanish soap opera channel. I giggled at their loud voices for an hour before I got bored and clambered over to my bags.

I clumsily grabbed my phone to find that I hadn't missed any calls or texts, which should've made me sad, but made me giggle. After I recovered from the lonely fit of laughter, I sent out a very drunken text message.

hatty I mids yuo god I mis uyo. plaese lobe me agaim baby