"I made dinner if you're hungry." These words left the cracked lips of a girl, green eyed with dark hair and an air of woe. She stood before a refrigerator that had once been white but was now yellowed by age and cigarette smoke. The dim light from the humming machine casted a hazy glow on her bruised face.

She had yet to turn towards the one she spoke to, but the stale twinge of beer stinging her nose was enough for her to know who had walked inside.

"Am I supposed to thank you for getting off your ass for once, Alaska?"

Slurred words. Her mother always spoke in slurred words. The woman, only eighteen years her elder, ran her mouth like it was a gun shooting bullets. Shrapnel was buried in her tongue, causing bloody wrath to bubble up around her teeth. Hate was disguised as disappointment, skirted by a sigh as the woman uttered the girl's name.

Alaska took in a deep breath. She debated counting to ten, but knew if she waited so long to speak a screaming match would strike up before five. "I never said that," she said quietly. For a moment her eyes flicked over the near barren fridge shelves, searching for something only so she didn't have to turn around yet. The white gleam caught her gaze, highlighting the dapples of gold budding along her irises bloomed with dread.

"Jesus Christ close the fridge," her mother, August Monroe, complained. Intoxicated inflection carried into the symphony of resent she murmured lowly. Grit rasped her throat, from the smoke that so often filled her lungs. Her hands were shaking, twitching all over as she stood in place. "I don't pay the goddamn bills for you waste my money."

Alaska clenched her jaw, focusing on her it tensed her muscles. She bit back the urge to say 'you don't pay the bills at all' being that Alaska was the one who kept the lights on. How many classes had she missed to keep the lights on by working odd jobs? How much dirt lived beneath her bloody nail beds from cleaning filthy homes for fifty bucks a piece?

It didn't matter. All that mattered was the shiver running up the girls spine. It reminded her of a knife trailing your skin, not yet dangerous but creeping close to certain death.

"Sorry," she forced out through grit teeth. She carefully closed the door, and finally took a second to observe her mother. August's dark hair matched her own in hue, however it was the only similarity in it's appearance. August's was near matted, pin straight and twisted up like twigs in a bird's nest. Little flecks of white soiled her locks, though Alaska wasn't sure if it was a certain illicit substance or dandruff.

August rolled her dark eyes, tapping her foot brashly across the wooden floor. The sound ricocheted in Alaska's ears, so deafeningly she could have sworn the sound was splitting her skull open. August looked up, hiding her face in tumultuous shadows that displayed the ebony bags under her eyes. A single breath could have toppled her sickly thin frame, and Alaska could see every rib on her body when she inhaled.

"You always do this," August moaned, dragging her trembling fingers across the thin skin of her cheeks. Her cheeks which Alaska had once known to be blushing pink, full of light and life instead of caved in. They used to match her lips, cherry blossom pink and lush as the tree's flowers. Now chapped and thin, covered in lines of someone much older than her. "You make me the bad guy, like i'm some horrible monster to you."

Alaska's head shook without her permission, in the same beat a scoff left her lips. Her stomach turned when she realized what she did. Regret swarmed her as if she had disturbed a nest of wasps. Her hands begged to reach up and wave away the implications of what she'd done. She could feel the regret buzzing around her, filling her ears and stinging her brain with the silence that followed. She couldn't breathe in the haze of remorse filling her throat, decorating it with pustules of fear. Her tongue was swelling, she couldn't speak, she couldn't see straight.

Alaska had disrupted a hive, and it had engulfed her.

"And what the hell was that for?" August's energy switched. She turned her head back down, glaring at her daughter with a venom comparable to a snake's. Her eyes were slits, ready to strike as they slowly looked over Alaska. She walked forward, making Alaska want to inch back.

Every step closer tugged at Alaska's flight or fight instincts. Her heart beat fastened familiarly, urging her to run. To flee the scene and never return to the desolate land that was those rickety walls. August reached the space just before Alaska, and sluggishly jabbed a finger into her stomach. The movement made her body stall, freezing up like she'd been jarred to a halt.

"You don't think I provide for you? That I don't provide food for your pudgy stomach?" Alaska was scrawny, however August's perception was skewed by her own body which was only fed capsules. A vile stench left her mouth from her yellow teeth, dawned in decay. Her hand crept to Alaska's hair, in a too gentle to be true touch she twirled a lock around her finger. "That I don't provide soap for your pretty hair?"

Alaska could not recall the last time her mom had covered expenses besides her addictions. She bit her lip to keep a straight face, swallowing the pain and reminding herself of a simple fact.

This wasn't new. This was a scene she'd watched so many times, and act two's isolation would follow soon. She just needed to allow to moment to wash over her, crashing along her soon to be broken skin until her head was above water.

"You do, you do," Alaska repeated it twice, her voice succumbing to her exhaustion. The breath of August warmed her face uncomfortably- she wanted to look away. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

August cut her off. The grabbed Alaska jaw, holding it like the many vices she clung to. Her nails dug into her strong bone structure, bending from how weak they were. Alaska knew this pain, it was an old nemesis she saw far too frequently. She couldn't escape the throbbing, it was a dim light dully forming aches on her face.

"Damn fucking right you shouldn't have- you don't do anything to help me!" August's voice rose, nearly rattling the windows and cupboards. "You have everything! A roof over your head, food on your plate." Bruises on her skin. "You're worth less than your deadbeat dad, and he doesn't even pay child support anymore," she shouted mercilessly, digging her nails further into Alaska's face until they drew blood.

He actually did still send money, he just didn't send it to August anymore. He knew her condition had worsened, and the money was poured into pills. What was his solution? Send it to Alaska's name instead, she thought about this bitterly. She remained quiet, keeping her head down and praying she could stay quiet until August tuckered herself out.

"And you don't even say anything," August shoved Alaska back, pushing her into the counter behind her. Pain rushed her back, prancing over her boney spine with a promise to leave blue in it's wake. "You can't talk now? Are you mute or something? Are you scared? Too scared to buck up again?"

"I don't know what to say to you!" Alaska snapped, seethed by rage tampered down for too long. Her eyes were pricked by tears, glassy and reflecting August's scarlet face. The shout had clamored into the air, untapped desperation rising from the ashes of her composure. She took a shaky breath, biting her cheek until her mouth was metallic.

She was blinded, one would have to be to do what Alaska did next. She rose her hands slowly, delicately to her mother's sunken face. Alaska cupped August's cheeks in a touch gentle as the one she wished her mom would use for her. "I want to help you," she lowered her voice to a whisper, a whisper begging to be heard despite's it's quiet.

August stared back, their matching eyes caught in a one sided battle. August vied for an argument, seemingly searching Alaska's tears for a reason to hate her. "I've tried to help you," Alaska continued, knowing it would only end badly. She talked to her mom like you spoke to a child. Someone innocent, in need of a trusted figure to guide them home. Soft as the glow of a firefly, lending just enough light to try and pave a road to recovery. "But I don't know how, mom- I don't know how to help you because you won't let me."

Silence once again invaded the space between them. The longer the quiet lasted the more her lips trembled, and the more tears slipped down her pale cheeks. "Please, let me help you," she added helplessly, shaking her head gingerly. She didn't peer at August in disgust, or hate but instead unbridled sympathy and concern.

It was a split second that it took for the silence to turn to a cacophony. August threw Alaska's hands off her, and reached for a half empty liquor bottle on the counter beside her. "The only way you could help me would be to off yourself," she seethed after a swig from the pungent vodka.

Alaska wished the words hurt more. After the hundredth time the sting turned into a numb hurt embedded in her chest. "Mom, I don't want to fight please-"

"No, no you don't get to say that bullshit as if you've ever done anything for me," August shouted, her words melting together- almost incomprehensible. "You were a mistake, and mistake i've had to pay for everyday while your father fucks the wife he should have left when the strip turned pink-"

"Okay, well it's a bit too late for a Plan B so what the hell do you want me to do?"

Big mistake.

August's grip on the bottle neck tightened, draining her knuckles of what little color they still had. She lifted the alcohol bottle, bringing it down on Alaska mouth.

Alaska's finger traced over a scar that split up her lip. It drew the pink flesh pale where it lived, and crawled along her crooked smile. The day she'd got it was one that stuck out to her from her time with her mother. She hadn't been trying to look into the demons of the past, however they always seemed to find her when she went looking for the light.

She sat at the desk in her room, staring into the small mirror on top of it. The bottle that broke her lip so many years ago was an impact she couldn't dissolve from her memory. Everything about the way it had happened, the splash of liquor on her face, her mother calling her an ungrateful bitch on loop... it was a nightmare.

Alaska could find the similarities of her mom in her reflection. A gift and a curse to resemble something you lost, something you found vile and utterly tragic at the same time. Hastily her hand reached for the little mirror, shoving it away brashly. Her slouched shoulders hurt from how long she'd been sitting at that desk, trying to find the beauty in the times she had with August Monroe.

She let all the bad fester inside her, turning her insides to blade aimed at her heart. Alaska just couldn't take it any longer. She crossed her arms over her chest with her hands at her shoulders, dragging her nails down her sleeves to feel something. Anything else besides the haunting torment wreaking havoc on her system. She could only describe it as having this impossible to move weight binding you to your ghosts.

Alaska zeroed in on her hands, their veins and how they flexed with each motion. Shallow breaths riddled her thin body, in and out, in and out, in and out she tried to breathe but struggled to take in any air. Over and over again she bent her fingers in and out from her palms, until she found the face of her watch. 6:45 it read.

"Shit," the time snapped her back, steadying her breath and resulting in light panting. "I've gotta stop running late," she mumbled to herself, wiping her eyes and fumbling to stand up.

Alaska's reluctance to join Birdie and Thatcher in their celebration was subdued by her need for a distraction.

Who knows, maybe it would be fun.

~do any of the characters remind you of a song?~

Hello lovely readers! How did we like this chapter? I know it was a bit emotionally heavy, but i hope in a good way. What did you think? I'm open to any and all feedback, and comments you may have! I'm you did like the chapter, i'd appreciate if you considered leaving a vote! Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day/ night!