Alaska and Birdie had risen to their feet faster than a flash of lightning. Alaska with a omnipotent vice grip of reawakened grief seizing her. Birdie finding those photos in her wallet was like being dragged back to the day of Mason's funeral. She couldn't get the images of stained glass, and his mother's tear eyes out of her one track mind.

She belonged to the cathedral of his wake, religiously she visited it in her mind. This wasn't new, but this had the strength of a reckoning. Coming back, dragging her back, killing her slowly and making the spindling hallways of Mellisa Garth's home seem claustrophobic.

"I said you're a bitch, just like your deadbeat father," a boy said. His voice brashly radiated through the air, snapping the antipathy which secreted from the room. The heightened brash tongue spoke the same language as a violin who's strings were coiled too tightly- until they snapped. The boy, Luther Garth, was pinned down by the kitchen light. It framed his pale skin harshly, acting as a puppeteer as the shadows pushed his lips into a frown.

Luther's hair loosely fell along his forehead, sticking to his skin sloppily. The color was near pigment devoid, the thinnest twinge of hue tinted it light blond. He was scrawny, the school's preppy know it all who bit back ferociously every-time someone so much as bared their teeth. His jolted gaze was painted blue, the shade of an oil painting's sky. And apparently he did not like Thatcher.

Alaska put a fist in front of her teeth, grimacing as she watched Thatcher raise his eyebrows irritatedly. His hands flexed, thrumming gently at his side before collecting into a balled up fist. Booze practically plumed into the air, and leached off of both boys. Their steps were clumsy,  and their speech slurred making it evident they were wasted.

"You were right, he's definitely wasted," Alaska sighed to Birdie, who stood shoulder to shoulder with her. The confrontation had been going on for a few moments, as they shared insults that erupted furiously. "Should we try to break it up?" She asked, letting her stare trickle to Birdie for a second.

"No," Birdie groaned under her breath, while placing a hand over her eyes. She parted her fingers just enough to catch slits of the fumbling fight. "He won't actually hit him- he just likes the thrill of an argument when he's drunk," she complained through maroon exasperation.

Alaska's grimace delved into her lips further, and stretched into a down spiral. "He looks really pissed though," she said, pointedly glancing down to the fist he'd made. This was a scene Alaska had seen a million times before, actually, it was one she'd been apart of before. It made her heart pick up somewhat, racing as if to warn her that something was about to happen.

The show of teenage testosterone was a distraction from the hollow hole renewed grief left in Alaska's chest. It alleviated the breath stealing crush, and momentarily erased Mason's image from her mind. It was replaced with heart pounding alarm, sirens screeched in the silence between the boys' remarks.

"My dad's not a deadbeat," Thatcher hissed. "He's just dead." His voice grew nasally, withering like a flower beaten by pellets of summer rain. Jaggedly each word was carved from his poisoned mouth, yet his tone came lazily drifting in. Alaska recalled how water damaged, aged cassettes sounded when played back and thought it apropos to Thatcher.

The alcohol surging through Alaska prompted her to laugh, which prompted Birdie to nudge her ribs. "I know I don't have a dead parent, but come on," she whispered through a soft sigh, with a tiny smirk attempting to spread over her lips.

That was the sort of thing Mason and her would have laughed over together. This thought saddened Alaska's smile mildly, but she managed to keep her lips in a slight curve upwards. She pulled at a loose thread at the bottom of her shirt, distracting herself from the cry her heart wept.

"Whatever man," Luther scoffed. He stepped forward, awkwardly filling the gap between him and Thatcher. "Doesn't make you any less of a pussy," he spat- literally, spat. Rivulets of saliva slipped from his tongue as he shouted, decorating Thatcher's face with dapples of spit. Alaska curled her lip. Luther's spindling hands collided into Thatcher's shoulders and shoved him back, and the sound of his shoes scuffling screeched out.

The rest was a blur, an adrenaline fueled blur.

Before one could even grasp the situation, Thatcher was throwing the first punch. A loud banging noise erupted from the hit, and Luther stumbled back. Alaska's mind was in a flurry as she and Birdie rushed forward, pulling Thatcher away without noticing Luther's recovery. The blond once again stepped forward, and while he may have been aiming for Thatcher, his fist landed on Alaska's face.

In the drunken haze, clarity came when Alaska was punched by Luther. Her jaw was engulfed in a searing ache akin to the flame of a lighter. "Fuck," she muttered through grit teeth. The pain was familiar, she wasn't new to the sensation of being hit, yet it was always surprising. For a flash, Alaska was somewhere else.

The impact was a net, entangling her and wrapping around her neck. Like she was caught in tides, it tugged and tugged her back through waves of her life. Her mother, an angry drunk, rattling off cruelty before leaving Alaska's skin violet and red. The parties she used to attend, when her bark would grow as big as her bite, and she'd pick fights to feel something. A smattering of blood, and a plethora of bruises from wounds past entered her thoughts.

Mason always used to chide her after, talking about how she could have gotten a brain injury. His voice was abundant, calamitous to the last living traces of bliss from her buzz. It echoed- it always did. On and on, twisting into the discordance of ghosts plaguing her. It made the sizzling and rampant heat on her cheek dim.

As she stumbled, digging the heels of her boots into the ugly shag carpeting, she realized how quiet things had become. The deafening raucous her heart made in her chest softened to blow of the loud voice screaming. Her eyes were squinted, and she hastily clutched her cheek. Only when she dropped her hand, and took a deep breath did all the noise return.

"Oh my god!" Birdie shouted, thrusting Thatcher away and moving her hands instead to Alaska. "Are you okay?" She asked, her voice light and soft and urgent. Her hand rested on Alaska's arm, while the other snaked up to her hair. Birdie moved her locks to the side, in order to observe the bruise already forming on Alaska's face.

Thatcher gasped, holding a hand over his heart before flipping off Luther. "Now you've hit a girl, asshole," he chided, drawing out the words in a sleepy, slurred manner.

"I was trying to hit you," Luther groaned in reply, now soothing where Thatcher had managed to hit him. Alaska rolled her eyes, forcing herself not to recoil as Birdie touched her face.

"What does it matter?" Alaska's voice sounded distant to herself. It wasn't enough to overpower the ringing of her ears, and the beating in her chest. "You both got out some aggression, let's just call it a day," she blatantly urged, noticing the two puffing their chests and flexing their hands again for round two.

Alaska's eyes found Luther's, and she observed how they flicked to life again. At least, a very human sense of guilt ebbed through the icy blue, as if he sobered for a second. With his hands relaxing, and a heavy breath leaving his lips, he nodded. "I'll get you some ice."

——

"This has got to be the ugliest couch I've ever seen," Thatcher murmured drunkenly, running the tips of his fingers across the satin fabric of the sofa he was sat on. It was a putrid yellow color, embroidered with cheap looking ornate floral designs.

Alaska was sat on the arm of a sofa, with a ziplock of ice being held to her face by Birdie. She shifted her attention to the boy, raising an eyebrow as she watched him sway forward and backwards. His hair was a mess, ruffled and sticking to his sweaty face. The red around his eyes framed his irises beautifully though, and enticed the caramel hues in them to make an appearance.

"At least if someone puked on it, you wouldn't be able to tell," she replied lazily. She dragged a nail in between the details of the flowers, feeling the fabric run under it. The adrenaline high had worn off, a trip that always took all the life out of you. Her heart had steadied, so drastically from before that it felt like asystole. Luckily, the freezing shocks from the ice were bringing her back.

Birdie eyebrows were knit, watching Alaska's expression as though she were a sad mosaic. "How bad is the pain?" She asked, while lifting the bag of ice from the humming refrigerator. She winced when she did, and Alaska got the innate sense that it wasn't pretty.

If Alaska were honest, and she never was with these ordeals, she would have told Birdie that it didn't hurt nearly as much as the pain inside. She briefly eyed the bottles of beer on the counter, wondering the numbing properties were as good as she recalled. She turned back to Birdie, and offered a mangled smile. "Somewhere between a paper cut and dying in a fire," she shrugged.

Birdie exhaled through her nose. Alaska could barely focus on her un-intimidating her narrowed eyed glare was. Albeit, she tilted her head and her smile grew a bit more genuine. "So, basically a three out of ten," she added, poking Birdie's hand to gesture that she could move the ice.

She did, and placed the bag on the side table beside Alaska. Who picked it up, and put two of the half melted cubes into her solo cup of whiskey. Birdie glanced at her from the corner of her eye but said nothing, instead prioritizing on chiding Thatcher. "What were you thinking?" She scoffed, flicking his forehead.

Seeing Thatcher gingerly bat her away like a drunk alley cat garnered some amusement from her. It rekindled meager scraps of warmth back to her dying light, and distracted her. She sipped her drink, wrinkling her nose at the bitter taste, while watching her friends.

"I obviously wasn't," he groaned, words slurred to where Alaska had to dissect them after to figure out what he said.

"Yeah, and now Alaska looks like she was mugged," Birdie replied with an eye-roll.

"I've been mugged before," Alaska, with her sentences blurring into the alcohol, said. "I actually didn't get hurt, the guy just took the money for my water bill."

Birdie paused, scrutiny melding onto her golden features as she turned slowly to Alaska. "What the fuck, Alaska?" Birdie asked. The words would have sounded harsh, if not for how gently the girl whispered the concerned chalked question.

"I lived in New York," Alaska demurely replied.

Birdie's widened eyes made their back to Thatcher, and she clucked her tongue. "Well then... that means she looks worse than after she was actually mugged. And if you hadn't picked a fight with Luther then she wouldn't have been punched."

Thatcher rolled his eyes dramatically. He reached to the end table, snagging what was left of the bag of ice. He tried to put it on his hand, but Birdie snatched it away. "You don't deserve ice," she said cooly.

"Yeah," Alaska said, as if she had any actual anger towards Thatcher. "I need that ice."

Birdie started to hand her to bag again, sympathy in her vision and a frown on her lips.

"My drink still isn't cold enough."

Birdie took the ice away, leaving Thatcher's hand in pain and Alaska's drink warm. A damn tragedy, Alaska thought.

"Look, of course you know how to express your emotions without getting into a fight." He softened his stare, innocently peering at Birdie through his hair. "Your mom is a therapist, you came out of the womb knowing healthy coping mechanisms," he said 'healthy coping mechanisms' in a nasally, dry voice that made Alaska think it was a phrase she'd uttered to him before.

Alaska heard their conversation, but she didn't listen. Mason name came back in bold, blinding colors. She was devoted to being suffocated in this sorrow, always the acolyte to his memory. Birdie and Thatcher were a song you put on when your mind was too loud, to muffle the excruciating cacophony. She wasn't comprehending a word they spoke, though hearing them was grounding.

Birdie put a hand on Alaska's knee, and the touch brought her back. Her leg tensed, as her unfocused eyes stared at her. "Sorry, what were you saying?" Alaska questioned apologetically.

"I was saying that I'm gonna take him home," Birdie answered, mouth pulled down in the corners. She was concerned. Alaska knew the signs, and how they told a story on one's expression, no matter how subtle. She was regretting spilling her truth about Mason, and cursed herself for not coming up with some lie instead. "Do you want me to give you a ride back to your uncle's? I could drop Thatcher off first, and then help you explain what happened to your face."

Alaska hesitating, the angel on her shoulder prompting her to take the offer. But the devil was in the details, and the details would be blurry tomorrow when Alaska couldn't remember the night properly. "I appreciate it, but I actually think I'm going to stick around a little longer," she said.

"Alright," Birdie nodded. "Hey, are you oka-"

She was interrupted by the clanking of Thatcher grabbing the large chip bowl off the coffee table. Alaska frowned, stomach turning as he put his head over it and began retching. She lurched forward, brushing his hair back and holding the strands the threatened to fall near his mouth. Birdie patted his back with a snarled lip.

Alaska never thought she would be relieved to be rudely interrupted by someone vomiting. But if it stopped Birdie's question, her hands were at the ready to hold hair back.

"He definitely needs to get home," Alaska chuckled.

And so, Birdie Maye and Thatcher Rhodes made their exit from Melissa Garth's birthday party. With the help of Alaska, of course. Wrangling the boy into Birdie's jeep was a feat not to be attempted by one lone person.

The brunette went right back inside, passing droves of wasted high school kids on the way. The yard was full of solo cups, and the music had eventually been cranked back up after dampening for the fight. Alaska heaved a sigh, running a hand over her face.

With all her repetitive thoughts of Mason, she was turning to purple prose inside.

"You look like you could use a shot."

~who do you think was the one talking at the end?~

Finally, I updated! I have plans to update again tomorrow, if I have enough time! I've spent a little while outlining the story more and I'm just so excited for you guys to see the upcoming chapters! I hope you enjoyed this one, and if you did, please be sure to vote and comment! Thank you, and have a wonderful day/night!