Zac watched quietly as Carter's eyes fluttered opened slowly. Her face looked soft, smooth, and a little too pale. She was wearing one of his old t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants. She raised her hand to her head and looked up at him. "Did I miss the Grammy's?"
Zac laughed. "Yeah, but you didn't miss much. Taylor taped it for you though.
Carter nodded and sat up slowly. "Holy fuck. What the hell is wrong with my head?"
"It's called a hangover. Apparently you had enough alcohol to feed an army for three years."
Carter looked at him and shook her head. "Why would an army wanna drink for three years?"
Zac laughed. "Don't worry about it. How do you feel?"
"Like my stomach is flying around the room in little bitty circles, faster and faster and... I'm really surprised I haven't thrown up yet."
Zac nodded. "Yeah. So you obviously don't remember last night."
"What?"
"Spent the first part of the night, lovingly riding my shoe around the room. Then you decided to declare your undying love to Isaac, after of course declaring your undying love for me. Then you accused Isaac of touching your boob, you smacked him, and then you threw up on his shirt. Then you sang a song. Then you threw up. Then... sang another song. Threw up. Burped your full name, my full name, Taylor's full name, and the alphabet, and threw up again, this time out the window of the attic. And I think you told me that Gabi has a penis."
Carter looked at him, shook her head, and then looked down at what she was wearing. "I wasn't wearing this at the club last night."
Zac blushed. "Yeah well, you'd pretty much thrown up all over yourself, so I had to change your clothes."
Carter pulled the neck of her shirt away from her and looked down. "I'm not wearing a bra."
"Oh."
"I was wearing one last night."
Zac blushed again. "Uhm. Yeah. Well when I was taking off your shirt last night, you kinda threw up on your bra too."
Carter covered her chest with her arms. "You saw me naked?"
"Not totally." He shook his head. "It wasn't like I was staring at you or anything. I was just taking care of you, and when I figured it was time for you to go to bed, I helped you change your clothes, cause you were mumbling something about the skydiving off of the river... Then afterwards, when I was watching you sleep, I was like, 'Whoa, I saw Carter with no shirt on.' But then I couldn't remember what you looked like cause when it happened, I wasn't even looking at you in the first place."
Carter laughed. "Ok. Ok."
Zac smiled and gave her a hug. "I'm glad you feel better now though."
"I do too. Even though... I don't remember any of it."
Later that night, Taylor and Zac were watching something on tv in Taylor's bedroom. All they could really hear though was constant arguing and screaming from the other side of the wall. It was coming from the spare room in Carter's house, the room they recently started using as a library. There were huge ceiling to floor bookshelves that required 4 people to lift, and put in place on two of the walls. The other side of the room had a computer and a desk with file cabinets.
Taylor and Zac were laughing about the whole situation. Over their tv show, there was screaming, lots of it. And thumping. Zac knew that they were probably arguing over something petty, and it would go no further than screaming. He turned off the tv though, and they tried to hear exactly what was going on.
"I SWEAR TO GOD MEL IF YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN I'LL SLAM YOUR ASS THROUGH A WINDOW! I'VE DONE IT BEFORE, AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN."
Zac turned to Taylor. "She's not kidding. Remember the time she caught Melissa going through her diary?"
Taylor shook his head.
"Melissa ended up outside on the ground. Luckily there was a lot of nice fluffy snow to cushion the fall."
"YEAH RIGHT! YOU THINK YOU CAN STILL BEAT ME UP AND DO WHATEVER YOU WANT JUST BECAUSE I DO ONE LITTLE THING WRONG! I'M BIGGER THAN YOU NOW! REMEMBER?!"
"Yeah, and Isaac and Taylor are taller than Zac, but he could still kick their asses into the ground."
"That is so not true!" Taylor turned to Zac, surprised.
"Yeah it is."
"What are you doing?! DON'T DO THAT! DAD SAID NOT TOO!"
Melissa screamed right back at her as loud as she could. They heard a thump, and they were sure it was Melissa throwing something at Carter. "I'm just going to get your stupid journal down to PROVE TO YOU I NEVER READ IT!"
"YOU KNOW WHERE I HIDE IT?!"
"Everybody knows where you hide it!"
Taylor and Zac turned to eachother and spoke at the same time. "Highest bookshelf, top left corner, have to climb up to get it."
Zac paused. "Wait... last time Carter tried to climb up that bookshelf, the bottom shelf broke and all the books fell. She doesn't hide it there anymore."
"MEL! It's not even up there! GET DOWN!"
"Shut the hell up! I WANNA PROVE TO YOU THAT I DIDN'T DO IT!"
"I SAID GET DOWN!"
"NO! LEAVE ME ALO....."
The next thing they heard was a high pitched scream, a crash, followed by a shatter, and another scream, one that came from Carter.
Zac jumped up instantly, and Taylor followed them. When they slammed the balcony door open that lead to the room, they saw Carter, trying to lift the heavy bookshelf. She was crying histerically, and so was Melissa.
Melissa was trapped between the bookshelf and the wall, there was glass everywhere from the corner of the bookshelf hitting the window.
"ZAC! GET HER OUT!"
Zac and Taylor leaned down and tried to help her lift the bookshelf but it wouldn't budge. Taylor put his hand on Melissa's shoulder, the rest of her body was pinned under the shelf. "Are you hurt?"
Melissa blinked hard, she had calmed down by now, but Carter was still crying. "I don't know. I can't breathe..." She whispered, tears still in her eyes.
"HELP HER!" Carter screamed.
The door to the balcony flew open again and Isaac came in. "Shit what happened?"
"Mel was climbing... up..." Carter stuttered. "The bookshelf, and I grabbed her foot to get her down, and the whole thing... fell... and hit the window... and she's stuck and she can't breathe!"
"Is your dad home?"
"NO!" Carter started to cry again, constantly pulling on the shelf.
Melissa winced and pulled one of her arms away from the shelf. She pushed Carter away. "That fucking hurts." She whispered, not able to talk any louder.
"Alright," Isaac took charge and grabbed a side of the shelf. "We've lifted this stupid ass thing before... everybody lift at the same time."
Within a minute, the shelf was lifted enough so that Carter could drag Melissa out. "You ok?"
Melissa slapped Carter on the shoulder. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"
Taylor put his arms around Melissa and hugged her. "Are you hurt?"
"No. It just hurts to breathe a little." She lifted her shirt a bit to show her stomach. There were already bruises where her ribs were.
"Mel, I'm so sorry." Carter wiped her eyes. "I didn't mean to pull the whole thing down. I wouldn't want to hurt you."
"Yeah right. That's all you ever wanna do."
Taylor put his arm around her waist and helped lift her up. "You're bleeding." He looked down at her arm. There were two big cuts on her hand, blood was running down her arm. "Come on, I'll help you."
Carter sighed as the two of them walked to the bathroom. She reached down and started to pick up books.
Zac bent down to help her, but Isaac stood there and shook his head. "I still don't get what happened here."
"Well, I'll be grounded for the rest of my life because Mel will need stitches since I 'tried to kill her'." She sighed again and wiped the last of the tears from her eyes.
"You were really scared." Isaac looked down at her and took the books from her hands.
"Of course I was. I love my sister. I just... never show it. I thought I really hurt her."
Zac nodded. "I think you did, Car."
She threw a paper back book at him and laughed. "Not helped, Zac. Do you think she's ok?"
"Yeah. But she probably hates you a lot now."
"Still not helping."
Isaac sighed and shook his head. "Are you guys ever serious? You don't see things the way normal people do. It's all about humor with you guys. Here Carter's about ready to cry and she's actually showing emotion over her sister, which she hasn't done since her mom died. That is, no emotion besides blind hatred. And you're making jokes about it." He glared at Zac. "Don't you people realize there's more things to friendship?"
Zac glared back at Isaac. "That's all you ever see about our friendship. Come out of your attic more and you'll get it." Zac took Carter by the hand and took her back to his house. "We'll clean up the mess later."