The Fall [2]

Twelve

❝ bonnie & clyde? ❞

The mattress creaks.

Thoughts come back. Memories do, too. She's dozen off. But what happened before?

Seth.

Instantly, her eyes flutter open, and her heart beat sets in faster.

Amber remembers. Last time she was awake, she was in his arms. Now he's nowhere around her.

Quickly she closes her eyes again, deciding to wait out the tense silence ― her cluelessness how to act at this moment will serve her no good, she has to sort out her thoughts first. In the meanwhile, she suddenly notices his soft groans.

Too curious not to do it, she lifts her lids to steal a glance at the other side of the bed, where she spots Seth ― sitting on the edge with his back turned to her, rubbing the last remains of high from his eyes.

The first thing he always does when he sobers up and is forced to face the bitter comedown, is drag his limbs out of bed and pour himself a good amount of the cheap whiskey that stands on the centered table, piles of dollar bills and packagings of convenience food around.

It's the first thing he does now.

Amber watches him carefully, unaware that he feels her gaze on him the entire time. It's unusually quiet in the room, and Seth knows her big eyes speak louder than words, but it takes everything inside of him to turn around.

Within that cool exterior he is sweating from fear of new, from fear of breaking habits that he has worked so hard for to establish. He's a man of order, doesn't like it when things change and he has to adjust. He's not good at it. He's not himself when things change.

Sometimes they might do for the better.

Again, his thoughts flip to Richard.

As though to cut through the memories, Seth puts the drink down with a loud sound, clearing his throat after the burning alcohol, before he glances over to the bed. Amber slowly sits up and he can't tell what that other look is on her face, that one aside the sleepy glance. However, at the moment he's too self-conscious to comment on it. Instead, he begins to play with his glass parenthetically, and she continues to sit across from him in between the bed sheets, growing more and more uncomfortable with the silence.

Suddenly, he looks up to her, and her heart skips a beat.

"I know you don't approve of what I do," he mutters through his throat, slowly swirling the alcohol in his glass, and Amber feels like she's sinking deeper into the mattress. "But you know, you can look at me with those angel eyes all you want ― kicking it ain't that easy."