#berlioz.

alice had been avoiding berlioz. she didn't want to be the reason he started using again because as selfish as it was, she knew she wasn't going to stop. dial it down maybe, nut not stop. every time she tried to stop she had nightmares about her parents and her life before evermore and it was just....too much for her. she wanted to be more than what she was, she wanted to change the world, but instead she was relying on pretty pills to get her through the day. it was pathetic, and the last thing she needed to do was put berli through that after he almost....no, she couldn't do that.

yet there she was, outside his apartment door, answering a text he had sent her face to face. she was selfish, always so selfish. she knocked on the door three times and waited, holding her hands together as she rocked on her heels. when he opened the door a blush formed on her face. ".....i don't hate you and never want to see you again,' she blurted out. "i just....don't want to make your life worse."

"it really isn't a good time right now," alice mumbled lamely the moment berlioz came into view. there was never a good time. she had been avoiding him like the plague after he started confessing his feelings about her and then whitney and catherine went missing and she didn't have time for anyone that didn't involve the two. she wasn't working at the moment but she was still waiting up on cat to finish up so they could go spend a night in watching weird movies and distracting their brains from everything that had happened. "I...I don't know what to say..."

there was a lot of guilt in alice's heart right now. after hearing about berlioz's time in the hospital in passing by her sister who really did not like her, all she could think about how not only did she hear about this days after the fact, but that she enabled so much of it. she knew she could be reckless herself when it came to her....hobbies, but she didn't know berlioz was indulging the way he was, as often as he was. that didn't put any less blame on her. she had planned on just avoiding him fully so that he didn't have to feel so obligated to act on his vices around her, but of course, he reached out, and by the third time she responded. she hated ignoring him. she hated him not being around.

she knew he would probably be mad at her and she couldn't blame him, really. she moved her goodies from her original hiding spots and stopped bringing alcohol home just in case she did cave. she was sure he could tell things were different with the way he browsed her kitchen. alice did her best to keep a smile on her face, but she felt something bad was coming and she wasn't sure if she could handle it. "are....what are you looking for?" she stupidly asked, fingers drumming on her thigh where she sat.

Susie normally tried to keep herself composed and friendly around Berlioz. She felt bad for how things ended and she really tried to not let it ruin the relationship she had with Berli now even though she wondered what that was half the time. She liked him a lot, but she had thought that it wasn’t supposed to be. A large part of that was because of her inability to let go and enjoy things and a part of that was because she had been younger and impulsive (in her own way) when she dated him. The guy he was now was so different from who she knew that she wondered how he still saw right through her despite the years they both had to grow. Susie likes to think she has grown, but maybe she was the one who hadn’t. She let alcohol ask that pressing question and now she was tipsy and insecure about her answer to his. A sad smile graced her lips and she tried to look away, but she had been caught by his eyes the moment he had started talking and there was no looking away now. “I...No. I wish I could. Maybe I could if I actually let myself for once...I don’t know. We are different people now. I don’t...you look so down, Berli. I don’t...I don’t think you looked this sad when we dated and I...If I had anything to do with that, I am sorry. I don’t want to...I never wanted to be the reason you’re sad.”