After assisting Alita with dry-cleaning her milk-smudged clothes, Sarah escorted her back to the living room. She was seated in the living room, only wearing a bra and panties.
"Alita," Sarah said, calling out. The reason why Alita had drunk herself to oblivion had baffled her for some time. She did this a lot when she couldn't deal with a difficult situation at the time. Sarah, on the other hand, couldn't come up with anything to justify Alita's actions. "Can you tell me how many fingers I have up?" Sarah asked, holding up two fingers in front of Alita's face.
Alita drew her gaze upwards to the fingers in the air in front of her and smiled. She squinted and mentally counted the numbers, not entirely confident that she had them correct. "Two fingers," she mumbled sarcastically. "Perhaps," she said, just to be on the safe side.
Sarah looked at her with a puzzled expression. Alita had never appeared to her before in such a drunken state. "Can you tell me why you did this to yourself? Why would you do such a thing in the first place? I mean, what does it have to say about me? Is this the next thing you do after your boss, our boss, has left the house in your care? Always remember that I am connected to you and whatever you do will also affect me because I vouched for you," Sarah added.
"All right," Alita said, gesticulating with her hands. "I was feeling lonely, and the cocktails provided some companionship. I honestly had no idea I'd be this high when it happened. However, I'm still unable to feel my feet. Is that weird?" she contorted her face.
"Can you hear yourself?" Sarah yelled and took a deep breath. The more composed Sarah stated that "this is reckless, even for you."
"Please accept my apologies and..." Alita yawned, closing her eyes, which didn't open again after that moment. "However, it is not as horrible as it appears," She said and yawned once again and fell onto Sarah's lap, where she soon fell asleep.
"if you could see your sad sleepy ass right now? So much for it not being as horrible as it appears," Sarah grumbled, shaking her head. She twirled a few strands of Alita's hair while she watched her sleep.
Since Sarah had to return to work, she slowly slid her lap from under Alita's head and replaced it with a pillow to make her more comfortable. She decided she would spend the night with Alita in order to ensure that she remained a good girl in the note she left.
Sarah stepped up to the front door and realized she couldn't open it since Alita was fast asleep behind her. If she was going to leave, she would need Alita to wake up, and she didn't want to disturb Alita's beautiful sleep by waking her up since she has just fallen asleep.
"Why not just use a good old lock and key instead of all of this?" Sarah stroked her hair with her hands and then glanced at her wristwatch for a moment. Her break time was almost through, and if she wanted to make it early, she would have to leave at that moment to avoid being late.
"Fuck it," she exclaimed after pacing back and forth for a few moments. "You'd just fall asleep again," she said and took a step towards Alita and tapped her.
She roused Alita from her sleep and requested that she open the door for her.
"Cece, please open the door," Alita said in hushed tones, her eyes closed.
As soon as the door opened, Sarah left to work, leaving Alita, who genuinely went back to sleep, as if she hadn't just gotten woken up.
Sarah dialed Alita's number as soon as she returned home from work and was at the door. She was worried Alita would be asleep and so would not hear her calling, but fortunately for her, Alita picked up the phone, sounding tired, indicating that she had only just woken up.
Alita asked the door open, and when Sarah entered the house, she saw Alita put her phone away and properly tuck her pillow under her head before falling back to sleep again.
"Are you still sleeping?" Sarah inquired after her lips had dropped in surprise.
"Leave me alone," Alita begged in frustration.
"Wake up, you sleepy ass," Sarah cried as she clutched her waist with both hands.
"In fact, I haven't even woken up yet, Sarah, because this is all just a dream, and I'm sure you'll vanish soon enough so that I can get some rest. I haven't had a good sleep in months. Actually, I haven't gotten a full night's sleep since I started working here, so please leave me alone and go make something for us to eat, okay? Please wake me when you are finished. I am hungry."
"Unbelievable!" Sarah exclaimed as she flung her bag at Alita and walked to the kitchen to prepare them dinner.
Alita opened her eyes and threw the bag off her shoulders, adjusting her body on the couch, and then closed her eye tightly again. "I forgive you," she said, mumbling under her breath.
Sarah prepared a meal for them, and when they finished eating, they proceeded to Julie's room, where they discovered her sleeping.
"Did you give her anything? Like little drops of that happy juice you overdosed on?" Alita hissed and rolled her eyes at Sarah, prompting Sarah to raise a brow at her.
"Really?" she cocked her head and rolled her hands into fists and took a step towards Sarah.
"Now, let's not get into any physical altercation, okay?" Sarah backed away and threw her palm up in the air as a sign of surrender.
Alita lied, saying, "I didn't even know why I was drinking," she tugged at her ear. "In the end, I just wanted to tick something off my bucket list. Because of the high cost of the wine. It's possible that he won't realize that it's gone," she said, tipping her head to the side and rubbing her jaw as she considered what she had said.
"What do you think?" Sarah squeezed her lips together after giggling loudly, earning a stern glance from Alita which said not to wake the baby.
After Alita gave Julie air kisses, the two of them strolled back to the living room.
"So, my darling, best friend, whom I know all too well," Sarah said as she fluttered her eyelids at Alita. "Tell me why you drank an entire bottle of pricey wine just to pass out and not have to think about anything. Can you tell me what you're running away from at this time?" she said as she looked into Alita's eyes while smoothing down the hem of her skirt.
Using her index finger to squeeze the bridge of her nose, Alita said, "It's bucket list trash."
Sarah whacked the back of her head and shook her head to the side, indicating frustration. "You lying bitch," she said as she hurled her bag at Alita once more.
Alita resisted all of Sarah's attempts to get her to tell why she had drunk too much alcohol which was that she missed Benson so much that she turned to alcohol to make herself feel better. Sarah could not ever know the truth because she didn't know how she would take it.
After exchanging gossip about a coworker of Sarah's, they fell asleep late that night.
Sarah was the first to awaken, and after she was done getting ready for work, she woke Alita from her sleep so that she could open the door for her.
"Why, Sarah, are you being so inconsiderate?" Alita groaned as she regained consciousness.
"Can you tell me what that was that you just said?" Sarah's pupils dilated as her eyes widened. "After all much sleep yesterday?"
Alita whispered, "Let bygones be bygones." "You don't have in today what you had in yesterday," she said and then yawned.
"All right, prof," Sarah said, coughing up a laugh.
Alita opened the door for Sarah, upset that she was going, bringing her back to square one - facing loneliness.
The strange thing is that Benson was usually always at work, and she had no guarantee that he wouldn't go to work on any given day, but she didn't experience the loneliness she was feeling now, perhaps because she knew he'd be back by the evening and she'd see him.
After finishing her morning ritual of caring for Julie, she went into the bathroom to take a bath. She had undressed in the living room before going to the shower, so her clothes and underwear were on one of the couches.
She was returning to her clothes after toweling and creaming her body in Julie's bathroom when the door unexpectedly opened and she saw Benson walk in.
She screamed and went poker face, then grabbed whatever part of her clothing she could and raced to Julie's room. She couldn't believe Benson had seen her naked. She was traumatized.