fifthdream | It was Erik's turn to look embarrassed and he moved aside to let Angela in.

Sammantha was glad it was early enough that there weren't any people on the streets. Well, there were the homeless old guys, but they never bothered her, so she didn't worry about them. No one was on the subway either. She would have hated to have to sit there on the long ride home with people staring at her.

When she got to the door of the apartment she and her mother shared (on those rare occasions when her mom actually decided to come home), she was relieved to find her key still buried in one of the hidden pockets of her outfit, although her favorite lighter and cigarettes were gone. She pouted and keyed the door open and for once she wished her mom not to be there. She wasn't.

Samm clunked to her room and peeled off her once-shiny boots and tossed them into the corner. She picked up a random Cure CD off the crumpled mess of a bed and popped it in, and set it to repeat. If not for her cranky neighbor upstairs, she would have turned it up much louder. She peeled the ruin of a dress from her small, pale body, and tossed it in a heap on the floor. She told herself she'd throw the tattered thing away later, but she knew she didn't mean it. So much had happened in that dress and it would always remind her of her Katherine, wherever she may be. Samm sighed.

She padded across the shiny wooden floor to the room with the bathtub in it.

Twisting the knob, Samm decided to turn the one marked H a little further than usual this time. She poured some sweet-smelling liquid into the water and watched the tub fill with yummy bubbles. The music was playing too low in the other room to be heard over the running water, but Samm had it memorized and was singing along anyway. "How did we get this far apart? I thought this love would last forever...", and she thought about Katherine.

Samm slipped into the scalding liquid; let it ease away the worry and confusion, the pain and the alcohol all gathered over the last few hours. She settled in and let everything wash away.