Narrative: Marta - and Noah Who: Marta and Noah What: Post-panic attack and drinking (and?) Where: Clary House and then Evans & Peel When: After Holly's message(s) Warnings/Rating: Marta ratings. Past trauma, drinking. Will update if needed
Marta hadn't been expecting the panic attack. It had been a relatively quiet night up until she'd received the message from Holly, and all strange conversation that followed - with both him and with Noah. It had already started to give her a little bit of a headache, trying to follow everything, by the time that Holly told her to imagine...
She usually did her best to not think about the different men in her past. To not remember rough hands taking what they wanted or the mocking voices that called her names. Sour breath and the jolt of bodies hitting...
But it was easy... So easy... Too easy... to remember.
She hadn't even made it to the next step of the imagining. She'd been pulled under by actual memories (though she so often had to fight to remember things, these came like a tidal wave to wash her away). And then she couldn't breathe. Couldn't keep herself from rocking and shaking. Couldn't focus. Couldn't get out of bed because she felt weak and very likely to pass out. It's possible she had - no matter how hard she tried, there were sections of time that she couldn't remember. And when the bark of a dog down the street finally pulled her attention back, she was sitting on the floor, back pressed into a corner and arms wrapped around herself.
And of course, the memories that she wanted to disappear, didn't. They stayed in painful technicolor, voices in her ear. And the thing was, she knew how to get them to go away. She could take a trip up to the trailer park and find someone that would sell her just enough to get everything to fade back again. But she also knew that it would show up on her next test, and she wouldn't even make it back to Repose before they took her to prison.
But drinking. She was pretty sure she could get away with that. Unfortunately, the two bars in town were either filled with cops or Seven's. She didn't think she could deal with either at the moment, and started to write off the whole idea until she remembered reading something about a new place...
It didn't take long to get her phone, find what she wanted to know, and change her clothes. She'd been ready for bed when Holly's original message had come, and it was too much effort to get too fancy. So she pulled on a pair of jeans over her , switched her nightshirt for a hoodie, let her hair out of its bun and shoved her feet into some shoes. And then, though her legs were still a little shaky, she made her way to Evans and Peel.
***
The place was dark, and it was a little fancier than maybe she'd expected, but no one really looked twice at her, even with the casual way she was dressed. It didn't stop the bartender from sliding a glass across the bar, and then another, and when she took a third to one of the velvet chairs, no one followed her. At least not at first. She could get lost in the dim lighting if she wanted to, listen to the music (even if she wasn't usually into jazz), and try to let the alcohol push away everything that the night had brought to the surface.
And if anyone sat nearby? Well, it wasn't like she had a monopoly on drinking in a dim jazz club. Though what sort of company she'd be was still up in the air.