Re: Evans & Peel: Marta F & Noah N
Marta knew it too - the reason for drinking. She'd seen it early enough from their mom, and it had been her for a very long time - even after she'd moved onto stronger things. The return to it wasn't exactly a homecoming, but it was familiar.
Noah might not have been entirely happy, but at least he had the act down. Marta didn't quite have a handle on that yet - how to fake it so that other people couldn't quite tell what a mess she was on the inside. She thought she'd been better at it at one point, but she'd lost it somewhere along the way. It left her with a little too much sadness and not enough of a mask. But she did have alcohol, at least at the moment, and it helped with that pretending, allowing her to smile across the distance between the two of them. (Also, there would have been no offense taken. Marta didn't want her sadness, either.)
"I should." She didn't expect him to get her a new drink, but she still just sat there for a minute, staring at her glass. She was weighing the pros and cons of pushing herself back to her feet and crossing the bar. She stayed seated a while longer, resting her elbow on a nearby table and propping her head on her hand when she turned to look at Noah while he started talking about Holly. And the smile that she'd found melted away. "I think most people don't want to be that."