Bette left the park and walked the few blocks to her sister’s club. She walked straight to the bar and asked for a large scotch instead of her usual slightly startling the bartender. The woman poured the drink and made to move away but Bette grabbed her wrist – “Just give me the bottle or I will stand here all night and you will just keep pouring drink after drink after drink and it will be so boring for both of us”. The bartender glanced around looking for support but could see neither Kit nor Helena so had no option other than to hand Bette the almost full bottle.

“Miss Porter is everything OK?” she asked. “Peachy” replied Bette “Just fucking peachy. The woman I am madly in love with not only doesn’t know I am in love with her but has just announced she is getting out of my life and the last moments I get to spend with her are going to be in fucking courthouse. Yep, just fucking peachy”. With that Bette wandered off, bottle in hand, to find a quiet spot to sit and drink herself into oblivion.

As the club started to fill the bartenders were becoming busier and busier and no one had the chance to tell Kit where her sister was. Eventually the pace briefly slackened and Kit was alerted to Bette and the state she was in. “What the hell!” said Kit as a very, very drunk Bette tried to stand up and failed miserably. “Shish going y’know” slurred Bette, “shish not gonna be my attur.. my atturn… my attorner-re-ye”.

“Girl” said Kit “I sure as hell have no idea what you are talking about but I think it’s time to get you into my apartment upstairs”.

“I love her, I need her, sheesh my life Kit, wad amma gonna do Kit, what?” Bette asked then promptly passed out on the floor.

Kit was worried. Even after Bette’s big break up she hadn’t seen her get drunk like this, in fact she had never seen her sister this drunk before at all. Kit waved over a couple of staff and they managed to get Bette up to the apartment. Kit certainly did not want to have her sister’s head tomorrow morning, if Bette managed to surface before lunch Kit was going to sit her down and get to the bottom of this. Something was hurting her sister real bad and she was determined to find out just what it was.

Bette woke up around 2pm the following day and tried to sit up. Her mouth was dry, she felt nauseous and her head hurt so bad she thought she was going to die. She staggered out of bed to look for the bathroom – where the fuck was she? She tried to focus and then slowly her alcohol soaked brain started to piece things together, but how had she ended up in Kit’s apartment? Bette lurched towards the bathroom where she splashed copious amounts of cold water on her face then made her way slowly back towards the bed. Flashbacks started to appear randomly in her brain – a bottle of scotch, the park, the bartender – but most disturbingly of all, Kennard’s parting comment.

Despite the drum solo in her head Bette located her cell phone and saw twenty missed calls and numerous messages from James, he had even resorted to emails to try and illicit a response from her. One of the emails had obviously arrived well into her binge drinking session and she was mildly amused to find she had replied with “Fuck you James, Fuck you”, amused not by her response but by the fact she had managed to spell ‘fuck’ wrong on both occasions. “Oh well”, she mused “I’m sure he at least understood the sentiment behind ‘Fook you’.”

She saw that Kit had left her a note saying she would be back at 3pm but Bette knew she had to get away before that. She emailed James to say she was taking time out before the court case then showered, dressed, left Kit a note to say she was fine and would be out of town for a few days then grabbed a cab home. Once there she packed a case, booked into a hotel, ordered another cab and then turned off her cell phone. Bette knew that she would not be good to be around. She needed time alone to compose herself before her court case but more importantly she needed to compose herself for her next meeting with Kennard.