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to her ear. “Hello?” She tried to answer with as much seductive edginess to her voice as she could muster.
    “Why are you sending pictures of your tits to my phone?”
    Wincing, Charlie pulled the phone away from her ear as the piercing shriek of her sister’s voice shot through her head like the sound of a glass panel shattering into a millions of little pieces.
    “Don’t shout at me,” she moaned, clasping her hand to her head.
    “Have you been drinking?” Emma demanded with a hint of disgust.
    Rolling her eyes, Charlie stuck two fingers up to the sky in a silent ‘fuck you’ to her sister. She was twenty seven years old and didn’t need to be told what she could and couldn’t do.
    “Charlie,” Emma continued to prompt.
    “God, you are so like Mum. You don’t drop anything do you,” Charlie fired back.
    “Answer the question!”
    “Yes! I had a fucking drink, Emma. Is that alright?” She noted the sudden volume increase in her voice as she spoke. “I’m not a child. If I want to have a drink then I will damn well have one.”
    Silence came through the other end of the phone.
    Charlie knew straight away that her sister was counting to ten silently in her head. Having used the same technique since she was a teenager, it was Emma’s way of regaining control of the situation.
     “You know how I feel about alcohol,” she eventually sighed. “I just don’t like the stuff and what it does to people. The last thing I want is for you to go through what he did.”
    Charlie sucked in a violent breath at the card Emma played. It was a touchy subject not just for them, but for the entire family as a whole.
    Having witnessed their father slowly drinking away his problems each night and narrowly missing death, it was safe to say that alcohol was a bad omen for the family whilst both Emma and Charlie were growing up. 
    “Leave it now,” Charlie spat, her blood beginning to boil. “Why do you always bring this shit up? You should be proud of Dad for what he’s done. He fought through his problems and he is a changed man now. Alcohol doesn’t affect everyone the same you know, there is this little thing called M.O.D.E.R.A.S.H.U.N,” she pronounced.
    “Right...” Emma replied sarcastically. “Is that why you’re sending me pictures of your tits and you can’t spell correctly?”
    “That was a complete accident. I was supposed to send that to Callum,” Charlie defended. “Now, if you’ve got nothing nice to say to me then you’d better go.”
    Charlie heard a loud huff before the phone call disconnected.
    Her relationship with Emma had been strained for a long time, especially during their father’s alcoholic period. Unfortunately, they had never managed to repair the damage done between them much to their mother’s dismay.
    As far as Charlie was concerned, her sister was a bitch. She was married to the snobby bastard that was Dr Harrison Lyle; a consultant cardiologist for the Manchester Royal Infirmary.
    She hated them both, so she decided that she was more than happy for her sister to live in her little bubble as long as she stayed the hell away from her.
     
     

Five
     
    “How much did you guys have last night?” Xavier chuckled as he placed a small packet of paracetamol and a glass of water in front of her.
    Slumped behind the till counter with her head resting on her lower arms, Charlie moaned groggily. “I don’t know, maybe two or three?”
    “Glasses?” Xavier laughed. “Girl, you need to stop being such a lightweight.”
    “Not glasses, Avi. We had bottles,” she corrected as she flexed her right hand impatiently towards him. “Give me drugs,” she demanded. “My head is killing me.”
    Xavier shook his head with a smile as he placed two tablets into her outstretched hand. Sitting up a little, Charlie popped both of the tablets into her mouth and took a long gulp of water. Swallowing them down, she groaned out loud again before resuming her earlier slumped