Quantum Entanglement ~ Tamber

Chapter 3

Tara and Amber had broken into her mom's liquor cabinet and indulged enough times for her to know exactly how much it took to at least get her tipsy. The problem was that the Freeman girl lived in the middle of fucking nowhere, and there was no possible way she was about to walk all night to show up on her doorstep. She wasn't stupid; she'd get a ride.

When she texted Liv to come pick her up, she hadn't expected Chad and Mindy to tag along, but she should have known they would. It was Chad's car, after all. Liv was in a similar financial position to her. They had to work for everything they had in life, and her summer job as a cashier just hadn't cut it.

As she slid into the backseat next to Mindy, she heard her gag. "First of all, you smell like you bathed in alcohol. Second, why are you going to Amber's house after bathing in said alcohol? Don't you usually drink together?"

She wasn't wrong. Tara didn't like to drink without Amber. In fact, she had only ever let herself get drunk when her best friend was around. She was the only person she fully trusted, as ironic as that was now. And she knew Amber felt the same. She never drank at her own parties, instead opting to only let herself get drunk in the comfort of Tara's company.

The very first time they'd gotten drunk together had been when they were fourteen and staying over at Tara's house. Her mom was gone as usual, and Sam had left without a trace. Having watched the only two women role models in her life drown themselves in bottles, she decided it was worth a try.

"But I'm scared," she had argued.

"I'll stay with you and make sure you don't do anything dumb or die," Amber had reassured her.

True to her word, Amber helped her piece things together the next day, giving her enough water and Tylenol to keep the damage to a minimum. She did considerate things like that a lot of the time, and Tara tried to do the same.

With the gift of hindsight, she wondered if she had somehow unknowingly taken the girl for granted. Maybe she got fed up with doing so much for her, and she grew to resent her. Maybe Richie made her feel like Tara was just using her. It was hard to imagine Amber letting anyone manipulate her or poison her mind like that, but she would rather believe that's what happened and not that Amber was just inherently evil.

"Is she okay? She hasn't talked in like five minutes," Chad observed, turning his mirror to get a better look at Tara, who was staring out the window.

"You guys should start being really nice to Amber," she blurted out.

"Excuse me? And why would I ever do that?" Mindy quipped.

"Look, she's under a lot of pressure lately. So maybe you should all stop going to her parties and just be super nice for a while." She looked at Liv and grimaced. "Especially you, Liv. Maybe just don't go anywhere near Amber outside of school. Mindy you might be fine. It wasn't her who st – Oh fuck." Realizing her mistake, she quickly covered it up with, "I've got such a bad headache."

Mindy squinted suspiciously but didn't say anything.

Liv turned around in her seat to look at her. "Wait, what? Stay away from her? What the fuck's that supposed to mean?"

"She's drunk," Mindy dismissed with a wave of her hand.

"Just everyone be nice to Amber or else."

It was another five or so minutes of awkward silence before they made their way to the Freeman house. No one got out of the car but her, and she could only hope it was because they were heeding her warning. Amber couldn't kill them if they didn't go near her, right?  Maybe they wouldn't end up at that stupid fucking party - the one that she threw for Wes after she killed him and his mom in broad daylight.