In My Veins

We're Only Young and Naive Still

“D, wake up! I can’t tell if this dude is hot or not.”

The problem with sharing a room with Este is that she’s a complete insomniac and is up all hours of the night.

Danielle pretends not to hear her sister but she can’t ignore the constant shoulder pokes. She groans and opens her eyes to see it’s nearly two thirty in the morning.

“Look,” Este says, shoving her phone in Danielle’s face. “What do you think?” She scrolls through more pictures on Tinder and studies the last one carefully. “Ew, he likes cats. Bye.”

Danielle yawns and eases herself up in bed. “There’s nothing wrong with cats,” she mumbles, scratching the back of her head.

“There’s a lot wrong with cats,” Este guffaws, tossing her phone on the nightstand beside her. She turns up the volume on the TV in satisfaction and begins to channel surf. “There’s nothing on this late.”

“Why are you up this late?” Danielle practically whines. She hates, hates being woken up, especially for trivial things like Este and all of the men she’s searching for on Tinder. Alana may be a bed hog but she knows never to wake Danielle up unless it’s important. “Go to sleep.

”Este simply laughs. “Can’t. I’m waiting for that little shit to get home and when she does I’m gonna kick her ass. She’s been out every night this week.”

“Mmhm,” Danielle hums in agreement. She suppresses another yawn and looks at the clock again. 2:34. “What do you think we should do?”

No response. Este’s fast asleep with her phone clutched in her hand. Danielle rolls her eyes and reaches over for the remote to shut the TV off. She slides out of bed and quietly walks to the small living room and sits on the couch to wait for Alana.

Fifteen more minutes pass and Danielle’s ready to fall asleep. The low buzzing of the TV isn’t helping her stay awake, it’s making her more tired. Waiting up for Alana reminds her all of the summer nights where her sister would sneak out when she was about fourteen and come home stumbling at four am. It was all Este’s fault really. Getting Alana a fake id at sixteen probably wasn’t the greatest idea.

There’s a small knock on the door and Danielle has to mute the TV to make sure she isn’t hearing things. The knock is so polite that she automatically knows it’s not Alana. She carefully approaches the door and stares out the peephole, her eyes widening at the sight. Dom is standing awkwardly in the hallway with a passed out Alana in his arms.

Danielle throws the door opens and stares at the pair in embarrassment.

But Dom can only grin.

“I believe this belongs to you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Danielle whispers with a sigh. She can feel her cheeks burning as she steps aside to let Dom in.

Dom just continues to grin. “She fell asleep at the bar.”

“Of course she did,” Danielle mumbles. She watches Dom set Alana down on the couch and slowly remove his arms from under her small body. “I’m sorry again. You didn’t have to carry her up.”

“No worries,” Dom says genuinely. He looks at Alana and then looks back at Danielle. She looks so apologetic and concerned.

“I’m still sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Dom laughs, reaching out to rub Danielle’s shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Danielle just shrugs shyly and glances at her sister. “How much did she have to drink?"