1 How did we get here?

Empty.

There was nothing else to feel at that point.

What did it matter anyway when it was all your fault?

Lena stared down at her open palms. There were scars left there.

"Your fault."

That one by her thumb was one of the first. She remembered getting well, unlike many of the more recent ones.

It was nearly spring then. A time for new beginnings, but winters grasp still had a firm hold on her mother.

She had always lived so brightly. Everyone know who Ms. Trillowski was, Lena's mother had made sure of that much. But there's always that saying... that the ones with short lives sign the brightest.

What does notoriety mean when you've never really been at the top?

Ruby Trillowski was involved in the most high profile of scandals... but her acting never got her farther than "the mother of ml's best friend," and after the media got ahold of her name, it only got worse.

"Still your fault."

Ruby was stuck with the cheapest bits and a little girl to feed.

Life was... fine. Lena had no room to complain anyway.

A few hungry nights or helping her drunken mother through the apartment weren't so bad. So many people had it worse.

But when Lena was 16 and preparing for the last term of sophomore year...

Ruby got sick. Like... real sick.

"You know you could have done more."

Alcohol isn't too kind to the liver... and neither is cancer.