"Thanks Pat!" Celeste called out of the front seat and honked in appreciation, Pat waving them off back onto the droughty highway toward the planned destination of New Mexico, the boys probably just rising from bed and rejuvinated spirit to begin another days' practice and concert.

"I missed this thing!" Ashley cried, hugging the white and teal striped couch like it was a lost puppy.

"This RV is better than any motel room in this crappy state," Taryn argued with a half smile, hopping onto the back bed and giving it a few hiney bounced, turning over and inhaling the fresh and chilly scent of the purple sheets.

"I think I stepped on a bug this morning in the bathroom," Celeste cringed, flipping down the visor so the sun wouldn't blind her eyes and throw off her attention from the road.

"What do you expect for less than a hundred a night?" Jessa asked reasonably, holding out her hands as she searched the cabinets with her eyes for Gold Fish crackers. "No!"

"What happened?!" Taryn asked alarmed, instantly woken up from her first 5 seconds of sleep at Jessa's shout. The room they rented last night wasn't in the best area for peaceful sleep, drafts of wind blowing in from the artic chilled them to the bone and midnight truck shipments rumbled past their room, shaking them from nirvanic sleep every half hour.

"We don't have any Gold Fishies left!" Jessa dramatically wailed, falling to her knees like a grieving parent, her knees lashing out at her with a pulsating sensation of pain.

"There's more to life than Gold Fish," Ashley debated, lying down on the couch and staring into the while ceiling of the RV as she felt the tires circle beneath her.

"Odviously, you haven't had the saltine ones, you know, the ones that taste like soup crackers," Jessa responded, ambling to the fridge for a cup of yogurt to replace her hankering for cheesy goodness. "Those ones are scrumptious."

"I heart Swedish Fishes," Taryn piped into conversation, tossing her legs from the bed and sitting up, the air tugging her arms for a chiropractic morning stretch, her red tube top rising with the stretching, "Does that count?"

"They aren't cheesy," Ashley pointed out insightfully, using her hands as a pillow as she leaned back towards Taryn's direction.

"Or salty," Jessa added, hositering herself onto the oak counter and smiling.

"Where did I find you kids?" Celeste asked with a chuckle, miles of open road and unforseen problems stretched before them........

Jessa took over driving responsibilities for the home stretch of an hour before they'd reach Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ashley passed out from sleep deprivation on the back bed, her legs and arms in unnatural positions as her chest rose and sank beneath the purple sheets draped over her with Celeste's concern.

Celeste sat in the passanger's seat, her spirals keeping warm air pinned against her face, her eyes riffling through the orange and pink sunset splashing over mountains like in a painting. Smooth harmonies of 98 Degrees diffuse into her head, sedating her into a sophorific mood. Slinking down in her seat like a book sliding sideways on the shelf, a loud crash disrupted the ballot "Stay the Night" and Celeste shot up, peering at a pathetic sight with spite flooding her eyes instantaneously.

Taryn layed among broken coffee mugs and dispersed clean plastic plates piled around her like a disasterous car pile-up, her beer spilling over the floor like water from a leaky faucet, Taryn's eyes bloodshot and dulled like an unmotivated student. She shook her head as if rustling cobwebbs free from her brain and staggared to her feet, before tripping over her own two feet and tumbling onto the couch.

'And Taryn used to be so good at exploiting other's faults, not her own,' Celeste thought ironically. "Not again," Celeste snarled past clenched teeth, throwing her CD player to the floor and storming toward the decrepit Taryn.

"Don't, Celeste," Jessa cautioned, not in any sort of a mood or mind set to deal with the cat fight that was about to be instigated. Celeste's ears were deaf to Jessa's warnings, hovering over Taryn curled up into a ball of self-pity.

"Ain't this a sight?" Celeste asked Taryn with a chuckle mixed in amusement and undeserving compassion, Taryn peering up from behind spread fingers, her eyes glowing as if possessed by the devil.

Like Celeste was invisable, Taryn struggled to her feet and jostled past her, knocking Celeste's breath and body to the dark oak counter, Celeste's face hurt and eyes inclining in determination.

"Taryn," Celeste scolded her, Taryn sifting with both hands blindly under where Ashley slept peacefully, her eyes intoxicatedly twinkling when she discovered her prize as if in a Cracker Jax box. She pulled out a plastic bag from the depth of darkness, several rolls of marajuana debasing the correct usage of a plastic bag, Taryn's hand shakng in violent quakes and she reached inside the bag for her morphine.

"I don't think so," Celeste desisted her, reaching over Taryn's shoulder, snatching the bag from her tispy grasp, and sprinted to the cramped bathroom.

"Heeeey," Taryn slurred, toppling to the floor like a baby's reward for its first attempt at walkng, to try to get her property back, "I paid...3 dollars and a stickeeer for that shtuff."

"Not, it's shit," Celeste shouted back, plunging the bag into the white toilet, flushing the contents with a few strong pushes at the handle, a whirlpool of concern flushing the drugs to the road, flushing away another chance at self-suicide for a unreflective Taryn, some unknown reason for self-destruction tearing at Taryn's self control with deeper cuts and more drastic changes.

Taryn looked up at Celeste like in a dream state, in normal conditions, she'd assault Celeste with deadly artilery of words and glares. Not even phased by Celeste's actions like a carefree child, she crawled over the floor toward the fridge, her hands finding the convential handle a hard contraption to open.

"Don't ignore me, Taryn," Celeste warned, her anger rising to the point of explosion, grabbing Taryn's wrists, Taryn yelping in sharp pain, cowering like she fell to the force of a more powerful entity, not Celeste.

"Do you feel that?" Celeste asked her, her eyes burning in blue flames into Taryn's face, sweat snaking down Taryn's face and into her eyes and stinging them like acid. "That's what I feel whenever you trash yourself. I hate it and you should, too."

"Since when did you care?" Taryn responded with delayed thought, her true character slowly diffusing through the alcohol depressing down her nerves.

"I can't believe you'd even asked me that," Celeste replied astounded, her eyes wide with misbelief as Ashley finally began to stir from the beating of loud noises at her ears and dreams. "You girls are all I got."

"It don't seem...as if you care," Taryn pulled her wrist from Celeste's claws, sereval red scratches defacing Taryn's skin, Taryn gazing down at them with blurry eyes and a bobbing head. An absolutely frightening thought surfaced in Celeste's mind, Taryn's wrist resembled her own, thrashed almost lethally by overprotection and isolation. Was she turning into her father's clone? No, it couldn't be like that. Pot and excessive drinking were things that should be strictly forbidden. "Nag, Nag, Nag is all you do."

"I only do that because I don't want you destroying your body and life like this," Celeste insisted heatedly, cupping Taryn's sticky face in her hands, Taryn glaring at a view of a falsified foreigner's cold eyes.

"Well, what if...dis is what I want?" Taryn asked rhetorically, clawing Celeste's hands from her face and stumbling back onto the broken dishwear, her voice only cackling at her clumsiness. "To waste away, do what I want...be anyting but a carbon copy like you and the rest of the sick and scarded world."

The word "pride" slammed like fists against the mushy caverns of Celeste's brain, Taryn displaying a revolutionary interpritation of doing what you want. If pride is what she values herself on, why is she cringing against the glacial floor, her mind fuzzy like old film from an 80's video camera, her words stumbling over bumps from her brain to her tounge before spilling to the floor without proper perception? "Then, let me help you," Celeste insisted evily, taking her hand and swiping it rapidly against Taryn's left cheek, causing her to tumble over the fallen dishes, a red welt tattooing her face.

"Celeste!" Jessa cried flabbergasted, swirving the RV down a side street without rightful conduct of the rules of the road, parking it slipshodly a foot from the curb. Taryn's face took on a stunned appearence like a deer running sightlessly in blinding headlights, tears creeping slowly into her eyes. Feeling an acrimonious sensation filling her throat like she was drowning, she darted to the bathroom and threw up her entrails of liquor and regret. Jessa bolted from the seat and grabbed Celeste by the shoulders, Celeste's shoulders freezing to the touch.

"We should help her along on her path to a swift death," Celeste informed Jessa coldheartedly, embedding her arms across her chest and plopping down on the couch, her face simulating a rabid dog. "Isn't that what friends do? Help each other?"

"Listen to yourself. This isn't like you," Jessa scolded her with a repulsed scowl, Celeste's brutal words jarring into Jessa's ears like ear plugs coated with microscopic shards of needles.

"That girl needs tough love," Celeste bellowed, Jessa's breath crooked from her throat, Celeste's suddenly morphing into a female version of Lt. Gerald Skye, Celeste's nose twittering in pent-up anger and fustration, her eyes stern and fists ready to toss punches wherever they seem fit. Ashley slowly inched her head into eye's view, gazing at the situation unaware of what was going on, her face unruffled from sleep.

"Keep acting like that and you'll definately kill her," Jessa's stentorian voice splintering against the wall like a plate of thick glass, cutting Celeste's spirit and Ashley's eardrums. "Where the hell is your head?"

"How can you pretend that this isn't happening?!" Celeste demanded hushly, fury snapping her head back in misbelief as she jolted to her feet, nose to nose with Jessa, the steam emitting from their mouths fogging up their eyes. "Taryn doesn't know how much she's affecting us. She doesn't think. She's pigheaded."

"Like someone else I know," Jessa responded cooly, raising her eyebrows like a teacher would at a misbehaving student from behind a pile of tests and a desk.

Celeste stood there stupefied, Jessa's tone smacking her, the words sinking into the core of her brain before burning anger toward her mouth. "Don't turn this around on me. I'm the only one who cares if she rolls out of bed in the morning!"

"You better quit while you're ahead," Jessa advised Celeste, her head suspending over Celeste like a street light on the corner, Celeste unwillingly dropping back onto the couch, her hands bracing her fall as a visage of realization mixed with dissapointment pulled her face as mortality does via wrinkles, Ashley skiddering to the bathroom.

Taryn slunk in the corner, direct across from the well-used toilet like a bum, her face sprinkled with sweat, stoicism and a green tone, crusty inwards of her stomach bubbling against the corner of her lips and chin, her eyes droopy and underlined as if she applied too much eyeliner and mascara that morning. Not even a doctor could tell if she was alive of dead if she didn't extert energy to blink every few moments. Ashley believed Taryn wouldn't even remember this ordeal like every time she escapes this world through artificial releases. Too often and too long has this been happening, Taryn usually hiding it will behind her stony facade from Celeste's watchful eyes. Ashley hiked over her limp legs and crouched against the seat and looked down at Taryn, an extraordinary bond linking the two's eyes together as if with invisable string. Ashley reached through the off-white shower curtain and emerged with a forest green washcloth, running water to fill the pores of it as Taryn squirmed.

"I sorry you have to...see me like this," Taryn apologiesed as Ashley bent over from the hips to wipe Taryn's mouth, Ashley's eyes genial and relaxed as she dabbed with a mother's feel.

"No problem," Ashley replied evenly, inhibiting Taryn's characteristics, her face concentrated on cleaning Taryn up, wishing she had the guts to tell Taryn all that Celeste said and them some. But she couldn't. It wasn't in her nature. But for those brief flashes, they switched common roles, static diffusing into the stale air, feeling each other's pain and anguish through the medium of silence.

"I need help, Ashley, I admit it. I need help," Taryn whispered almost unclearly, her watery chocolate browns curtailed behind fingers of red hair, her head hanging down in conception of twisted pain, shame pushing her head toward the ground where it belongs. Ashley's round finger a feather against Taryn's coarse face, Taryn gazing up at her like she was drowning in her own pool filled with venomous snakes and vengeful sharks. "Will you help me?"

"Of course," Ashley responded almost cheerful, a familiar smile uplifting Taryn's disparaged spirit, "A lending hand for a lending hand."