Pick'N'Mix Mods for The Sims 2

2 - Rude Awakening

Analise woke with a start. The front door had slammed into her bedroom wall and a string of expletives was issuing from the hallway beyond her door; Mel was back. There was a loud crash, followed by a soft moan. 'Drunk again', thought Analise, 'well she can stay there.' The hallway was quiet, Analise could hear the front door swinging on its hinges - Mel hadn't even bothered to shut the door!

Harrumphing, Analise got out of bed, shut the front door and surveyed the carnage in the hallway. Mel's travel case had slid down the wall leaving a black curving scuff mark, her handbag was lying on its side, contents strewn across the floor, and Mel was collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

Analise looked at her sister - with pity not disgust. She didn't seem to be breathing. Analise crossed quickly to where Mel had fallen and gently cradled her head in her lap. She could smell alcohol and vomit. Mel's face was pale, lips swollen and blue, her eyelids fluttering. She had a temperature. Her pulse was rapid but not erratic. All classic symptoms of "the flu" combined with "the booze" - party-girl Mel just needed plenty of bed rest.

And therein lay the problem - even if Analise could have lifted Mel upstairs to her own room, Analise didn't willingly do stairs. There had been "the accident".

Teachers said that she'd tripped over her own feet while rushing down the stairs to her next class, but she knew she'd been pushed. That, in itself, wouldn't have been a problem, except she also knew she'd been pushed by her own sister.

That night she'd refused to go to bed in the room she shared with Mel. Her mother had said she could sleep with her for the night, but she'd refused to even go upstairs. When her mother had tried to lead her by the hand, she'd throwing a screaming, fists flying, feet kicking, hissing, spitting, biting tantrum that took them all by surprise.

Her mother had thrown her hands up in defeat; her father calmly and quietly made up the bed in the downstairs guest room.

The monsters returned in the dark. There was no wall to huddle against, the guest bed was a double, so Analise curled into a tight ball in the very centre as far from the edges as she could manage.

Going up stairs was not a problem, you couldn't be pushed up stairs, it was coming down that terrified her. The unknown of who, or what, was behind you and the drop in front of you. At school, she would wait until the stairwell had cleared and then descend nervously, clinging to the hand rail, sweat beading on her fore-head.

She was late for classes. Initially the teachers scolded her, then they just accepted it - she'd grow out of it - the school needed her. The following term most of her classes were time-tabled on the ground floor, those that couldn't be were in sequences of rooms that meant she could descend stairs after the lunch bell or at the end of school - the deputy head was a kindly man. Analise had partially conquered her fear, but long flights and steep drops still terrified her. She was still awaiting the day when she finally 'grew out of it'.

Analise carefully dragged Mel onto her bed,

pulled her shoes off, rolled her onto her side and wedged a pillow behind her back in case she threw-up again, and covered her with the spare blanket. Collecting the other pillow and her alarm clock, and dragging her duvet behind her, Analise headed for the large sofa in the living room. She snuggled under the duvet, wedged comfortingly into the sofa's back; she could still feel the divots in the cushions her father had made.

She wondered where her father was - she'd been so busy with work that she'd not consciously thought of him in months, but she still missed him deeply. She couldn't remember when she'd first realised that she'd noticed that her parents were no longer physical towards each other - the almost unconscious touching of hands, gentle strokes to move wisps of hair,

impromptu hugs in the most impractical of places,

light kisses of greeting - and that worried her, as she remembered everything with an almost photographic recall. They'd kept up other appearances - going to school meetings, attending glittering events, family holidays to exotic places with paparazzi access - but she'd known they no longer slept in the same bed. She had always been an early riser and came to recognise the slightly unwashed, masculine scent that hung lightly in the living room in the mornings as the sign that her dad had slept on the couch again. One morning she rose especially early and came in while he was still sleeping there.

He looked embarrassed and came up with a lame excuse about getting in late and not wanting to wake her mother. That was when she truly knew; not 'wake Mummy', nor 'wake Natalia', nor 'wake his wife', but 'wake her mother'. She never disturbed him again. If she was up earlier than normal, she made enough noise to give him time to retreat. He'd slept so often on the couch that he'd left a divot in each cushion - one each from his shoulders, bum and feet.

1 - Dysfunctionality 3 - Financial Wrongs