[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/xjGbRyd.jpg[/img][/center][center][h1][color=f6989d] Alexis [/color][/h1][/center]

Alexis sniffed the bottle and leaned back against the seat suddenly exhausted. [color=f6989d]"Well thanks. Maggie would have liked you too."[/color] The driver had hurried when he realized that Alexis was hurt. When they got back the door flew open and her father lifted her out of the carriage and into the house. He set her on the couch to look at her leg. Her mother was barking orders like a madwoman and Alexis laughed. 

[color=f6989d]"You guys act like I'm dying. That says a lot about the confidence you have in me and Elias."[/color] Her mother slapped her hard across the face. She looked at her husband as Alexis limped out of the room furiously. Her father sighed in frustration as his wife left the room, clearly in shock that she had hit one of their children. His wife and their daughter had been a little rough around each other sometimes since Maggie's death.

Alexis went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and went outside through the kitchen door to the barn. She climbed up on the side of one of the stalls and sat there talking to her horses. 

She began brushing her dapple grey that she called Merle because he looked like the blue merle coloring for dogs. Her brush strokes were harder than usual and after a moment she stopped and threw her arms around his neck and hugged the horse. 

[color=f6989d]"Oh Merle...since Maggie died she acts like she thinks it was my fault. Or that she wishes I had been the one to die and leave her real daughter alive."[/color]

After a few minutes she wiped the tears away and noticed that the handprint had left her face red and swollen where she had hit her still stung. Sneaking back into the house she went up the back steps to make sure she wouldn't run into her mother.  

[@December]