Rather than being at home. Emily was currently in a store. That was completely normal, people went to stores. And once in those stores, they bought stuff and took that stuff home with them.
Emily just happened to be in a store that sold drugs, she was going to buy some very legal over the counter drugs and be done with it. But instead of just heading to the cashier, and stating her business, she looked around, not really seeing anything. She let four people pass in front of her in line, until she finally decided to just go ahead and do it.
She mumbled out the name of the sleeping pills that she wanted, and the girl behind the counter- bless her- did not have to be told twice. It was a very quick exchange, with no delays whatsoever and in just under two minutes, Emily had an orange bottle full of tiny white pills.
She slipped it into her handbag, feeling like she had just taken part in an illegal drug deal, rather than a perfectly legal purchase.
With the pill bottle in her bag, Emily felt as though she were carrying a giant boulder. It weighed down on her, and by the time she made it home, she barely resisted the urge to just throw the entire bag across the room.
It was a good thing that she did though, because seconds later, her mom walked into the living room. She had on her fluffiest robe, a chemical green face mask and was eating a banana, both cheeks full and puffy. She looked like a disgruntled chipmunk and Emily instantly forgot about her own stress as she burst out laughing.
"Hey, sweetheart," Her mom greeted, unfazed.
"Go take a quick shower, and come join me, we can do each other's nails too," It was not how Emily had planned to spend her evening but it totally beat, sitting in her room stressed about her pills.
Half an hour later, she sat on a pillow on the floor, carefully painting her mother's nails a pale blue, as the older woman talked about her day.
"… she kept insisting on standing on her own, in the end I had to hover behind her. She managed two steps and then went down. If I had not been there, she would have broken her other hip…" Emily let her mother's soft voice wash over her, tuning in here and there, and listening to what she was saying.
"…and how was your day Ems?" She heard, and she startled bad enough that she nearly messed up a nail.
"Oh, the usual," She lied.
"Just handling meetings and the like, nothing interesting," She thought of the pills in her bag and kept her focus on finishing off the last nail.
Above her, her mom was silent for a while.
"You know that you can talk to me about anything, right Ems?" She nodded, blowing on her mother's toes so that she did not have to look up. If she did, she was scared that her mom would see the lie in her face.
"Whatever is bothering you, just tell me and I will listen," It was at the tip of her tongue to just come out and say it. But in the end, she went with something else.
"I made a mistake at work, but its handled now, no need to worry about it,"
"You are not in trouble are you?" Her mom asked and Emily shook her head. "No, in fact, it has all been handled now. The boss let it slide," And he really had, if he had not she would have been fired the moment she'd left that meeting.
The two of them talked for a little while longer, and Emily got her nails done too, pretending not to see her mother stealing glances at her. Once their little session was done, their face masks scrubbed off, they bid each other goodnight, and it was time for Emily to face what was in her bag.
After swallowing her pills dry, she lay back down and waited for sleep to come, and soon enough it did. Her own exhaustion and the chemicals in the pills dragging her down swiftly.