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── .✦ ݁˖
Emily Charlton does not drink. Not ever.
She is not a drinker. It could ruin her complexion, and that would be disastrous.
Except that maybe sometimes, her brain is too loud. Too loud to care about the beauty standards she’s been chasing.
Too loud to register going to the store after a long and exhausting work day and buying the highest percentage vodka she could find, and then some.
Too loud to notice the looks the cashier is giving her. Who really cares about that, anyway?
── .✦ ݁˖
That being said, Emily Charlton doesn’t drink.
Except maybe sometimes, when the alcohol is the only thing that will get her overly-anxious and somehow always-present thoughts to go quiet.
Actually quiet, and not just muffled.
Emily Charlton is not an alcoholic. She isn’t.
She’s Miranda Priestly’s first assistant, bloody hell.
It would be no good to come to work with a hangover that feels like the ground is splitting in two under her.
Except that when she’s sitting at her desk, typing away at an email to some brand that has already escaped her mind again for the next spring issue, she feels precisely that.
The clicking of the keyboard is too loud, and the light is too bright. She can hear Miranda saying something to Andrea in her office, but it doesn’t register.
So, despite the not-hangover, she keeps working.
Inefficiency wouldn’t do at Runway.
And Emily Charlton was anything but inefficient.
── .✦ ݁˖
Andrea Sachs left Runway without a warning.
Emily should have seen it coming.
Andy had never cared.
Not about Miranda, not about the job.
Not about her.
Emily Charlton isn't a drinker.
She won't be, ever.
She hates the term.
But the hole that the disappearance of Andrea Sachs left in her stomach, her heart, could really only be fixed by one thing.
So, who could blame her?
It was justified.
That's what she told herself.
She wakes up with another hangover the next morning.
Possibly worse than the last.
The week continues, everything feels the same.
Except it doesn't, because Andy is gone.
Emily tries calling her, once.
Her hands are shaking
Andrea doesn't pick up.
The night ends like every other one does.
She throws up the next morning.
It stings.
Nonetheless, Emily goes to work like it doesn't affect her.
Because it doesn't.
── .✦ ݁˖
Again, Emily Charlton is not a drinker.
Well, not a hard one, at least.
If you ignore the bottles stacked in her cabinet.
And the bottles piling up on every table's surface in her apartment.
Emily Charlton does not drink, and she never will.
Not heavily.
And mentally, she is perfectly fine. How else would it be?
She’s got everything she wished for, and she worked hard for it.
So why does she feel so empty?
── .✦ ݁˖
Emily Charlton isn’t an alcoholic.
Has never been.
Will never be.
Except that when she gets the job offer at Dior, and realizes with a twisting gut feeling that Miranda is trying to push her out of Runway, the first thing she does when she gets home, is grabbing a bottle out of the designated cabinet.
It’s Whiskey. She pours herself a glass.
Takes a big swig. Wrinkles her nose.
It’s strong. Good.
She feels horrible.
Tries to think that maybe Miranda wants her to advance in her career.
Logically, she knows that that’s not true.
Miranda has never really cared about her.
She wanted to get rid of her.
So be it.
She takes the job offer at Dior.
But not without emptying that bottle.
It was half empty, anyway.
It would've been a waste.
Her head aches the next day.
She goes to work anyway, tells Miranda about the offer.
Hands in her two weeks notice.
── .✦ ݁˖
Emily Charlton used to not drink.
Except that after leaving Runway, she stopped caring.
Her apartment looked inhabitable again, since the hours at Dior were a little less demanding and she had more time to sort everything out.
She rises through the ranks there like it’s nothing.
The drinking gets less, for a bit.
Still, a few glasses of wine there, a bit of Whiskey or Gin there.
Only when she’s overly stressed, she tells herself.
And she is, most of the time.
That’s how she justifies it.
── .✦ ݁˖
And then it all comes crashing down.
Because of Andrea fucking Sachs.
That woman comes back into her life as if she hadn’t left 20 years prior, ignored her call, and left Emily with a gaping hole in her chest that was then fueled by various emptied bottles.
So much happens, at once.
And Emily, who just thought it was getting better, who had planned to throw out all the alcohol she has in her apartment because she thought that it maybe was over, finds herself on her couch that evening,
Entire vodka bottle in hand.
Like the day Andy had not returned the call.
It was entirely, utterly pathetic.
Emily knew.
Relapses happen.
It’s okay.
She’ll get there eventually.
── .✦ ݁˖
Emily Charlton might have a problem with alcohol.
So far, so good.
Self-reflection was the first step to recovery, right?
She just needed a little help in figuring out why her life was promptly turned upside down by Andrea Sachs, of all people.
It doesn't matter that the help is a 10 year old whiskey that she finishes faster than she likes to admit.
The next day, she wakes up on her couch, in the same clothes and makeup from the day before.
Her head is throbbing, violently.
She goes to work anyway.
As always.
── .✦ ݁˖
Emily Charlton does have a problem with alcohol.
She has to admit this to herself in quiet resentment.
It’s gotten bad, ever since Andy came back.
It opened old wounds Emily thought were already closed.
She wasn’t pleased about it.
Milan came and went.
So did Dior.
She left.
It is what it is, she told herself.
Pretended that it didn’t bother her.
From Runway to Dior to Coach, that was a new low for anyone in the fashion industry.
── .✦ ݁˖
And then, suddenly, Andy was there.
Bright and happy, and almost as intoxicating as the last bottle of vodka Emily had.
She bleached her hair blond on another drunken trip. Hated it.
Andy said it suited her.
Maybe it wasn’t too bad.
Andy was attentive, very much so. Too much.
It was no wonder she noticed, really. She noticed everything.
Noticed Emily wearing sunglasses constantly because the hangovers made everything so bright, noticed the dark circles under her eyes after a particularly bad week, despite Emily slathering concealer all over them.
Noticed the smell, occasionally.
Noticed that Emily never invited her to her own apartment.
So she asked.
And Emily?
Well, Emily had no choice but to cave. What else could you do under those doe eyes, anyway?
She told Andrea everything.
From the day it started.
── .✦ ݁˖
Emily Charlton used to have a drinking problem.
She now could admit that.
Andrea helped her, in many ways.
Emily now had a psychiatrist she talked to, regularly.
Nice woman.
Emily hated it anyways.
But it helped.
And she supposed that was better.
Andy checked with her regularly.
Emily didn’t drink much anymore, only wine and champagne occasionally.
Only ever when Andy was present.
Andy. Sweet, sweet Andy.
Emily wasn’t quite sure what they were.
But they were comfortable.
And that what Emily had always wanted, so she didn’t dare push for more.
For all she knew, Andy might leave again.
And Emily was terrified of that happening, although she didn’t tell Andrea that.
Though, she supposed Andrea knew.
Andrea always knew everything.
She also knew that Emily Charlton does drink. More often than she'd like.