Other Worlds - The Wilds

Chapter 35

Note: A bit of a heavy one today folks. Take care xx

  Leaving Shelby's place was one of the hardest things that Toni had ever done.

  Not just leaving her either, but simply being there with her and her dad as he told her over and over again how broken she was and how he was going to get her help. How he turned to Toni as well with the same bullshit. Shelby did not accept that once he started, telling him that Toni had nothing to do with it and to leave her out of it.

  Her dad misunderstood that and blamed Shelby's 'deviance' on Toni's influence. But Toni knew what she meant. Exactly the opposite actually. Toni had nothing to do with Shelby being gay, just her being open with herself.

   By the time it was ready to go, Everyone was crying, Dave included. Even through his teary eyes, Toni could see the disgust in them whenever he looked at Toni. She was a lost cause in his eyes and she knew it. Shelby, however, he only looked at with pity. All Toni wanted was to kiss her goodbye but she didn't want to make anything worse. Now, walking back and and totally in her head, she wished she had. To hell with Dave fucking Goodkind.

  The walk felt extra long, perhaps because she didn't really want to leave Shelby's and the didn't want to return to Carol's.
 
  The whole drop off was quiet. Somber. Almost as through it wasn't happening in real life but some alternate reality that was just slightly distant from their own. It was quick. Like they were just leaving to go to dinner.

  Every now and again as she walked, she would get a flash of Shelby's face, looking out of the rear window of the car as she drove off towards a place that Toni knew was going to scar her for the rest of her life. But she was powerless to stop it.

  She didn't think the guilt would ever leave her. Even if Shelby came back okay and things returned to normal. That decision to let her go, knowing what she would go through, was one of Toni's biggest regrets and it had only happened mere moments ago.

  She shook her head and picked up the pace. There was no use in dwelling in it. There was nothing she could do then and nothing she could do now.

  Two months. She could get through two months. Shelby could get through two months. They were going to be fine. She had to believe it because if she didn't, she wasn't sure what kinds of places her mind would go.

  Two months.

————

  A lot can happen in two months.

  A lot can happen in one night. And it did.

  The first shocking event happened right as she opened the door to Carol's house, only to see pristine freshly mopped floors instead of the usual sticky glaze of alcohol that covered it, clean coffee tables with neatly stacked magazines and 1 expensive Cabernet Sauvignon sitting on the kitchen counter; the whisky and drugs nowhere to be seen.

  The second thing that she definitely would have noticed first if she had a different life, was a social worker, sitting opposite a very well presented Carol on a couch in the living room that Toni had never seen before. 

  Toni didn't remember her name but she had inspected the house before. She was kind but not the most observant.

  It was just so typical that her day would end with this, as though it wasn't already hard enough.