Teacher's Pet || A Joseph Quinn AU

The Loss

Things went fine for the next month or so, though both her and Joseph were incredibly busy. She was booking gigs left and right and he was still on set most of the time. This left both of them exhausted by the end of the day but still very happy. Once he was done with filming she planned to take a break so she could spend as much time with him as possible because she didn't really need to work and she also wasn't in such high demand it would matter if she took off a few weeks just to be with him. The stalker issue hadn't come up, even though they were both always looking over their shoulders, though there was more than one instance they were caught together going out and the images ended up on the internet. She tended to avoid reading comments about that because there were some pretty nasty people out there unhappy that she was with him.

One morning she woke up to an empty bed. It wasn't that unusual but she also couldn't hear Joseph in the house anywhere. Normally, if she woke up after him it was only because he'd gotten up to shower. They usually woke up around the same time every morning for their work. The silence was eerie. She sat up and looked around then got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. He wasn't in there, and even more worrying, neither was most of his stuff. Including his toothbrush. She came back into the bedroom and opened the door to the closet to see that his suitcase was gone as well.

"What the fuck?" She muttered. Immediately, she took her phone out and sent him a text asking him where he was. It came up as delivered and she waited, and waited, and waited to see if it would change from that to read but it didn't. Something was wrong. She hurried down to the kitchen hoping that maybe she was just overreacting and he was there instead. Even if that would not explain the suitcase being gone or his stuff from the bathroom. On the table she saw there was a note.

Christina,

I had no choice but to leave. Don't worry about rent or a place to stay I'll be taking care of that. I need to lay low but most importantly, I need to be done with you. I'm sorry.

Joseph.

She snatched up the note and read it several times, tears burning at her eyes wondering what the hell this was all about. It wasn't possible. He'd just left her and there was no reason for it? She tried to text him again but he still hadn't read her first text. Seeing as how she didn't believe he was going to read what she was sending and possibly had her blocked or muted by that point she decided to text Jamie instead.

Joe left me and all I have is this weird not about how he needs to lay low and he's done with me. What's going on?

That text was read in a much more timely fashion, almost immediately. She sat down heavily in one of the chairs by the table, her heart pounding in her chest as she waited for a response. A few tears fell from her eyes and she wiped them away angrily.

He did what? I don't know anything about this.

Well it happened!

She took a picture of the note and texted it to him. Then she got up and went to the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of vodka. She wasn't legally the age to drink in the states yet but that didn't mean Joseph wasn't so she had access to alcohol when she wanted at home and she knew she was going to need it. She unscrewed the top and downed a few gulps before she got a notification of a text back from Jamie.

I don't know what that is and he's not answering my call. I'll be right over, okay? Just stay safe.

I will

She took a few more gulps of vodka and carried the bottle of it with her into the living room where she sat down on the couch. She switched back to the text conversation with Joseph to see that her texts still hadn't been read. It occurred to her to call the police but what was she going to tell them? Yes, she could bring up the stalker but she had no proof that the woman had anything to do with this. The only thing she had was the note that essentially said he was breaking up with her but would still pay for rent on the house so she didn't have to leave. There were no police reports or any incidents with this woman during their time in California and she was pretty sure she would be hard pressed to get the authorities to do anything about this. Trying to take her mind off of things, even though it was hard, she turned on the TV and flipped to a random channel. Then she laid down and curled up, clutching the bottle of vodka close to her chest. The only thing she could do after that was cry.