3. home alone

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Only silence welcomed Gillian when she came back from taking Connor to his dorm across the river

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Only silence welcomed Gillian when she came back from taking Connor to his dorm across the river. He'd been attending classes for three weeks already—save the days they'd spent in DC—but the MIT encouraged freshmen to live in campus, so Connor decided to give it a try. And he didn't want to miss the welcome party at his dorm that Saturday night.

She knew he'd come next weekend, with a ton of laundry and craving a whole kitchen for himself, to cook to his heart's content and use every single pan and pot available—not having to clean any afterwards.

But it was going to be a long, lonely week for her. And only the first of many.

That night would be like many other Saturdays, when Connor stayed over at Tim's or Mike's. What she was afraid of was Sunday. No son to look after and pretend to complain about, no case to work on, Russell with Aldana, Banks out of town to visit Carmen's family. It was going to be an awful black hole of nothingness for her.

Yeah, she would have the unique chance to sleep in all she wanted and drag her slippers all over the house, wearing but her pajamas. There was enough leftovers from the barbeque to live on for a couple of days, so she wouldn't need to cook, or even call a delivery.

Jeez. It was depressing.

All of a sudden, the house felt so quiet, so uselessly big.

And this was just the first day.

Of the rest of her life.

Because Connor might visit often and stay in touch. But he was never coming back. They would never live together as they did for eighteen years. And no matter how she felt about it, for his sake she didn't want him back.

Yeah, maybe she should go straight to bed and just lay there, tired but sleepless. And think about how horrid it was going to be, aging all alone like this, and miss Connor till it hurt.

And then she could go yet again over what she'd done on Wednesday night. So she'd replay every word of her conversation with Brock—well, if she could call that a conversation. And she'd feel it all over again. The anger, the hurt, the impotence.

Oh, yeah. That was certainly the best plan ever for her weekend.

She didn't even think of Taylor. She'd hate breaking up with him, but there was no way she could keep dating him after what happened over the last week. True, their deal was no strings attached. But it felt so low, being forced to keep her eyes open with him, so Brock's face wouldn't sneak into her mind.

Brock. He and Russell were back to the Maine case. Lucky them, they had a case to get distracted.

Maybe she should call him to apologize? She'd been so rude to him... Agent Brockner? Hi, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for telling you that I love you. I was so outta place. I really hope you can forgive me. For loving you. And for telling you so.

Oh, well, didn't it sound just great.

Once more, it turned out to be so hard, keeping in mind he didn't want to have anything to do with her. Not even at work. That was the hardest of it all. Yet he'd gone to see her, and apologized. He'd endured her outburst, and had enough manners to invite her a drink—yeah, the most humiliating pity drink, but he'd tried to be understanding about it anyway.

She dropped herself onto the bed on her belly, face sunk in her pillows.

If only she could close her eyes.

Go to sleep and wake up to a different world.

One where Connor was still a little boy, a thousand years away from leaving home.

One where Brock didn't hate her.




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