Dark Days

Feels Like a Close

©JRF2016

I hurry back to the house as the sun was starting to come up. I have to do something and I have to do it while Reid was busy with Darrick and Conner getting rid of Paul's body. I walk into the still quiet house. Grace hasn't gotten up yet. I walk up the stairs to the bedroom and grab my duffel bag out of the closet, still full of my clothes; I hadn't gotten comfortable enough yet to actually unpack this bag. I guess I was subconsciously waiting for the other shoe to drop. It boy did drop in a big way, one that I wasn't prepared for at all. I knew I felt like I was losing Reid but I never expected it to end like that. Now I wonder why he had slipped. Was he cheating on me with her or was it just a subconscious slip because he had talked to her earlier that day. He was investigating the vandalism on her owl statue. Which I still think is stupid, it's just an owl. It still just looked like a pile of junk to me. I look down at my feet and place a hand on my stomach, "You can do this, Rachel. You're tough. You don't need his sorry ass."

"Who are you talking to mommy?" I jump at the sound of Grace's voice and a lone tear rolls down my face. "Are you leaving? I'm coming too." She runs out the door and I hear her footsteps down the hall. I turn around and follow her. I stand in her bedroom door watching her grab her stuffed teddy bear that Charlie had found for her, the stuffed bunny I had gotten for her back at the prison, and a few other toys. I chuckle to myself as I think, typical kid, no clothes, just her toys. "Gracie," I say softly, "I'm just going to stay with Samantha for a little while."

"Why?"

"I just," I pause. How do you tell a small child that her daddy is an ass and you don't want to be around him? "Sam just needs some girl time." It was the only thing I could come up with in this moment. "But," Grace pokes out her bottom lip, "I'm a girl too." She dragged out the last word as she stomps her feet. That broke my heart. She may not be mine, but she's mine. I love this little girl even though she is throwing a tantrum right in front of me. I didn't give birth to her but she's my daughter just the same and at just the mere mention of another woman's name at the most inopportune time has ripped my family apart. I wonder if Lisa knows what she was doing, if she did the little things she did just so she could rip us apart like this. Could she really be that devious, that deceptive? Tears were forming in both of our eyes for very different reasons. "Gracie, can I borrow your mom for a minute. We need to have a grown up talk." Grace stops her tantrum and looks up at Cathy as she nods her approval. Cathy reaches up grabbing the bag from my shoulder and laying her arm in its place as she walks me back to the bedroom I share with Reid.

She sits on the end of the bed waiting on me to join her. I stare right through her to the empty, unmade bed. The spot where just hours ago Reid and I lay in love. The spot where he tore everything we had apart. All I could see was the image of us together last night. The happiness and warmth instantly replaced with the bitter cold at his passionate utterance. I shuddered. "I ran into Reid this morning," Cathy start realizing I wasn't going to sit or talk, "He told me you killed Paul. How are you doing with that? He didn't know exactly what happened but said you were with Andy when he found you. What happened? Why were you out there in the middle of the night? I thought you had gone to bed while we were planning on taking out Paul." Cathy has become like a mother to me, a best friend too, and I burst into tears as I fall to the floor at her feet. I bury my face in her lap and just cry as she strokes my hair in that loving, motherly way. I cry until my eyes were completely void of anymore tears and I couldn't even produce anymore to shed. "Paul had it coming, one way or another; you don't have to be sad that he's gone. Or that you killed him."

"I don't," I raise my head and met her eyes in all seriousness now, "I'm not crying because of Paul." Cathy looks shocked at my demeanor at first and now she had a look of confusion. She slides herself off the bed and onto the floor with me she places her hands on my face and looks deep into my eyes. "What's wrong then?" At her gentle touch and soft voice I broke down and told her what had happened between me and Reid last night. I relived every excruciating detail. Well almost every detail, I left out the details of what exactly we were doing when he uttered her name. My heart was breaking all over again as she pulls me in tighter. "Rachel, I'm so sorry," she whispers lacking the right words at the moment, "Maybe he only said it because he was helping her yesterday and couldn't. You know how things stick with Reid if he doesn't know how to fix someone's problems. He's probably agonizing over this more than you are."