I'll Find You

Beautiful Trauma

The pill I keep taking
The nightmare I'm waking
There's nothing, no nothing, nothing but you
My perfect rock bottom
My beautiful trauma
My love, my love, my love, my drug, oh
——Beautiful Trauma, Pink

April 1, 2018

They returned from Luke's game in Brooklyn to their apartment and decided to order pizza.  It might not have been much of an Easter dinner, but it sounded good to both of them. Luke was headed back to Detroit and so was Rae, who had hitched a ride with Jack and Joan, saying that a private plane beat a commercial flight any day, even if she had to put up with the lovebirds. Cait shook her head slightly at her father's pronouncement that the first week in April in Detroit sounded lovely to him.

She'd put on comfortable clothes and curled up on the couch with a blanket and Tyler. Grayson was playing a video game, but glanced over at her and paused it.  "How're you doing, Kitten?" he asked.

"I'm okay," she smiled at him.  "A little tired, I guess. Long day."

"Well, I was thinking that maybe we could just stay here for a couple of days."  He raised an eyebrow at her.  "Take our 24 or 48 hours that we're always talking about."

"Can you do that?" she asked.

"Texted my agent today and told him where I am and that I was taking a couple more days off and he said it wasn't a problem," Grayson told her.  "And your dad made arrangements for us to use a gym nearby if we want to work out at all.  I'm not supposed to be doing anything other than maintaining my conditioning. And Joan thinks it might be good for you to start being more active.  Of course, she didn't know you were mucking out stalls for a couple of days."

Cait smiled slightly.  "Brian is a slave driver," she muttered.  "He even made me do homework, so I'm pretty much caught up.  There's no reason I can't stay here."

"If we go back to Durham, there will be distractions," Grayson said.  "Let's just take a couple of days for us. You need to rest and we need to just be together."

"Sounds good," she smiled at him.  A real smile.  Maybe not the brilliant, beautiful one he was accustomed to, but it was closer.

After they ate, Grayson put a movie on and snuggled under the blanket with her, much to Tyler's disgust. The cat shot Grayson a dirty look, hopped down and proceeded to head upstairs, where Grayson suspected he would stake out his position on the bed. "He'd better not pee in my shoes," Grayson muttered.

"He wouldn't do that," Cait frowned.

"Apparently, he was traumatized by your absence and he's been peeing in your dad's shoes," Grayson told her. "Jack was rather anxious to unload him."

"Dad never mentioned that to me." She was still frowning.

"Cait, your dad loves you so much," Grayson told her.  "He might not have been thrilled, but he was willing to put up with it for you.  He'd do anything for you."

She sighed a little at that.  "I know," she said. 

"Are you upset about him and Joan?" Grayson asked. Her reaction to their news had been somewhere in the middle of fine and crying. She'd wiped a couple of tears, but had professed to be happy for them, once she ascertained that their announcement was not, in fact, an elaborate April Fool's joke.