OUT OF THE RED ↝ dave grohl

five.

WHEN REAGAN WOKE up the next morning, she was shaken from sleep by her own heart nearly springing up from her chest. The faint sun, its color soaked in gray from the clouds, roused her from sleep as she curled up on her side in bed. When she'd finally opened her eyes and seen Kate's empty bed across the room, she had flown upright.

Kate and Robbie. Reagan had promised that she would drive them to school that morning. She didn't have to be at Wilson's for work until later in the afternoon.

Reagan scrambled to shove her covers off of her body, praying that somehow her younger siblings were downstairs and that it was not as late as she thought it to be. As she stood up by her bedside, she took notice of a scrap of notebook paper resting on her nightstand that stopped her in her tracks.

Reag,

You looked too peaceful for me to wake you. Robbie's taking the bus and I'm riding with a friend. Love you.

Kate

Reagan sighed as she read the paper, slapping it back down to her nightstand. She wished that she didn't feel the guilt creeping up on her. If anything, it had been really nice of Kate to permit her to continue sleeping. She'd been out admittedly late at Scott's the night prior.

But Reagan hated nothing more than letting her brothers and sisters down.

She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and walked downstairs, grateful to have the house to herself. With no noisy twins and a lecturing mother, Reagan finally figured that she could find peace in eating her French toast at the dining room table while reading the newspaper. She didn't even like reading the newspaper. It just felt right for the occasion.

Before she could hop off the last step of the stairs, she was taken by surprise to see Richard in the hallway as she came into view. He was adjusting his tie, straining his neck upwards to fiddle with the knot at the base of his throat. He heard Reagan gasp in shock, lurching backwards.

"Oh my God. You scared me," she said heavily, clapping her hand over her chest. She had nearly forgotten — Richard would be home during the day now that he did not have a job to hurry off to in the mornings.

"I'm sorry," Richard said sheepishly, facing his eldest daughter. "Guess this is still unexpected, huh?"

Reagan analyzed her father, her stare flashing from the tie he'd been working on all the way down to his dress shoes. Despite not having any work to go into, he sure did look ready for a day at the office.

"I thought . . .?"

"I'm going to the Job Center," Richard explained. "Hopefully someone has an open position available for me to take."

"Oh," Reagan mumbled.

As ridiculous as it seemed, she felt that her dad at least deserved a day to himself to process what had happened. If it had been her, she would have wanted to spend the day after getting fired on the couch, channel surfing with a pint of ice cream in her lap. But Richard wasn't like that. He was determined to keep moving forward without wasting a single day.

And of course, Kimberly would have never allowed it. To her, it was prudent that Richard find a new job as soon as possible. Even one day of unemployment on his end put the whole family at risk in her opinion.

"I see your sister and brother let you sleep in," Richard said with a kind smile.

"Yeah." Reagan laughed slightly. "Kind of strange, I guess. I thought Robbie would be doing jumping jacks on my bed trying to get me up. He hates the bus."