Rae

 

“I brought you this,” Daisy said as she sat a cup of coffee, and some toast down on Rae’s night stand, and waited for her to respond.

“I’m not hungry,” Rae sighed without making any eye contact with her friend. “I’ll eat something later.”

Rae had spent the entire day and night crying until exhaustion finally won over, and she passed out a little after four a.m. It was now almost twenty-four hours since A.J had walked out of her apartment, and she was completely devastated.

He had called and texted several times the night before, but Rae refused to talk to him. When the calls and texts stopped, Rae sobbed again. She wasn’t sure which had been worse, him refusing to accept what she had said, or when he finally had.

In the end, she powered off her phone and cried herself to sleep.

“Rae, I know you’re sad sweetie,” Daisy said as she sat on the edge of her bed. “But lying here is not the answer.”

“Then what should I do?” Rae snapped as she finally let her eyes meet her friend’s. “I can’t go to work. I have been suspended. I can’t go and talk to the man I love because he has left me. So I want just to lie here, and be left alone.”

“I’m sorry,” Daisy said as she looked down at her friend. “I love you far too much to let you lie here, and wallow. I love you too much to let you lose yourself once again, over a man.”

“Then what do you want me to do?” Rae asked, but this time the anger in her voice was replaced by hurt and sadness.

“Call A.J,” Daisy said, and Rae could hear the worry in her voice. “You know you didn’t mean the things you said yesterday. He knows it too. He loves you so much…”

“Then why did he leave me?” Rae asked as her voice cracked with unshed tears. “I need to let him go. It was never going to work, so I need to accept that, and move on.”

“I know you don’t believe that,” Daisy said as she gave Rae another sad smile. “But even if that’s true, lying in this bed is not the answer.”

Rae looked at her friend for a moment and considered what she had said.

She was right, of course, she was right, but nothing seemed to make sense anymore. She felt like her world had just imploded, and she had no clue how to begin putting it back together.

Whenever she felt lost in the past, she always threw herself into work, as a way of refocusing herself. But this time she couldn’t. Stan had taken that option from her. Stan had taken A.J from her too.

Slowly, the sadness she felt inside her, gave way to anger. She was angry that she had allowed herself to be dragged into this whole mess, and for believing that for once she had actually found where she belonged.

She wished she had never gone to work in Saint Mike’s. That she had never met either A.J or Stan, or even Calum for that matter. She had given herself to that place; opened her heart to people she should have never allowed herself to trust. She showed them her weakest moments, and she was punished for it. Now she was being punished again.

Suddenly she knew what she needed to do.

She kicked back the bed clothes, surprising Daisy, and climbed out of bed.

“What are you doing?” Daisy asked as she stood up, and watched her friend closely. Rae dragged on a pair of leggings, then put on her bra, before she pulled on an oversized T-shirt, and pulled on a cardigan.

“I need to go to the school,” she replied without looking at her friend. Instead, she slipped on a pair of trainers.

“Okay,” Daisy said, giving her a questioning look. “But maybe you should have a shower first, or comb your hair even.”

“I don’t have time,” Rae said as she pulled a hair tie from her dressing table, and quickly scooped back her hair and wrapped the tie around the knotted hair in her hands. “I need to do this before I change my mind.”

“You need to do what, Sweetie?” Daisy asked as she followed Rae out of the bedroom, and across the sitting room. Rae grabbed her car keys from the table next to the apartment door.

“I need to tell Father Stannis what he can do with his job,” Rae replied as she pulled open the door. “And also what he can do with his precious church and his God.”

“Rae, are you sure this is a good idea?” Daisy asked as she followed her out to the elevator across from their apartment.

“You told me to get up and stop wallowing,” Rae said as the doors to the elevator slowly slid open. “Well, this is me, not wallowing.”

Before Daisy could say another word, Rae stepped inside the elevator and hit the ground floor button.

Fifteen minutes later, Rae pulled into her parking space in the teacher parking lot. As she climbed out of the car, her heart ached to know that A.J was not inside the building waiting for her. As she hurried up the front steps, she realised that the place she had grown to love and feel a part of, no longer felt warm and welcoming. In the end, it had turned into everything she feared it would be the first day she had arrived at Saint Mike’s.

As she hurried along the corridor, several of the students stopped and stared at her, clearly surprised to see her looking like she did. Rae ignored their glances because, after today, she was never going to set foot in this building again.

When she reached the office, Mrs. Graham looked up as Rae walked into the outer office.

“Rae!” She exclaimed the moment she saw her. “Is everything okay?”

“I need to see Father Stannis,” Rae said as she hurried past the woman, and headed straight for Stan’s door.

“He is with someone…” Mrs. Graham called after Rae, but her words fell on deaf ears. Rae burst through the door, and found Stan sitting behind his desk talking to, a now very startled looking man.

“Blake, can you give us a few minutes,” Stan said, the moment he saw Rae.

The man stood up, and excused himself before he left and closed the door behind him.

“Rae,” Stan said as he watched her closely. “Would you like to take a seat?”

“No!” She snapped as her heart hammered in her chest. She had practiced exactly what she was going to say, as she drove over in the car, but now that she was here, standing in front of Stan, her mind was completely blank.

“Is there something I can do for you?” He asked as he slowly stood up and walked around the desk to where she was standing. “Something you need to ask me?”

Hot salty tears, instantly burned her already puffy red eyes, as her heart ached deep inside her.

“I…I came here to tell you that I quit,” she said as her voice cracked. She quickly swallowed the lump that was almost choking her, as she brushed away the tears that were now spilling down her face.

“Rae, I know you’re upset…” Stan began as he reached out and softly touched her arm.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she whispered as she stepped back from his touch. “You…you don’t know me at all.”

“If you can just let me explain,” Stan replied, as he watched Rae closely.

“There is nothing you have to say that I want to hear,” she sobbed then blew out a long calming breath. “I trusted you. I thought you were a good person. I believed all that crap you said about going the extra mile. I dropped my guard because I believe that this was a safe place to allow myself to do that. But I was wrong…”

“You were not wrong, Rae,” Stan replied, his voice still even and calm.

“YES I WAS!” She cried out, as a sob came from deep inside her. “You are supposed to be one of the good guys. I believed that you were. I trusted you, and A.J trusted you. He tore himself to pieces because he was so afraid of letting you down. And then you sent him away…”

“Rae, it wasn’t like that…” He quickly tried to explain, but she cut him off.

“It’s exactly like that!” She exclaimed. “He loved you as a father, and you turned your back on him and sent him away.”

“If you could just let me explain,” Stan pleaded.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Rae replied as she took another couple of steps back from Stan. “You win. A.J and I are over, just like you wanted us to be. He is God knows where, alone just like he was when he was a little kid. You did this to us; you did this to him. I hope you’re happy.”

Before Stan could reply, Rae turned and walked out of the office, then out of the school. By the time she reached her car, she could barely breathe, and her stomach was heaving. She unlocked the car, but then she hurried to a nearby bush, and vomited until there was nothing left inside her already empty stomach.

When she finally stopped throwing up, she slowly walked back to her car and sat in the driver’s seat. She slipped her key into the ignition and started the car, but before she pulled out of her parking space, a fresh wave of tears, took hold. She buried her face in her hands and cried as she had never cried before.

When the tears finally stopped, after what felt like a life time, Rae finally set off for home feeling even worse than she had before.

She had thought telling Stan exactly what she thought of him would have helped, but it hadn’t. Her heart was completely broken, and there was nothing else in the world that was going to make that any easier.

As Rae drove back toward her apartment, she thought of A.J. Despite the fact he was in her thoughts constantly, she hadn’t really allowed herself to think about him in detail.

She wondered where he was now, and what he was doing. She wondered if he was thinking about her; if he had tried to call her again. Rae honestly didn’t know what she wanted; she just knew that her heart was broken, and she really couldn’t take any more hurt.

When she reached her apartment, she pulled into a parking space outside her building but made no effort to get out of the car. She knew that Daisy would be waiting for her with some more sound advice, and as much as she loved Daisy, she didn’t want to listen to what she had to say. She didn’t want to listen to what anyone had to say.

Rae knew she just needed some space, and a little time to clear her mind. She started the car once more and pulled out from the kerb. Reaching for the radio, she turned up the volume and rolled down the windows. This was the best way to clear off the cobwebs. She hit the interstate and just drove.

About an hour later, Rae pulled her car to a stop in the car park of the beach A.J had taken her a few nights before.

She switched off the engine and sat for a few minutes in the quietness of her car before she finally pushed the door open and climbed out.

Kicking off her trainers, she made her way down onto the beach and sat in the sand. A.J had been right, it did look so different there in the day time, but it was equally as beautiful as it had been the night she had gone there with him.

This time though, she wasn’t the only one on the beach. Still, it was quiet enough for her to think.

As she sat on the beach, she watched a young mother play with her little girl in the sand. The child was probably no older than two, but she was trying her hardest to have a conversation with her mother.

Rae smiled as she watched them together. She thought of her own mother, and her smile faded. She missed her so much sometimes. Right at that moment, Rae would have loved nothing more than to have her mother there with her, so she could hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

Maybe it was time for her to go home now. There was nothing keeping her here any longer, and right now, not even Dean was stopping her from longing to go home.

Rae suddenly remembered that her mom had called her the day before. A pang of guilt settled over her as she remembered how she had chosen not to take the call. Now all she wanted to do was talk to her.

She pushed up from the sand, and brushed herself down before she headed back to the car. All she wanted to do now was call her mother and tell her that she was coming home.

“Where the hell have you been?” A very stressed looking Daisy exclaimed the moment Rae walked into the apartment. “I’ve been calling you and calling you.”

“I went for a drive,” Rae replied, giving her friend a questioning look. Something was wrong, Rae could see it all over Daisy’s face. “And my phone is in my room. I switched it off last night. What’s happened?”

“Rae,” Daisy said as she took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Dara called me.”

“Dara? Why would he call you?” Rae asked surprised by her friend’s comment.

“He said he has been calling you for hours, but he couldn’t reach you,” Daisy explained as tears suddenly danced in her eyes. “He only remembered that he had my number about an hour ago.”

“Has something happened?” Rae asked as her chest tightened and panic rose inside her. Her mind was racing with so many things; things she didn’t want to be thinking. “Is it my dad? Is he sicker than they thought? Has something happened to him?”

Daisy shook her head as tears trickled down her face.

“Then what is it?” Rae demanded as her heart began to hammer faster in her chest.

“It’s your mom,” Daisy whispered as she took a step closer to Rae. “I’m so sorry, Sweetie. Dara said it was a heart attack. When your dad woke up this morning, she was already gone.”

“She’s… she’s dead?” Rae asked, and the words felt almost foreign to her. “My mom is gone?”

Rae’s legs buckled from beneath her, and she crashed to the ground, as a loud wail echoed around the apartment. Rae felt like everything was moving in slow motion as the tiny shards of her heart, turned to dust. Her life was in pieces, and it would never be the same again.