She hit the delete button before her mother finished talking, then scratched out a note, "Call Mother," underscored with the stick figure in a hangman's noose she'd begun doodling moments before.
She was starving, she couldn’t wait for lunch. She locked the door to the office and began the short walk to Crane's Pharmacy a block away.
Growing up, Rachel's father had sometimes taken her to Crane's for milkshakes, or a diet soda once she'd hit puberty and Savannah started hounding her about her weight. It was one of the only buildings that weathered the Main Street renovation without losing its 1950’s appeal. Walking inside and hearing the tiny bell ring above the door took her back to a time before she was plagued with anxiety, before she'd always asked herself, "What is the worst possible thing that could happen right now?" She felt the tension in her shoulders ease just a bit, took a deep breath and made her way to the back.
"Hey Rachel, where have you been?" Richard Crane asked politely when he saw her.
He and Rachel went to school together, he’d taken over the store when his dad died, refusing to sell out to some big conglomerate. He was big into show jumping when they were younger, he'd lived out at Miller's Stables, but these days it was more likely to find him shouting at Town Hall meetings about supporting small business. His wife waved from the pharmacy counter.
"You know, Richard, just busy with the kids and work. Trying to keep the old house from falling down. How are y'all?"
"We're pretty good, just bought a new horse. She's being delivered later today. How's Sugar Babe? You been riding much lately?"
"No time,” she shook her head, “I've had her stabled out at Miller's since last year."
Guilt filled her at the thought of the beautiful mare she'd abandoned when work and kids and life had made it impossible for her to ride anymore.
"That's too bad, you need to make time. I can't remember a time when you weren't riding, it'll keep you young," he paused briefly, Rachel knew what was coming, "So how's Kenneth?"
"He's managing, thanks for asking. It's never easy when you're dealing with sick or injured kids, you know?"
The tiny bell on the front door rang and Richard's wife called to the new customer, "Hey, how are y’all?"
"I heard that boy's momma was looking to sue y'all, I'm sorry about that," Richard continued.
"I heard. Yeah. I don't know what will happen, but I'm sorry for her, I'm sure she's in a lot of pain right now."
She reached into her purse and pretended to look for something, an excuse to keep moving.
Richard understood, "Well, y'all let us know if we can help, okay?"
"Thanks so much, Richard. We appreciate it." She smiled politely and kept digging, her heels clicking as her feet moved towards the snack aisle in the back, calling back, "See y'all later."
She hated going anywhere for just that reason, she didn't want to deal with strangers asking her questions, no matter how well-intended. She had no idea if Michael's mother was serious about suing, she didn't know many details about his condition, and even under ordinary circumstances it was never easy to make sense of every exaggerated story and loosely strung together piece of gossip that made its way through their town.
She slowed to scan the donuts, cupcakes and ding dongs, needing sugar. She decided on a huge chocolate donut, a pack of chewing gum and a roll of chocolate chip cookies from the shelf.
The front door bell rang again and people chattered indistinctly on the other side of the store. She'd have to speed up her little shopping trip if she didn’t want to talk to anybody else. Turning the corner for the front, she dropped the chewing gum and knelt down to grab it, then readjusted the purse strap on her shoulder, looked up and saw him there, standing alone. The only other person in the aisle.
Dylan.
He hadn't seen her, he was looking down at his cell phone, his free hand settled casually in the pocket of his heather gray pinstripe slacks. The pink dress shirt was wrinkled where his suit jacket had covered it earlier, his tie a bold blue with white pinstripes. The black shoes were expensive, and so was his haircut. Professional, but long enough to see he hadn't lost his rebellious streak, the light brown strands stained with blond, he'd been in the sun over the summer. His hair always lightened when he spent too much time outside. His clean, honeyed complexion was as flawless as she'd remembered, and she shuttered, recalling the feel of her fingertips on the smooth, hairless skin. Were his eyes still as blue?
Ding.
The front door bell. He looked up. Was that pain on his face? Disgust? Why hadn't she turned and walked out before he noticed her?
She should flip him off and leave.
Too late. He slipped his phone into his pocket and started towards her, bringing the other hand up to push his hair back. He was such a cocky bastard.
She straightened her legs to stand, watched his small turn of the lips, not quite a smile.
"Hello Rachel. It's nice to see you."
He was two feet away, but she felt his breath on her neck, his voice in her ear.
Tell him he ruined your life, tell him you hate him.
He towered over her and she could smell him, a clean musky body wash. She imagined her hands running through the soap on his chest. She felt sick. Her hands shook, and she dropped the gum again.
"Rachel? Are you okay?"
Don't you dare sound concerned about me.
"Rachel?" he asked again, bending down to pick it up for her.
"Yes. Hi. I'm sorry, how are you?"
"Do you need to sit down?" he reached for her elbow to steady her, but her senses came flooding back, she didn't want him to touch her.
"Fuck you!” she yelled, “Don’t touch me!"
She threw her breakfast on a counter and flew out of the store, Richard calling after her, "Rachel, are you okay?"
***
Chrissy still hadn’t left the hospital. The attorney for the district sent word they wanted to meet, the coaches and team wanted to offer their sympathy and ask what they could do to support the family.
The players from both teams were still shaken up. But Chrissy refused to go and he’d gone alone. It had given him an excuse to leave the hospital. He hated being there, it made his skin crawl. Seeing Michael that way, knowing the specialists would roll in any day and tell them to stop praying, that it was all over.
Dylan knew it was bad, even if they hadn’t said it explicitly, Michael wasn’t going to pull through.
Chrissy didn’t see it yet, she was still angry and threatening everyone’s jobs, sitting with Michael and promising him all sorts of motherly promises that only served to make herself feel better. He couldn’t blame her though. Her heartbreak was his own, he understood what motivated her, she wasn’t ready yet to see what he’d seen days ago. Michael was done here.
The district staff and the coaches had been polite, sympathetic, but they’d spent most of the time fishing to see if they should prepare for a lawsuit. Dylan assured them it wasn’t their intent, and offered to find time to talk with the team in the next few weeks.
His head pounded after the meeting, he stopped at the pharmacy on his way back to Houston to grab a bottle of water and something for the headache. He was walking down the pain relief aisle when his phone buzzed and he slowed to read the texts, but then the front door chimed again, and he glanced up instinctively.
His jaw shut tight and the hair on his arms stood up, an emotional electricity shooting through him at the sight of her. Seeing Rachel that night, seeing her face in the paper, and then here she was again just days later?
It had to be now, when he was at his most vulnerable? What kind of a cruel joke was the universe playing on him? He hadn’t imagined he’d run into her again this soon, he wasn’t ready. He could’ve been ready for the gala, but he wasn’t ready to do this with her now.
He wanted to reach over and yank her by the hair, pull her face to his, curse her for all the pain she’d caused. Curse her for moving on with her life and starting a n
ew family, for finding love somewhere else.
He wanted to punish her, make her understand, show her what true suffering really felt like. It wasn’t the tears she’d cried over her parents divorce or having to put her fucking horse to sleep. It was the torment he’d felt after losing her, it was the tragedy he was living through now. And she deserved to experience it for herself.
But like an ambush, his chest tightened, and his body betrayed him, a magnet pulling him in her direction. He needed to be nearer to her, holding her. Smelling her, touching her.
Rachel.
The long brown curls brushed against her bare arms as she stood to greet him with cruel green eyes, and he nervously reached up to push his hair back, desperate not to lose control, to reach out and hurt her.
Or touch her delicate pink mouth, her ivory skin. Would she still feel as soft against him? Had she always been so beautiful? No, she was more beautiful now. And he was bewildered by how the sight of her still managed to hold him hostage.
This was the same bitch who destroyed him, and when he'd finally found a restful place where she wouldn't pervade his life, when he'd finally stopped looking for her everywhere he went, stopped imagining how things could be now- she'd shown up again.
But she was different now. She seemed afraid, wounded. And she screamed at him.
Fuck me?
Then she ran out, left him again with his grief and a renewed promise of a life filled with loneliness and heartache.
***
Rachel ran the entire way to the car in her heels, jumping over the cracked, uneven concrete on the sidewalk. It took her ten minutes to catch her breath as she drove to Houston, straight to the Galleria where she could disappear into a sea of people, smell the fried chicken coming from the fast food shops, hear the laughter of the children on the ice rink, and maybe get her hands to stop shaking.
Running into her piece of shit high school boyfriend hadn't been on her agenda today, but she felt pretty good about it since she’d yelled, “Fuck you,” when he tried to be nice to her. Even if she’d run out like a spaz after she’d said it.
She was still shaking though, she needed to pull it together before lunch.
Rachel couldn't afford to screw up lunch with this potential donor. If they agreed to sponsor the fundraising gala, she might be able to bring in enough revenue to break last year's record, and they really needed to hire somebody to help coordinate the volunteers. Rachel didn’t want to do it anymore. She’d started the ReachingOut website to help victims who didn't have anywhere else to go, nobody to call, no way to talk to people who'd been there and done that. The internet was the perfect forum for people to share without the fear of their neighbors learning their dirty secrets, without having to show people the bruises, without having to listen to how stupid they were for staying. She'd lived and breathed that organization for ten years. But she couldn’t listen to the damage that poured into her office anymore. She was burning out, but she’d never leave, so if she was going to build out her organization the way she dreamed, she’d need more help.
If she could just focus on the administrative side of things, that would be manageable. They needed new blood, somebody who could deal with the late night emails, stories about women losing their children to abusive husbands in divorces, people being thrown through sliding glass doors, broken arms, rape.
No wonder she never slept. She used to feel like she was making a difference, but for every woman she knew who escaped a violent relationship, she'd known six who hadn't. It weighed on her, and seeing Dylan had pushed her too far outside her comfort zone.
If the world was going to stop coming to a standstill everytime Rachel was faced with conflict, she would have to establish new boundaries.
"Mrs. Daniels?"
She looked up from where she sat picking her fingernails, and smiled at the middle-aged woman standing over her. She had a friendly face. That was a good start, the Valium wasn’t working yet.
"Hello, yes, I'm Rachel Daniels.”
"I'm Nancy Taylor, I recognized you from the photo in the Courier," and nodding to her companion, "One of my partners, Edward Billings."
"It's so nice to meet you both, we appreciate you wanting to hear more about ReachingOut," Rachel said, reaching to shake their hands. Her hands were too sweaty, they would know she wasn't confident.
"A pleasure, may I call you Rachel?" Edward asked politely, removing his suit jacket and placing it gently across his arm.
"Absolutely, please. Are y'all ready to eat? I'm starving!"
She tried to remember Jake's big pointers on asking people for money.
Start by disarming them with a trivial admission about yourself, it makes you more likeable.
A hostess showed them to their table and Rachel's guests both ordered gin and tonics. It wasn't even noon. Her face must have shown her surprise because Nancy laughed openly and placed her hand over Rachel's to put her at ease.
"Don't worry, Rachel, we'll only have one. We don't normally start with gin at a noon meeting. At least not on weekdays. We're celebrating, we just settled a year-long civil litigation case we all thought would drive us to early graves. I hope you don't mind."
"Of course not," Rachel said uncomfortably, "Work hard, play hard, right? Let's hear about this big case."
And they did play hard. Rachel grew up around Texas lawyers. Her father, Jameson, all of their lawyer friends worked long hours and stayed up late boozing, telling war stories and ribbing one another about their alma maters. It was what killed her father, working hard and playing hard.
"You got it, work hard, play hard," Edward winked at her, "This one was profitable, but too time consuming, a disgruntled government organization threatening a billion dollar company, regulatory oversight bullshit. But I'm tired of talking about it, death to the disgruntled government! Let's talk about ReachingOut. Our partner shared the article from the Houston Courier and told us to write you a big check, but I hate to part with my money unless I know there's a fishing trip or a hooker in it for me somewhere."
"Edward," Nancy shot him a dirty look, "Don't be an ass. Sorry, Rachel, he sometimes forgets himself in the presence of ladies."
"That's because I never hang out with any," Edward laughed, "Sorry, Rachel. Let's hear more about what you're doing."
Rachel smiled and took a deep breath, nervously reaching for the rubber band on her wrist under the table and snapping it against her skin. It helped keep her grounded when she was feeling nervous, a trick she'd picked up during her stay in that pleasant mental health facility Savannah liked to call, "the extended stay spa and resort."
It had already been a rough morning, and Rachel knew her lack of enthusiasm would make this a hard sell. She reached over and took a long pull of Edward's gin, launched into her pitch and lost herself. The Valium and the gin worked, she explained the concept for ReachingOut, talked about the fundraiser, outlined her vision for the next few years, and it only took twenty minutes.
They listened intently while she spoke, Nancy asked a few questions, Edward asked none.
"So, any assistance your firm may be able to offer in sponsoring our annual fundraising gala would be a tremendous help," she concluded.
She reached for her iced tea and waiting for the inevitable refusal to help because they thought she was neurotic and had no business managing the organization she'd started herself more than ten years before. Nancy watched her thoughtfully, Edward picked at his cheesecake. She considered thanking them for meeting with her and offering to follow up in a few weeks, but then Nancy spoke up.
"Rachel, can I ask how you got involved in this kind of work? Where did you get the idea for the web-based support groups?"
She hated explaining why she was in this line of work, but people always asked. It had taken her a long time to outline an answer that didn't make people feel uncomfortable.
"I always had a hard time socially, coming out of my shell and talking to people. A friend of mine suggested I get online and s
tart meeting people who had the same problem, and I stumbled into a chat room with these amazing people who understood what that felt like. Behind the computer, I was able to overcame my social anxiety, and I didn't worry as much about feeling judged, or being afraid that people would run and gossip about things I shared in confidence. Then I met some people who experienced domestic violence and they were terrified of being found out in the real world, so they only shared anonymously with people on the internet. There weren't really any websites that offered web-based support to that particular demographic, so I got with a friend and we decided to create one. And when we realized people needed real material assistance, like money to leave and places to go, we started to expand our services. And it grew organically from there."
She took another breath and reached for her tea.
"I love what you're doing," Nancy said suddenly, "Will fifty thousand cover the expenses for the fundraiser? And leave some leftover to use for your direct services?"
Rachel knocked over her iced tea, Edward never even looked up from his cheesecake.
She reached to wipe up the mess, stammering, "Oh, wow, that is, that is so generous... of course, that's an amazing level of support. Wow. That would be amazing. Thank you."
Jake would have been mortified to see her. Graceful under pressure, she was not.
They said their goodbyes and Rachel pulled out of the parking garage, her head buzzing. People didn't just cut checks like that to piddly little non-profits like hers, not without wanting something huge in return. She knew a lot of wealthy people who threw money around, but none who would write her a fifty thousand dollar check after a forty-five minute lunch meeting. She told herself not to be surprised if the check never showed, and stifled the passing glimpse at what a fundraiser would look like if they had that kind of money to spend on table linens, flowers and fancy invitations.
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