The Kindness of Strangers
By Rianne
Away.
That was the only place she could go. The only place she could breathe, and barely at that.
The ache made her chest tight; her legs strode on, beating their tattoo on the sidewalk, her heels slamming out the same painful tempo as her broken heart. Muscles in her thighs burning with the tension, the constant driving forward, towards escape, towards clear air, clear mind, clear heart.
Barely aware of the rush of the city around her. Ignoring the blare of horns, and shouts through open windows. Ignoring the trill of her cell, over and over. Unable to care that they were probably all worried about her.
She hadn't taken the time to grab her coat, leaving it hanging on the back of her empty desk chair. She was cold. Her thin shirt rippling in the early summer breeze, the cotton flimsy, bought quickly and cheaply to replace as much of her work wardrobe as was possible after the explosion.
She crossed the street onto the lighter side. Hoping the muted sunlight might warm her chilled skin.
Wrapping long arms around herself.
But she could not go back.
Not with all those eyes on her. Pitying, uncomfortable, awkward, sad gazes.
Laine, Montgomery, Ryan, Espo.
They who knew. Knew far too much.
They who had seen. Had watched the wrecking ball demolition of her new and scarcely flickering hope.
Whose unified view of her reeling in devastation had made the sting of tears flood. Had set the need to flee in motion.
Castle.
Her teeth worried her lip. Prick of pain enough to bite it back.
No.
She was strong. She prided herself on strong. She relied on strong.
She wasn't strong enough to go back in.
She needed to hide.
To regroup, to lick her wounds, to grieve.
Everything ached.
Limbs, brain, head, heart.
Eyes stinging with it.
With desolation.
You don't know what you've got till it's gone.
She should have known better. Than to want to care, to love, to need.
She did know better. Than to believe she could have the life she wanted. The kind she saw others enjoy.
She knew better than to trust.
To let herself.
Everyone she loved left.
A sob escaped without permission and she strove on, fighting to ignore it.
Castle.
And his just throwing out words all the time. Practically spewing them all over her carefully protected life.
Bending her ear, her mind, her heart.
Whispering coaxes, hinting he liked her, teasing her with letters and syllables and softly worded caresses.
Adding to the words in his books that she had always kept close, even before Nikki Heat.
Tempting her with the thought of time away at his Hamptons retreat.
Just the two of them.
Blurted out, as if his tongue got away from him.
Glazing her eyes and his with shocky surprise.
She wished he had never opened his mouth. Never put the words out there.
Never made her wonder what could be.
Just a weekend he had said.
No funny business.
Enough time to relax, to unwind, to reset, before she was back on the streets, doing what she loved, what she needed to do, just refreshed, refocused, clear.
But he knew better. And he had dared anyway.
He knew he had no right to offer.
She had Demming, and she had not shared her plans for their weekend away with Castle. So she lied. She had no vacation days left, came tumbling from her lips.
But she had had Demming, with his bringing their date to the precinct. Chinese in the break room with a single sweet candle. His understanding of her job and its importance. His respect. His genuine and could be trusted interest.
Demming hadn't played games. Hadn't shown off with fancy restaurants and coffee machines, or toyed with her affections. He had only sought to be with her, enjoy what little spare time they could share. To make the most of their intense, but perhaps at times slightly too rough sexual attraction. Beating him down to the mat had set them off on an unstoppable tangent. Refreshing in its innovation, definitely surprising and pleasurable, but nothing to fall in love with. Nothing to sustain them.
It had been mild disappointment she had felt and read from him in return when she had told him it wasn't what she wanted.
She had felt nothing.
She recognised that now.
Now that the ache had torn her chest in two. The reminder of it drawing her palm to the clenched muscles under her breast. Feeling the desperate heave.
She needed to stop. To rest. To breathe.
Before she sank to the sidewalk in a hyperventilating heap.
She was healthy, at the peak of fitness and she was wheezing.
And she was lost.
A New Yorker almost all of her life and the crossroads she stood upon were unrecognisable to her.
She stopped.
Panting.
Slowed her brain enough to take in her surroundings with clarity.
A bank, a grocery store, a coffee shop.
A coffee shop.
She would just take the time. A drink. Then she would catch a cab. Go home. Sleep as if this day had never started.
The bell rang too jolly as she crossed the threshold.
The scent of roasted coffee beans waving over her.
There was no queue. Few customers at tables and those that were read papers or screens.
The barista let her browse the chalkboard menu at her leisure, only stepping forward when she was ready to order, ready to speak without a breathless edge.
The motion of the coffee preparation was soothing, a caffeinated ballet. She observed with dreamlike stillness, her insides still buzzing as her external slowly sagged.
She barely had enough left to smile and murmur thank you as she passed over the money.
When was the last time she had bought her own coffee?
That is when it dawns.
When it hits her.
Hard, and right in the gut.
This is the place.
The secret place Castle won't give her the name of.
The paper cup is the same, the size.
She peels back the lid with tentative fingers and the swell of fragrant steam that wafts to surround, fills her eyes with tears.
This is the place.
Miles from work or where either of them live.
It is the place he gets her coffee from when she is most in need of it.
Most in need of cheering up.
And this final straw is just too much.
The first escaping tear splashes into the cup, disturbing the creamy surface, sending ricocheting refractions out to the edges as her vision blurs.
She puts the cup down on the nearest counter.
Backs away, the world too blurry and overwhelming, when even the simplest of things remind her of him.
Walking away with another woman.
His arm gently around another woman's waist. Palm spread against another woman's back.
His ex. Gina.
Showing her again how stupid she was to think that she was more than just his character muse.
The woman was nothing like her. Her opposite in every basic way.
Gina who he once loved, whom he married, who he has a history with, who he has taken away on their weekend.
To enjoy the escape he had promised to her.
Behaving like he didn't know what she had been about to say.
Even after she had smiled, had glowed, had hinted, had even said to him that she didn't need to drink to take him, in front of people, not even people, her colleagues, their friends.
Of a summer without him.
Of having to now work without him by her side.
Of not really knowing if she actually would see him in the fall.
The raw emotion was a wave, a wild drowning cascade, that was about to bring unrestrainable sobs.
She couldn't withstand it.
Her pounding heart ready to burst.
Bathroom.
Mostly blind, her hair obscuring her tears and flushed cheeks she stumbled for it.
Only just managed to get inside and into a stall before the wave crashed.
Sinking to the floor, back against the cold of the door, knees drawn to her chest.
One arm across her aching stomach, the other over her eyes.
Even this broken she could not help but behave with restraint.
But the sobs cared less.
Loud and pained they escaped.
Stealing her breath, burning her chest, needing freedom.
She didn't hear the gentle, cautious footsteps until it was too late.
Until they halted just outside the thin stall door.
Pausing, then shuffling closer as the owner bent.
Then a hand, female, small, older than her own, came sliding under the gap.
A small packet of tissues offered.
It took her a long moment.
Body still shuddering with repressed ache.
Staring down at the proffered gift. The simple support.
Reality clamouring its way back in.
Bringing with it a rush of embarrassment edged with shame.
Pinker cheeks, warmer under her arm.
"It's okay to cry, Darling," the quiet voice drifts under the door, soft and caring, a mother's voice, as the fingers holding the tissues wave them again until with trembling and grateful fingers she claimed them.
Sniffing.
Only just able to whisper a faint, 'Thank you' on an exhaled breath.
"You just stay here a while and let it out," the voice instructed, "I promise you will figure it out," the bestower rose again in a muted rustle of clothing, "and in the mean time, those tears of yours are a great place to start."
The footsteps retreated again, pausing only at the entrance to the bathroom, before speaking again.
"Failing that there is always Chocolate," came the parting suggestion, called out as the door swung closed.
The tiny smile that quirked just the very corners of her lips came without warning as her next breath huffed from her nose.
But it helped.
Made her think of Laine. Was just something she would say.
Her friend. Who loved her. Who somehow managed to understand her, cracks, broken fragments and all.
Who wanted to support her.
Who would commiserate with her.
The notion brought her scrambling into her pocket for her phone.
And the many calls she had ignored.
Brought fingers to the screen and dialled as she brushed her tangled hair from her eyes.
Awaiting the much needed pick up.
Clearing the tears from her throat as her friend answered.
"Hey, Laine, I..."