How We Ended
Summary: It was after Darcy's rape, that Helen and Randall Edwards, had begun to have problems.
Anyone who looked at the Edwards family, a few years ago, would've found he and Helen lucky. They constantly got comments on how great their family was and how beautiful their daughters, Clare and Darcy were. And Randall also knew that everyone thought his family had it all together. And they did. He and his wife cared about eachother and they loved their children with their whole hearts. Nothing bad seemed to ever touch them. Until it happened. The moment when they couldn't protect their eldest daughter, from something so dark and life destroying. It's sad how one moment, one action can destroy a family.
Darcy had went on a ski trip, with her best friend and her boyfriend. She had, of course, pretended to be sick so she could stay home, while her parents and Clare had went on a church retreat. They'd been none the wiser. Until their daughter had been found in her school's lockerroom showers, with her wrists slit. Even then, she wouldn't tell her parents why she'd done it. Randall and Helen both had a feeling that Peter and Manny knew the reason, and quite possibly, Clare did as well. There was something in the way that Darcy would scream when she had one of her nightmares. They'd ran to the room that their daughters shared one night, wanting to comfort her. When they'd peered in, they'd found that it had all gone quiet. Clare had climbed into Darcy's bed, arms wrapped comfortingly around the older girl. When Clare had looked at them, her eyes held a knowledge and a sadness, well beyond her years.
Life continued on, but not really. Randall and Helen were unable to talk to eachother, so lost in their own grief. They'd tried protecting their daughters from forces that might hurt them, and yet, they failed. It was a couple of weeks after Darcy's suicide attempt, when he met Sarah. A pretty blonde, in her twenties. He wasn't going to lie and say that he hadn't been attracted to her, because he had. And she'd made it well known, that she was attracted to him as well. It wasn't until Darcy tried to toss herself off of the roof of the school and then, when she made a false allegation against her teacher, Mr. Simpson touching her, that he'd given in. Sarah had definitely made him forget, for however brief that time was, the drama going on in his life. It was freeing. It continued on as things began to get tense between he and his wife, even after things calmed down, and Darcy admitted what had happened, and the family had went to therapy. He'd grown to care about Sarah. Some would probably call it an obsession. Others, and addiction. Truth be told, it was both of these things. Randall loved his daughters, he cared about Helen, but there was so much drama that had come with having a family. He hadn't dated much, when he was a teen. And by his twenties, he'd met and married Helen. He couldn't exactly explain how Sarah's attraction to him, made him feel. Not in words. But that was the reason that he continued on, with the affair.
Eventually, Darcy left Canada to do charity work in Kenya and Sarah had left her job as a secretary, at Randall's law firm. She'd met some guy, closer to her age, and as far as Randall knew, she'd married him. Randall should've given up on having affairs. He should've stayed faithful to his wife. But, then he met Trisha Barnes. A college student who was working for him, during her summer on an internship. She had high hopes to be a lawyer, like him. Another affair and another lie, that fell from his lips. Eventually, his wife became suspicious of his late hours at work and of how he completely skipped out on church and things for charity. They began to fight about how he was hardly ever home, and how when he was, he walked right back out the door. And about how they didn't talk anymore, and about so many other things. And yet, he still kept the secret of his cheating. Even when he looked at Clare one day, seeing the sad look that had appeared on her face as her parents fought, he'd felt guilt. But not enough to give up Trisha.
The family was poisoned the moment that he let the truth spill from his lips. He and Helen agreed that Clare didn't have to know the truth, while they quietly worked on their divorce. Their fighting got worse. It got to the point where they couldn't even be in the same room, without getting into a fight. It broke his heart when he saw Clare and how she acted out as she tried to get them to stop their fights. It broke his heart even more, when she broke down into tears, when he and her mother, told her about their plans for divorce.
Afterwards, he left the house and got a condo. He and Helen had made plans to share the condo, so they didn't have to sale the house that their daughters had grown up in, and make it harder for Clare. But he was sad to admit that he'd been a coward, when it had come to seeing his daughter. He hadn't seen her in a few months, since he left his old home. He was terrified of her finding out the reason for the divorce, and then hating him. He couldn't deal with that. Unfortunately, he was afraid that he already had lost her, by basically abandoning her.
He hadn't talked to his ex-wife, since their divorce had been completed, but he knew that Helen had gotten married to Glen Martin. Someone she'd been friends with, for years. They'd gotten into touch again, after Randall had admitted to his cheating. Glen was a good guy. He and his wife had gotten a divorce around five years ago, and she'd died three years afterwards, so he'd been raising his son, Jake on his own. From what Randall could recall, Glen and his wife at the time, Brenna, had treated Darcy and Clare, like their own children. They'd always wanted a daughter, but had been unable to have any kids, after Jake. Now, Glen had two daughters, even if they weren't his by blood.
In the end, the Edwards family was broken. Darcy was in Kenya, Randall and Helen had divorced, and he hadn't seen his youngest daughter in ages, Helen remarried a man who treated her like a queen, and Clare was in the middle, forced to deal with it all.
The End...