It's so odd to be posting at one in the morning again. I haven't done this in ages. This is what holidays does to me. It screws up my sleep cycle. In two days I have to get up at 5.30am and go to work...
Chapter 10
Steph's POV
"You look like Death warmed over," Veronica informed me as I slumped against the counter.
"Gee thanks," I replied with an eye roll and a yawn.
Veronica hit a few more keys on the computer she sat behind before eyeing me critically once more. "Well you do," she said. "Don't you think Stephanie looks positively ghastly, Heather?"
Heather, who was on her knees silently singing the alphabet in her head a dozen times a minute, put down the latest file in her hand and leaned out from behind the cabinets. Her gaze travelled slowly over my green flats, up the inches of bare leg to the perfectly ironed A-line dress in a deep magenta. She eyed the belt that matched flats. And the cardigan that managed to pull the whole thing together. Her observation lingered over my face for several long moments before flitting to my hair and then returning to settle on eye contact.
"You look like hell," Heather confirmed with a frown, getting to her feet and shaking her legs out before perching her jeans clad butt on the edge of the closest desk. "You haven't caught that stomach bug that's going around, have you? I've had to send four kids home with it so far this week."
I shook my head. It was Wednesday. The middle of the week. Hump day, as Linda called it. And I was tired. To be honest, I'd been tired for eight months, but had learned to live with the lack of sleep the nightly nightmares gifted me with. It had gotten a lot easier when they'd eventually died down to just one screaming awakening a night, but for some reason, they were back with a vengeance. Last night, I'd been so afraid to go to sleep that I'd stared at the ceiling until two o'clock, the time that I usually managed to roll over and actually drift into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
Thinking I'd dodged the bullet by-
Thinking I'd escaped the nightmare's hold by staying up during the time they usually plagued me, I finally closed my eyes and allowed sleep to creep in. Only to jerk awake on a raw scream two hours later.
Once my breathing had calmed, I'd stumbled into the bathroom, splashed some water on my face and stared into my own red rimmed, blue eyes in the mirror above the vanity for several aching minutes. What I would have given to have Ranger there, behind me, his thumbs working soothing circles on my shoulders as I attempted to calm down. But that was impossible.
Frustrated with my subconscious for replaying the worst day of my life a million times over while I should have been catching z's, and at my waking brain for longing for that which could never happen, I'd abruptly turned on my heel in much the same way Tank would when he was done with a conversation, and flipped on the taps to start filling the bathtub while I rummaged in the cupboard for the bubble bath.
I'd submerged my body in the scalding hot water, seeking refuge in the gentle fizz of the popping bubbles as they surrounded my ears. I leaned my head against the end of the tub and just stared at the inside of my eyelids for the longest time, waiting for the water to cool enough that I did feel like I was on fire anymore. When finally it reached an appropriate temperature an hour later, I plunged beneath the surface of the water, escaping the reality of the real world for as long as I could hold my breath. As the last bubbles of air drifted from my nose to the frothy surface, I attempted to hold my position a little longer, feeling the burn in my chest telling me to hurry up and breathe already. It was familiar, because I'd felt it every second of every day since Ranger's death, but it was better here in the tub. I controlled it's power over me. I allowed it for as long as I wanted. And when I'd had enough, I burst through the surface gasping in the warm air that lingered in around me.
Blinking away the memory of this morning, I realised that I'd probably been standing there silently for a long time. Focussing on Heather and Veronica's concerned expressions, I tried and failed to recall if they'd asked a question that I should be answering. Eventually, I just shrugged and mentioned, "I haven't been sleeping well."
"Ohhhh," Heather said, drawing the sound out with a knowing nod. "I see. Haven't been sleeping well. Tell me more."
Before I could shoot down her suggestive tone, though, Veronica was slapping her in the arm with the ruler from her top drawer. "Heather," she hissed, giving a third slap. "That's really insensitive."
"What?" Heather asked.
"Steph's fiancé died earlier this year," Veronica reminded her, while I did some deep breathing to try not to break down.
"So?" Heather replied. "A girl has needs. No one's gonna blame her for getting a little action."
Another round of ruler slaps followed. "She. Lost. Her. True. Love. You. Withered. Old. Cow," Veronica grit out, punctuating each word with a slap. "True love is forever. There's no bouncing back from that."
Heather scoffed, moving out of reach of the ruler. "Like you would know? Making eyes at a married man."
"I'm going to check on Lucy in the sick room," I mentioned, tucking a curl that had escaped my bun behind my ear. "Let me know when you're done talking about me like I'm not in the room."
*o*
When I returned to the office half an hour later, after cleaning up the vomit Lucy Burt had managed to not get inside the bucket she held, I moved straight to my desk and picked up the handset intending on calling Lucy's parents again. The problem here, of course, was that most parents worked full time these days and the possibility of even making contact with either one of them, let alone getting them to physically come and collect their sick child was almost impossible. I was shaking my head at the state of parenthood with while scrolling through the electronic contact list when I noticed the presence of a low murmuring voice in the background.
My first instinct was to assume it was Gregory, the principal, but timbre of the voice was all wrong. Gregory had a relatively high voice – for a male, that is – and spoke in a slightly lilting, almost musical cadence. This man, whoever he was, had more of a rumble.
"Is that Lucy's Dad?" I asked Veronica, spinning slightly in my chair so see her.
But Veronica wasn't listening. She had her elbow propped on her desk and her chin propped in her hand, staring with dreamy eyes at whoever it was. I rolled my eyes, and stood to make my way over to where Heather was stood at the enquiries counter. Only then did I think to look at the man in question.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Staring. My mom would have pinched the back of my hand and whispered a quick admonishment about me being rude if she'd been there. But she wasn't. And I kept on. I took in the sheer size of the man first. It was my initial reason for pause. For a moment, I thought Tank had finally crossed the line and showed up at my work to harass me some more about ignoring him. But then I noted that he wasn't quite as big as Tank. And his skin wasn't quite as dark as Tank's. And he had both his arms, unlike Tank. In short, it wasn't Tank. It wasn't even a Merry Man. It was just some random buff guy.
Finishing my approach to the counter, I sent the man a brief, friendly smile before glancing to Heather. "Is everything all right?" I asked her.
"Fine," she said absently. "Mr. Ingles is considering transferring his daughter here and would like a tour of our facilities." She prised her eyes off the man's bulging pectoral muscles long enough to send me a fleeting look. "Would you mind taking over the filing while I – um …" Her attention had returned to the man's chest once more as he reached up to scratch the back of his head and the muscles bulged under the thin material of his grey shirt.
Amateur. Heather clearly hadn't spent enough time around well-muscled men if her brain was this addled by his mere presence.
"I'll take care of the tour," I informed her, sending the patiently waiting man another friendly smile. "You get back to your filing."
When Heather made no move to return to her task, I offered an apology to Mr. Distraction and promised to be back in a moment, before taking gently by the shoulders and guiding her back to the file cabinet. "Act professionally, would you?" I admonished, cringing at how much I sounded like my mother.
"Easy for you to say," Veronica said, still staring in the direction of the man. "You're used to that kind of sight."
I rolled my eyes again. "I bet neither of you noticed the ring on his finger, did you?" I said quietly, placing a file in Heather's hand and opening a random drawer of the cabinet she was now peering around. "I'll be back soon."
"Spare no details!" Heather called after me as I made my way around the counter and through the door that lead to the visitor's area where Mr. Muscle was waiting for his tour.
"Sorry about that," I mentioned, extending hand as I came to a stop a couple of feet away. "I'm Stephanie, it's nice to meet you Mr…." I'd forgotten his name.
"Ingles," he supplied, taking my hand in his and gripping it firmly for a brief moment. "Please, call me Greg."
"It's nice to meet you, Greg," I repeated. "Shall we get this tour underway?"
"Please," he agreed. He was the most mild-mannered, muscle man I'd ever encountered outside of Rangeman, and I'd encountered my fair share of he-men over the years. My experience was that generally, they wanted to chuck me in a dumpster, or stuff me in a suitcase, or beat me to a pulp. But this man just seemed concerned about his daughter's education. "Sophie's going into third grade," he informed me as I lead him down the corridor.
"Sophie is your daughter?" I asked, conversationally.
"One of them," he confirmed with a nod. "Sierra just started middle school this year."
"Just the two?"
Another nod. "My wife wanted a boy, but we were never lucky enough."
"Living with three women must keep you on your toes," I mentioned, thinking of the havoc my sister, mother and I had plagued Dad with when Val and I were growing up.
"It does get interesting at times," he agreed with a short laugh. "Do you mind if I ask some questions about the school?"
"Of course not."
"Great," he smiled as we rounded the first corner. "What kind of music program do you have? Sophie loves to sing. She had her hopes on joining the school choir until they cancelled funding for the music program there."
"Oh, Mrs. Rafferty is brilliant," I enthused, exactly the way Veronica had when she'd given me the tour a few months back. "She studied music method in Hungary at this special world famous school and is often invited to perform as a guest artist with the Symphony Orchestra."
"Sounds impressive."
I simply nodded and peek through the glass portion of the classroom we'd reached. "This is the third grade classroom," I explained, opening the door. "The children must be at a specialist class at the moment. Would you like to take a look around?"
Rather than reply, he sent me another warm smile and stepped inside the room. As he walked slowly through the rows of desks, examining the artwork and writing examples tacked to the wall and hanging from the ceiling, I stood in the doorway, marvelling at how much better I was at this interpersonal communication thing than I had been when I started here. After years of hanging around macho men and dealing with criminals on a regular basis, I'd had to retrain my entire manner of being in order to fit and do my job properly.
"The teacher is nice?" Greg asked, coming to stand beside me at the door when he was through.
"Very," I confirmed. "All the teachers are nice. Would you like to see the music rooms next?"
He nodded ascent and followed me from the room, trailing a step behind the entire way. We were silent for a few beats, and I assumed he was just taking in the environment, but then he asked a question that had the hairs on the back of my head rising. I don't know whether it was the question itself, or the way that he asked it, but I suddenly knew.
"What's the security like?" he asked, pointing to a camera tucked into the corner were two walls met the ceiling.
I turned to face him, looking him over more fully than I had in the office. Yes, he wore a grey button down shirt faded jeans, but his feet were clad in an unmistakeable pair of black combat boots. It didn't matter that he'd tucked his jeans over top of them. I recognised their shape without a problem.
"Security is provided by the government's nominated service provider," I informed him stiffly. "But I have a feeling you already knew that."
"Sorry?" he murmured, appearing, for all intents and purposes, confused.
"What's your occupation, Mr. Ingles?" I asked, just to distract myself from flying off the handle.
"I'm a psychiatrist," he replied easily.
"You don't look like a psychiatrist," I said.
"Looks can be deceiving," he said, but there was a new guarded nature to his tone and his expression was just a little more blank than it had been moments ago.
"Tell Tank I'm fine," I told him. "I don't need a psychiatrist. I don't need his help. I'm fine."
"He's just worried about you," Greg said softly, dropping the charade as he straightened his shoulders. "They all are."
I squared my own shoulders and turned to head back in the direction from which we'd come. "Then tell them to stop worrying about me. And don't ever think about sending a Merry Man undercover to spy on me." And with that, I stalked away, all the way back to the office, my soft soled shoes making far less noise than it would take to satisfy my tantrum metre. Probably, I'd have to go for a run after work just to get my frustration out.
I hate running.
Why couldn't they just get the picture? It hurt to look at them. It hurt to be around them. I just wanted to be left alone to try and rebuild my life. There was no way I would ever get the torn shreds to look and feel the way they used to, especially with such a vital element missing, but I had to try. The constant stream of Merry Men popping up out of the scenery was not helping. Not one bit. It only made my heart ache that little bit extra when I had to push them away again.