I stare at Barry. Neither of us move or say a word. It feels like this is the longest moment of my life.
Finally, Barry carefully reaches over and grabs the remote without taking his shell-shocked eyes off me. He clicks the tv off and we are left in silence. Another long minute goes by.
"Hi," I finally speak in a cracked voice.
He takes another moment to process this.
"Rachel?" he breathes in disbelief. I nod my head and try to smile, but I feel too guilty. Barry finally starts to get himself up from the bed and he stands.
"How is this possible?" he asks.
"What do you mean?" I question him back, concerned.
"How are you back?"
"Did you think I was dead, what did they tell you?" I ask, wondering a million things.
"They said you were drafted for war and we were never to speak about it for the good of our country," he tells me.
I shake my head in disbelief. That's what they went with, how is that believable?
"And you believed that?" I ask the stupidest question. "Never mind, of course you did. Although, you have to admit that's a little stretched don't you think? There's suddenly a draft and yet only two of us get chosen. And I get chosen over my husband?" I try to point out, growing angry again with this incredibly fake society.
He walks closer to me as if to make sure I'm real and I'm surprised he's not ready to kill me yet.
"So, what happened? Where did you go? What's going on Rachel?" he presses.
It hits me in this moment, he doesn't know. How could he know? I never confessed about Joey. I never told him a thing and the second I left he was told I was fighting for my country, what else would he believe? I realize I have to tell my husband I abandoned him on purpose, that I cheated on him and violated every law the man has ever lived by.
I take a large gulp and try to settle my nerves.
"Barry, there was no draft. In fact, no one forced me to leave at all and I came back on my own too," I tell him gently.
This confuses him more than ever. He looks completely dumbfounded at me.
"Barry, do you like your job?" I ask him.
"Yeah it's fine, why are you changing the subject?" he looks at me crazy.
"I'm not - look what if I told you, you can apply to any job you want, you can choose to do whatever you feel like and you could even marry someone other than me?"
He backs up and his eyes widen.
"Rachel, why are you talking like this, what happened to you? Are you okay?"
"Barry, listen to me. I left and outside this town is an entirely different world. We are in a prison here," I try to tell him.
"What? You're acting crazy Rachel, are you sure you feel okay?" he retracts.
"Barry I feel fine-"
"Did they do something to you, give you some medicine?"
"Barry, I slept with someone else!" I shout at him.
He freezes, his chest falls and I instantly regret everything.
"Wha-what? How is that possible?" he stammers.
I hate this, I hate hurting him.
"I'm sorry Barry, I really really am so sorry. But I was so unhappy and now I know I don't have to be. We can leave Barry, we can all leave and be happy."
I feel tears building, looking at his broken and shocked face.
He stays quiet for a moment.
"Barry, please say something," I plead.
He shakes his head in disbelief, I've never seen him so hurt.
"How can I? There's no such thing as deceit here, how- I can't understand..." he chokes. I rush over to him and try to put my hands on his shoulders, but he backs away from me.
"Barry I hate that I did this to you, but I needed to see if I could be happy. And I want you to be happy, I want you to be so happy. All you have to do is leave with me and Joey and hopefully everyone. Everyone has to get out of here. You have no idea how much freedom is out there!" I tell him.
He shakes his head no and suddenly his eyes grow mean.
"No, I would never go anywhere with you. You are a soulless human. Leave my house," he demands.
"What? Barry no please you have to believe me-"
"Get out! Get out of my house your home wrecker!" he yells and I jump in my skin at his loud and incredibly harsh tone.
"Go!" he shouts again and I hurry out of the room, down the stairs and out the front door.
I cry, I can't help, but cry. I destroyed his life and he won't even let me help him, he won't even accept anything from me.
I start running to Joey's.
I bang on the door until Cindy answers. I don't even play dumb or hesitate for a second.
"Cindy, you believe us don't you?" I blurt out. Joey approaches the door behind her.
"I really don't understand," she worriedly answers looking back to Joey. Joey shakes his head no at me. I start falling apart even more.
"No one believes us! No one is going to leave!" I start bawling my eyes out and Joey rushes past Cindy to comfort me.
"Hey, hey calm down, it's okay," Joey holds me tightly and I cry into his chest.
"No, it's not!" I bawl even harder.
I break away from Joey's embrace.
"Cindy, do you really believe you and Joey are meant to be together and you two are honestly perfect for each other?" I spill through my tears. She is about to answer and I can already sense the typical response she is about to give me. I wipe my eyes viciously and take a step closer to her, which makes her unsettled.
"Cindy, come on. Forget about everything you've ever known. Really think with your heart. If you were given a choice to choose anyone to be matched with. Do you really believe Joey is your perfect match?" I press more.
She looks at both of us and then finally shakes her head.
"Okay no... I don't," she nearly whispers as if others might hear.
"See, there you go!" Joey jumps in excitedly. He puts his hands on Cindy's shoulders and turns her to him.
"This is what I'm trying to tell you. But if you just trust us you can find that person, you can do whatever you want with your life," Joey exclaims to her and I nod my head wildly.
"I don't know, I've never gone anywhere..." Cindy frets.
"Neither have we until we just did it and you know what, it was amazing! Cindy you have to trust us. You have to realize you're living in a town of lies. I mean they told you we went to war, but here we are telling you we didn't. It was a lie. We left and we're leaving again and we want everyone to come with us," I explain.
She looks at us, unsure and scared.
"Please Cindy, we just want you to be happy. You can always come back," Joey tries.
She bite her lip in distress.
"Okay, I'll try," she finally says and Joey and I practically jump up and down celebrating.
"Great okay, pack a bag and then tell everyone you can. Your family, friends. Say anything you can to convince them," Joey urges her.
"Tell them Joey and I are living proof, we'll talk to them if you can't," I add.
Cindy nods her head, still feeling nervous, but she heads into the house to do as we told her.
After a few hours of trying to talk to all our friends and family, we get most on board. I think our friends and families mainly say yes just so they won't lose us again.
It's not the whole town, but it's a good amount of people, at least mostly everyone we know. Finally, Joey and I decide we've done our best and we can always come back to try and convince more in the future, but for now we want to drive out of town with our friends and family and show them a bit of the real world. So, we all get in our cars, there are maybe fifteen cars following us as we start driving to the edge of our town to leave for the second time.
As we are approaching the sign for our town, there's a blockade of police cars. We brake. They also constructed a gate on the road so we can no longer pass through.
I panic in my chest. This is what I feared, I guess I just actually thought we were in the clear since we returned and no one bothered us.
Joey and I freeze as the line of cars behind us come to a stop as well.
"Please exit your vehicles!" A cop yells through a megaphone so everyone can hear.
He starts repeating this over and over until we all start getting out of our cars.
"Please return to your homes immediately!" Another cop shouts through another megaphone.
I hear a couple people quickly scurrying back to their houses, leaving their cars in the street. Joey and I stay standing. We look back and see our friends and family still behind us. Most of the people behind us start moving foward so everyone can see the blockade of police.
"You can't force us to stay here!" Joey calls back at them.
A few of the cops start walking closer to us.
"Listen up, there is order to a society, without order, everything falls apart!" A cop loudly remarks.
"There is order in the real world. This place has us tied to our beds," Joey fights back.
This angers the cop visibly.
"This man is wrong! We have led a very civilized society up until this point and there has never been a need to question authority before therefore these two unruly individuals are the problem and so you are both under arrest!" The cop speaks loud enough for everyone to hear.
The officer then moves to me and grabs my wrists, pulling them behind my back and reaching for his handcuffs. I struggle to break free from him, delaying his ability to handcuff me right away.
"Hey let her go!" Joey jumps, but another officer runs and pushes Joey to the ground, attempting to handcuff him.
The officer is still harshly pulling at my arms as I'm struggling to escape.
"Hey, take your hands off my daughter!" I hear my dad yell and then see him charge at the officer. Another cop runs to take a hold of my dad.
"Dad!" I scream seeing the horror of them knocking him down.
The three of us are handcuffed and pushed to the ground. We can see everyone else is too scared to stand up for us. They have never risen their voices in their lives. They've never disobeyed anything. I'm actually shocked my father even faught for me at all.
I notice some others from the town, coming out from their homes, starting to approach this scene. They must be overhearing all this. I think Joey notices the crowd building as well.
"You can't keep us all here! You can't stop us all!" Joey calls from the ground.
People still look hesitate to do anything. I finally build up the courage to join him.
"He's right! They can block the roads, they can threaten us and try to arrest us. But there are more of us in the entire town than them!" I yell from the ground and everyone is listening.
The cop yells at me to shut up.
"Hey don't talk to her like that!" My dad yells and the officer next to him kicks him on the ground.
We hear some audible gasps from the crowd that is still building.
"They're right!" I hear a voice from the crowd.
I look up and see Barry. I'm shocked to see him at all. I pick myself up as much as I can from the ground to watch him as he approaches the front of the crowd.
"This is no way to treat us. We've stayed quiet for too long! Leave your cars. Take your things and get out! There are more ways to leave. They can't stop us and if you think you are safe going back to your homes, you're not! They're controlling our lives, clearly they don't have our best interest at heart!" Barry yells and everyone is listening intently.
"Everyone shut up and get back inside now!" Another officer further back yells through one of the megaphones.
Suddenly, a sharp bang explodes in our ears and we see the officer has shot a gun in the air. None of us have even seen a gun. The officers in our town always claimed everything was too safe to even need guns for. Society was so well behaved there was never a real need for weapons or violence.
This gun scares everyone and people start running. I think it's over, that they are running back to their homes, but soon I realize they aren't running to their houses, but running away. They are grabbing their bags and running for the woods. Some people are jumping over the gate and running straight out of the town. I look at Joey who sees this too. We get up, still in our handcufffs.
"Dad, come on!" I yell and Joey kicks the officer in his shin making him buckle over. Some people, such as Barry and others, start running over to us and helping us get away from the officers. Soon the cops are fighting with actual civilians. Barry and another man hold down an officer as someone steals a key for the handcuffs and set us free. Joey and I grab one as many of our friends and family as we can. We run back to the car to help them grab their stuff until we see a car speed past the line of cars through the crowd of officers and fighting townspeople. Everyone jumps out of the way of the speeding car and the car crashes through the gate. We all jump back in our cars and follow the car.
We make it out. We're out.
Joey and I are breathing heavy while we are speeding down the roads.
Eventually the front car pulls over and Joey and I follow, allowing the long line of us cars behind us to pull over as well.
We all get out. Everyone is quiet for a moment, everything feels so surreal. How did we pull this off? How did we save almost an entire town? I look at the people as they start calling others, probably more people still in town. I hear them telling everyone to pack a bag and run.
I look through the crowd as my parents come over to hug me. I hug them back.
I finally spot Barry in the crowd. I run over and hug him tighter than I ever have in my life. He hugs me back... thankfully.
~ Three Weeks Later ~
Everyone is settling in. A large portion of Greenwich followed Joey and I back to the town we were just starting to settle into. Others went traveling, exploring...who knows where. They went to live their life. My family and friends all stay with Joey and I, which I couldn't be happier about.
I'm working at the coffee shop which has now become a common place for my friends to hang out.
A lot has changed, ends up Ross's wife Carol is a lesbian and so her and Ross are getting a divorce. Phoebe ended it with her husband solely because as she says: "She's a free spirit now and needs to spread her wings."
Monica and Chandler are still together, which makes me happy that there were still some good ones matched in that god awful town.
I'm behind the counter making a fresh pot of coffee when Mindy runs over to me.
"Rach, you will never believe this, but I'm getting married!" she shrieks with pure joy.
"Oh my god Mindy! I can't believe this, who are you marrying?"
"Oh my god this amazing guy, I just met him three weeks ago. I know it's fast, but I'm telling you he's the one. He's- oh here he is now!" She exclaims and I look over to see Barry walk through the coffee shop doors. My mouth drops open.
He walks over and kisses Mindy and then smiles at me.
"Hey Rachel," he says nicely.
"Congrats you two," I smile.
They thank me and then Barry whisks Mindy away and I chuckle at the insanity of our situation.
The next face I see is the man I'm so utterly in love with - Joey.
"Hey, you getting off work?" he smiles a perfect smile at me as he leans on the counter.
"Yep, twenty minutes," I smile back.
"Good, I've missed you," he says.
This makes me laugh since we've been living together in total freedom for three weeks now and see each other all the time.
"You know what babe, you're right, I think we should really take some time to reconnect," I flash a suggestive smile at him. His smile fades for a moment and he looks at me.
"You're talking about sex right?"
"Yes," I smirk at him.
"Then, I definitely want to reconnect," he grins and leans completely over the counter to kiss me.
I kiss him back.
"Okay get out of here before you get me fired," I tease him and push him away.
"But then we'd have way more time!" he jokes.
I snicker as I grab the pot of fresh coffee and bring it over to one of my customers.
I take a moment to look over at my friends. I can't believe this is real, it's so insane we're all living so free now. Actually, it's not insane, it's perfectly normal. I hate that all of us wasted so much of our lives in a brainwashed state.
At least, we get to start our lives now, no matter how late it is.
I finally love my life... I'm finally happy.
