Thanking you for all the lovely reviews! Hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend too :) bonus to me doing my night shifts, I'm having the time to write a lot more, which means you don't have to sit and wait months on end for new chapters. Hopefully I haven't jinxed myself now though, all is good so far - fingers crossed.

This chapter is a short one, but enjoy

First week back at Waterloo Road had flown by pretty quickly, Rachel was happy to have a weekend to herself. Philip had decided to stay at his mums the rest of the week and said he'd be back Monday after school, he didn't say much on the new arrival, but no news is good news.

The rest of the week at the school went smoothly, Rachel speech on stage must of gone well as she'd not heard anymore from neither staff or students about any violence or bullying for that matter, which was great. A well deserved bottle of wine and a takeaway, was what Rachel had to look forward to this Saturday night. Grabbing the bottle of red and a wine glass from the kitchen, she made her way to the living room and put on a chick flick, whilst she waited for her food to arrive, ten minutes in and the doorbell rang - checking her watch as it was too early for it to be her food order. She wrapped her dressing gown around her, before answering the door.

"Kim, what you doing here?"

"Hey Rach, hope I'm not disturbing you, can I come in? I brought wine!"

She held up a bottle and then pulled the other from behind her back

"2 bottles of wine!"

Rachel laughed but also curious to why she passed by, not often she just shows up unannounced

"You're lucky that I went overboard on my takeaway then, it'll be here soon. Come in, I'll grab another glass from the kitchen"

Pointing her towards the living room, whilst she ran and grabbed another glass.

Rachel didn't want to wait to find out why Kim turned up, so she just jumped straight to the question

"Everything ok Kim?" Pouring her a glass of red which she already opened and then passed to her

"I should be asking you that really"

"Me? Why me? Everything is fine" Rachel started to think about the previous but couldn't quite work out what Kim had noticed it picked up on for that matter, Rachel was quite good at hiding her feelings from everyone else other than Eddie.

"Last Monday" Kim raised her eyebrows, hoping Rachel would click on to what she was talking about but nothing

"When I came to your office the day of the fight, I could tell you'd been crying. I didn't want to ask you then because we had bigger things to worry about and then I hardly saw you the rest of the days to ask, you were busy with meetings and paperwork. I was worried, so I thought a girly night in and 2 bottles of wine would do the trick"

Rachel didn't say anything, but she was happy her friend came by, she did need someone to talk to

"Rach, it's ok. If you don't want to tell me, it's fine. I just want you to know, I care and worry about you and that I'm here, a shoulder to cry on or just company. We don't even have to talk about it, we can just get drunk, eat food and watch

She looked over at the TV and then back to Rachel

"Sex and the city? Good choice"

"It's Melissa"

"Oh god, what has that cow of a sister done now?"

Rachel laughed which then made Kim burst out laughing too

"She's had the baby, a girl in fact 7lb 6oz"

"But that's, I mean she's 3 months early? That weight doesn't make sense"

"That's what I thought, but according to Phil the baby is doing fine and they're all doing fine"

She started to cry, to which then led her being buried into her good friends arms as support.

"Aw Rach, it'll be ok. You don't need them"

"He left me a letter" pulling herself away from Kim and wiping away her tears, then took a big gulp of her wine

"What did it say? Did you read it?"

"Nope!"

"Then what did you do with it? Where is it?"

"I folded it up and put it in a safe place at the school, I don't want to read it Kim, not yet anyway. It's still all to close for me, I still love him, that's why I can't handle any of this. It's getting too much."

The doorbell rang, which Kim then offered to grab the takeaway and Rachel got the plates and cutlery from the kitchen and bringing it back to the living room

"You know what we should do"

Rachel gave a side glance "what?"

"Set you up on online dating"

Rachel blurted out a laugh "not a chance!"

"Oh come on, it'll be fun. We can do it right now, I'll help you"

"Kim, I'm 39 years old, I am not going on a dating site. I don't want a relationship, I'm happy being alone - seems to be the better option for me right now anyway, less heartache"

Kim really felt for her friend but she wasn't giving up

"Rachel, I know plenty of women some even older than you on a dating site and they've met amazing men, some even got married!"

At this point Rachel got a bit bored of this conversation and her answer was still not going to change, she put down her cutlery, turned to her friend "one word, no!"

Kim knew straight away that was the end of that discussion, there was no way she was going to be able to change Rachel mind.

"Ok, ok. Sorry, it was just a thought. But let's change topic"

They giggled the night away, lots of wine was consumed. Rachel woke to find herself on the couch and Kim snoring away on the living room floor, the living room looked a mess and Rachel head was pounding. Looking at her watch it was 03:40 in the morning, quietly she stood up from the couch, grabbing as much as she could carry to clear away and take to the kitchen, leaving them on the worktop till later and then pouring herself a cold glass of water and getting two painkillers. No way was she going back to sleep on the couch, she closed the door quietly on her way passed and made her way up the stairs to her bedroom, texting a quick message to Kim so she wouldn't worry when she woke up, then curled up in bed and drifted off.