Chapter 11

Emily and JJ left the roster with tears shimmering in glossy eyes. Lips bloody after being bitten after seeing their broken friend. He had looked so broken, yet peaceful. What-, what a twisted combination. They walked back to their seats as the clock neared 10. The moon and stars seemed to be bright and shining yet the night was dark and bleary for them. And the eyes of Reid looking back on it had been the same dark and bleary that they felt now for a while.

Emily cleared out her seat, sitting down. She grabbed the letter from Reid to JJ. "Do you- are you ready to read the letter?"

JJ nodded her head, her bright blue eyes watering again.

Dear JJ,

I'll miss you. Thank you for always making sure I took care of myself, I don't know what I would've done without you. This is no one's fault but my own, don't blame yourself. I don't think trees anything or anyone would've or could've prevented this. It's been years in the making. 17 to be exact longer if you count the suicidal thoughts I dismissed as nothing after my dad left.

Thank you for caring for me. If our team is a family, you would be the responsible sister who is always there for us to fall back on. Throughout the years you've pushed me to do my best, sometimes I'd like to think I did. I've been drawing for a while, I know you'd have loved see my more peaceful pieces. I tried to be strong, but even the strongest man can't hold everything up for themselves. Not everyone can bear the weight of the world and I guess I fell into that category.

Thank you for making me feel included and comfortable in the team when it first joined. I'm sorry for leaving you like Rosaline, I'm sorry for leaving you and Henry.

Love,

Spence

A sob escaped from JJ's mouth. Mascara running down her face onto her cheeks. 17 years. 17 years of a cold brutal hell. That he faced alone. 17 years and she hadn't noticed anything, hadn't seen a damn sign.

Whatever Reid said this was her fault. Her fault for being a bad friend. For being oblivious. For being more worried about her own tiny problems than those large overbearing problems of her friend.

If she had noticed and gotten him help, this whole thing could have been avoided. She had forgotten about him and left him to fight his own demons.

She had almost failed him the same way she failed Rosalie. She may not have worked with him recently but she should have noticed. Should've noticed his deteriorating mental state. Noticed his lack of smiles. On a stranger, she would've. On a complete stranger she would have noticed their clothing, their laughter and smiles, their new hobbies, and shutting people out, it seemed on her family she was blind.

Her phone rang, her boyfriend's voice coming through from the other end. She agreed to what he said before hanging up.

"What's going on?" Emily asked urgency in her voice as JJ began collecting her stuff to go.

JJ turned to look at her, "Will needs me back at the house, Henry woke up he had a nightmare. He's had a nightmare."

Emily observed JJ's puffy tear stained face. "You're not in any condition to drive. You live on Maple right?"

JJ nodded and Emily continued, "I'll drive you there then call myself an uber to take me back to my house. We both need sleep and visiting doesn't start until 10 tomorrow, and we can't pull our rank again to see him after visiting hours. We'll both go home, ok?" JJ nodded following Emily out of the hospital, getting into the passenger seat of her car.

"He'll be ok, right?" JJ ran her hand through her messy blonde hair looking at Emily for confirmation and reassurance.

"Physically he'll be fine, mentally it will take a while, we just have to have hope. Everyone falls, but he's just never been able to get out. Instead he's been burying himself at the bottom of the hole with the dirt falling off the walls as he tried to claw at the walls. We need to clear away the dirt he covered himself in and then lower the rope."

"So, you mean like we need to help him get rid of the things that came because he never had help before getting him out?"

"We need to ease him out slowly and get him out of the pit he's in. I had someone there for me, I had someone get me out of my hole before I was buried too deep. Reid has been buried his whole life, we have to help him a lot before we can get him out of his hole and even then he'll always remember how it felt. The slow descent of falling, the terror as you lay at the bottom wondering how this happened, how did it get so far. The hope as you see the rope lower only to see it pulled a lot way too soon. The despair, the grief, and the horror as you think you're going to be there forever. The giving up after days and months go by and no one notices. The pain and self-hate as you realize that you as a person are not good enough to save yourself. It will take time but in the end, it will be worth it. We'll have him back."

JJ inhaled, as the car turned the corner preparing herself to ask Emily her next question. "Why did you start umm, you know cutting," JJ gestured at her arm, "you were like 15 or 16, what happened?''

Emily's knuckles whitened as her fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter, her body tensing up.

"I'd had a lot of stuff building up, you know sometimes it's all events building up, maybe it's just one big thing and maybe it's just you don't know it just happens. It all started at my church in Italy. I had just started noticing I wasn't just thinking that girls pretty I was you know attracted to them. In church, our youth pastor said that homosexuality was a sin and that they'd go to hell. And I decided that no, I wasn't a lesbian, I was just confused. To prove it I had sex with one of my friends, if anything it just cemented the fact that I was anything lesbian." Emily paused.

"So, you realizing you were a lesbian caused you to fall into your pit?"

The brunette shook her head. "No, then I got pregnant. My mom told me to get an abortion to kill the baby and my pastor said it was yet another thing that would send me to hell. I got the abortion my pastor told me to never come back. Guess that love for everyone has its limits." Emily gave a humorless laugh. "My friend Micheal went with me to get my abortion and then he walked with me to church and we walked down that aisle and the pastor looked and me, stared and me, and then continued his lecture ignoring me.

I sunk into a depression. I mean I was a lesbian, who had an abortion, how much worse could I get. So I cut myself open. A year later Micheal caught me, he slowly got me to stop, giving me rubber bands and stress balls. A few months later I was clean. Then we moved again. He's dead now. Micheal. You remember the exorcism case. He was one of the victims. The only reason I didn't pick up the blade again was because I couldn't ruin all his hard work. You're the first person I've told."

"Thank you for sharing, I'd hug you if you weren't driving. He sounded like a good friend."

A tear slipped down Emily's cheek. "He was the most amazing friend in the world. You are too, a good friend, I'm sure Reid wrote the same."

"Am I though? I seem to never connect any dots with people close to me. My older sister Rosalie committed suicide I never saw that coming either. I should've seen the signs in Reid bur I was blinded." Silent tears dripped down her face, creeping onto her shirt.

"JJ, I should've seen the signs, I saw the signs everyone I looked in a mirror, and the worst part was every sign I did see, I excused as projecting myself on him. Reid doesn't want you to blame yourself. Did he say it was your fault?"

A quietly whispered no was heard in the car.

"He said it wasn't your fault, you didn't even work with him anymore, I saw signs and disregarded them because it was Reid. Sweet innocent Reid."

"If it's not my fault it's not your fault either, ok? We both saw things that should have meant something to us because we didn't think there could be anything wrong with Spence. How wrong we were.

Emily gave a small smile. 'Alright. What time can you be at the hospital tomorrow?"

"Alright around 9ish. What about you?"

"Same, I want to go through his bag before we go in to see him. It might help is understand more. I'll leave about around 12 to pick up Ethan at the airport. Reid will want to see him?"

The talk continued for about rounding few more minutes, halting as the car turned into the driveway in front of a tan house. "See you tomorrow, Emily." JJ wiped her face and blew her nose before getting out of the car.

"Bye, JJ" Emily got out walking to the stops at the end of the road calling an Uber to take her home.

JJ unlocked looking at the time 10:27. She put her purse down hanging her coat before walking upstairs to Henry's bedroom.

She opened the door to Henry sitting up in his bed clutching his stuffed rabbit with white knuckles. "You ok, Buddy?"

Henry shook his head looking up at his mom with shiny eyes filled with tears. "I had a bad dream."

His mother stroked his hair, "it helps to tell people about your nightmares"

"But mine was really sad."

"Yeah well maybe if you share it we can make it happier."

Henry nodded his small head. "There was this big black monster and it was chasing uncle Spencer and it attacked him! It killed him."

JJ froze. I'm sure uncle Spencer is fine, Henry have to noticed anything different about uncle Spencer recently, has he been in attacked weird or different mood?"

"He's been sadder, usually there's only attacked little saddness, but there's been a lot recently he's also really tired."

"Look at me, Henry. Uncle Spencer is fine and maybe we can visit him in a few weeks."

Henry pouted, "I don't wanna wait that long, why do we have to wait that long?"

JJ let out a sad chuckle. "He left town for Ada small trip. You can call him in a few days, how's that sound?"

"Good! Thank you mommy!"

"Of course honey, now scotch over so I can rub your back until you fall asleep." JJ crawled into the bed rubbing circles Into her sons back.

JJ tiptoe out of the room, going back downstairs to Will who was watching TV in the living room.

"Where have you been all day?"

"I was busy Will," A tired JJ sunk down onto a chair.

"Are you cheating on me?" JJ froze, why the fuck would je jump to that.

"No!" Will frowned.

"I don't believe you." JJ glared at him.

"If you don't believe me, well then you can sleep on the couch. Tomorrow we'll talk after we put Henry to bed. Goodnight!"

JJ stormed into the master bedroom. Damn Will and his trust issues, they'd been together for 6 years, and he thought she was cheating.

God. Too much was happening today, she could barely hold it together. And Wills accusation was the cherry on top of the ice cream that was Reid's suicide attempt. God, why was he so paranoid all of the sudden, she'd caught him checking her texts twice in the last month. It was so frustrating. Is it so hard to trust your partner, she trusted him. Hell, she'd trusted every boyfriend, every girlfriend she ever had even when they had actually cheated on her.

God could this day get any worse. She got ready for bed setting an alarm for 8 before flopping into bed for a night full of restless sleep.

(A/n, hey guys sorry for the delay I'll try to have more regular updates but with school starting and cross country and me not being able to use my phone or computer to type the writing up without asking my sister, and then having to give her my phone every night at 9:30. The next update should hopefully be up in a week, I'll try to type it up on the bus. Oh and this is my longest chapter yet over 2000 words!)