Thank you for the support.

Safe to say that things aren't great. And they aren't going to get any better...

And Rachel is spiralling...


Chapter Five

It had been a week.

A week of watching Rachel and Melissa pretend that there was nothing wrong between them.

There were times when Eddie felt like he was making it all up. Like it had all been some fever dream as they were both amicable and rather professional. Then he could take being brushed off. He could believe Melissa when she said that it was nothing.

But it was Rachel's silence that spoke the most volume. How in public she seemed more or less like herself.

But in private, he could see that she wasn't.

He was convinced that she wasn't eating or sleeping. Drinks would go hours without being touched and were only cleaned away by Joyce, who had told Eddie that she'd given up asking Rachel if she wanted a drink when he went to make them both a coffee, with him offering to make her one after he had heard that. The caretaker had moaned about how early she was getting to work and the cleaners about how late she was leaving.

Eddie didn't know why they were coming to him with all their grievances regarding Rachel. He was struggling to get a hello out of her at the beginning of the day or a bye at the end. The only time she did properly speak to him was when they were in a room full of people but she would always just say what she had to say before leaving him before he could change the subject.

The chasm between them seemed monumental now.

Rachel was slipping through his fingers and he felt like the more he attempted to get a hold of her, the more she was slipping away from him.

Maybe it was selfish of him.

To want to have both sisters in his life.

Maybe because he had such a good relationship with his siblings, he wanted them to rebuild slightly. Maybe he wanted to be the one to bring the sisters together. For him to have his best friend and fiance to reconcile properly. To put the past behind them and finally be a family.

It hurt to think that something had happened between them. That it was something that meant that they hadn't spoken a word to each other since. Or that it was something that meant that neither of them felt like they could tell him.

He could see why Rachel would be more reluctant. They had blurred things. Even with him helping her out, they didn't know where they stood. Was he still her friend or were they just acquaintances now, slowly going into strangers again? If this all did fall apart like he thought it was going to do, would she acknowledge him if they did see each other again? Would she walk up to him when they met again? Would she give him the time to allow them to catch up? For him to believe that nothing had changed between them? That none of what was currently happening had happened?

It pained him.

His heart constricted in the same way that it did when he realised that he had lost one of his sons.

Because he was sure that it wouldn't be what happened.

He would lose her.

She would become a stranger.

And if their paths did happen to cross again, she would treat him like a complete and utter stranger while his heart only died in his chest.

He was losing her. Because he hoped that he hadn't already lost her.


Eddie had been sitting on the sofa in Rachel's office for a good 15 minutes, watching her as she read through all the paperwork, not lifting her head once. He thought that she had seen him but she obviously hadn't as she jumped when she finally looked up, her hand going to her chest.

"Dear God, Eddie." She said.

"Sorry, I thought you had seen me." He said.

"Shouldn't you be at home? It is late."

"Shouldn't you as well?"

"Eddie."

"Rachel, please, tell me what's wrong. The cleaners aren't going to be here for a while because they know that you aren't going to be leaving this room any time soon. There will be no phone calls or interruptions. It's just me and you."

She looked tired. She looked like the weight of the world was crushing her. She looked like she could burst into tears at any moment.

And all Eddie wanted to do was to get up to walk over to her so that he could pull her into his arms and comfort her.

He just knew that he wouldn't get that far. That she would realise what he wanted to do and only pull away more. He wanted her to open up but the only way he was going to do that was to get her to tell him in her own time and to give her the space and environment to do so. He hoped that he had done that but there were no tellings with Rachel.

"It's nothing, Eddie." She said eventually.

"Once, I would have taken that answer. Not now. I know you better now, Rachel. Something is wrong. I can't help you if I don't know how to."

"Maybe I don't want you to help."

"You don't have to make this difficult." He said, standing up in a way to get rid of his frustrations.

"I've told you it's nothing."

"And you can't deny that you are lying to me. I thought I had proven myself. That you didn't have to hold me at arm's length. For Christ's sake, Rachel. After all we've been through. Things work better when we work together. Doesn't it?"

He had only seen her cry once. The other times had just been the aftermath. And he wanted to take back his words as the tears in her eyes started to build, threatening to spill over.

He clenched his fists to stop himself from rushing over to her. She would only push him away and she had already broken his heart too much. To have her push him away when all he wanted to do was comfort her would hurt.

"I think… I think we've done too many things separately, haven't we? Recently?" She whispered. "We've made too many different decisions. I don't think we are as good for each other as you think we are. Go home, Eddie. Whatever is going on with me is none of your concern and never will be."

"What if I want it to be my concern?" He said, unable to stop himself from storming up to her desk. "I said on your first day that you weren't an unintelligent woman but I don't always think that intelligence is well placed. So you can run a school, but you can't run it on your own. I get that might have something to do with your upbringing but you are picking fights with the wrong people. If it does all go… belly up, you aren't going to have that many supporters if you shut everyone out now."

"When it goes belly up, Eddie, I'll accept what is coming to me. I'm already on borrowed time here. I got another six months out of the job. Another year to what you gave me." Her face screwed up in a way that he had never seen before. "But it is none of your concern. I thought you might have got the hint because you are an intelligent man but it seems like I will have to spell it out for you. I don't need you, Eddie. I don't need a saviour or someone to fix me or whatever you think you are doing. I don't need friends or allies. Not now. And I should probably fall on my sword but I need to make sure that these kids are in the right place before I do so. That is what is important here, Eddie. The students. Not whether I have supporters in the staffroom or not. I will fall on my sword when I do and it will be me and me alone. I am not going to drag anyone else down with me. So. Let. Me. Fall."

Eddie felt his frustration instantly drop.

He wasn't going to get through to her. All the progress that he thought that they had made with Hordley was gone. Especially as when he looked down at her in that moment, she did look like a stranger. He couldn't recognise her. The smile that graced her lips on the last day of term was now a scowl. Her eyes were empty whereas they had been full of light that day. She used to have this light feeling about her and now, Eddie felt like he could feel her sinking into the depths.

And he knew that he was no saviour. Or a fixer. She had been the one to start the process of fixing his relationship with Alison after he had failed to save it.

This honestly felt the same. And as much as he wanted to fight it, he couldn't find it in himself. He would push and push until he was the one that pushed her off the imaginary cliff. And he wouldn't even know that he had done it until it was too late to follow her.

Wordlessly, he did as he was told.

It was still his concern. It would always be his concern.

But he could go home.

He knew that he couldn't change her mind. That door had closed. Had been slammed shut in his face without him even realising it.

Yet he wondered what the Waterloo Road history books would say of this time. And whether it would be said that he played a part in the downfall of Rachel Mason. Because he was more than certain that it was the way things were going and that he had played his part.

Maybe he was the first domino.

Maybe he was the thing that started it all off.


Rachel watched until the lights of Eddie's car had gone up the drive and out into the road before she let out the heart reaching sob that she had managed to hold onto.

It was stupid and horrible and she hated how much she was pushing Eddie away. She could see him battling with himself. The internal fight to stay where he was or to go over and comfort her. She was glad when he didn't. She was sure that if she found herself in his arms once more, she would spill everything. She would tell him about Melissa's bigamy and she would tell him of Melissa's comment.

And she could only imagine his reaction. She hoped that he would be more concerned about her before he left to blow up at Melissa. And she hoped that he would explode at her.

Things felt like she was in a war zone, attempting to avoid the landmines. It was why she only spoke about work. Work felt like a safe zone. And doing it in public seemed safe as well.

There were many people that she wanted to ignore in life. The only person that she didn't want to was Eddie. And he was the one that she felt like she had to.

To lower the hurt.

To lower the damage.

She had to ignore Eddie Lawson.

Didn't he think that she wanted to tell him? Didn't he think that she knew he was right? That they were better together? That they worked well as a team? Didn't he think that she could hear his heart breaking? And how many times had it broken because of her? How many times did she have to push him away? Was she going to end up pushing him over the edge? Would it be his downfall instead of hers? Would he try to catch her? Or would she cause him to come tumbling down with her?

She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, consumed with her own thoughts and rhetorical questions. She didn't know how red her eyes were or if she was being successful in stopping her body from shaking.

She just knew that where Eddie once stood was a rather bewildered woman, with the hose of a hover in one hand and a cloth in the other. Rachel blinked at her for a few moments before she realised that was her cue to leave.

"Sorry." She whispered, hoping that her voice didn't sound as hoarse as she thought it did. "I'll be out of your way in a moment."

"Are you alright, Miss?" The woman said.

"Nothing red wine can't fix."

"Mr Lawson looked rather upset when I saw him leave. You haven't fallen out, have you? It would be a shame. My Lara says that you two are the best thing that has happened to this school. That Treneman was good but I never knew what to think about Rimmer. And it is upsetting about that lass. Like it was upsetting about that Deardon boy and Miss Redpath. My Lara loved that Redpath as a teacher." The woman nodded a couple of times before she looked up at Rachel. "And they don't care. The kids. And most of the adults. There are only a few that are forgetting the area they are in. Trying to make out that they are something they aren't."

Rachel couldn't understand why this woman was saying everything that she was. Mainly because her uplifting words would never have any weight against her sister's. It was probably why she had quite a forced smile on her face as she collected up her bags to leave, leaving the woman with a goodnight.

And once she had started thinking about Melissa's words, she couldn't stop.

You should have done us all a favour and died in that fire.

Even the clicking of her heels wasn't loud enough.

You should have done us all a favour and died in that fire.

Turning up the radio didn't help.

You should have done us all a favour and died.

The music must have been blasting in her ears but she just couldn't hear it.

You should have been the one to die.

Rachel felt herself scream as her father's voice broke through. And she must have looked like a manic in her car on her drive home. Screaming at the voice in her head over music too loud to concentrate.

You should do us all a favour and die.

Rachel was numb by the time she arrived home. And she didn't see Philip's worried look as she dropped her bags at the bottom of the stairs. Nor did she care when she stripped out of all her clothes and proceeded to get into the shower, allowing the water to change from cold to scolding, not even feeling the way that it was redding her skin.

You should do us all a favour and die.

Maybe, just maybe, that would be the only way to get herself out of the mess.

Maybe, just maybe, she needed to do as Melissa and her father wanted her to do and leave in the most permanent way possible.