Chapter twenty – A Bitter Aftertaste.
Harriet felt a sharp pain as she felt her stomach spasm and she retched but nothing came out. She rested her forehead against the cold enamel of the toilet bowl and exhaled a long shaky breath. How could this be happening? There was no way Jake had just run away, he had to have been taken by someone. But why? What had she done to deserve this? Tears fell drop by drop from her eyes and she shook as sob after sob came.
'Harriet?' she heard someone say quietly.
She looked up and saw the blurred outline of Greg. He knelt down in front of her and reached for her hand. His face was still a bit of a blur due to the tears in her eyes but she guessed what he must have been thinking.
'You think I deserve this don't you?' Harriet said, her voice quivering as she tried to regain a regular breathing pattern between sobs.
'No I don't, absolutely not,' Greg said, taking her other hand and running his thumbs over the back of them both, affectionately.
'Well I do,' Harriet said, bursting into tears again. 'I've been the world's worst mother and now someone's trying to make me pay for it.'
'That is not true, there is no excuse for this and we don't know what's happened yet,' Greg said, gently.
'I deserve whatever is coming to me but why do they have to take it out on Jake. He's done nothing wrong, it's me who needs punishing.' Harriet cried, hanging her head and sobbing hysterically.
She was so confused and felt completely helpless. Some evil person had taken her son and she didn't know why but somehow she felt she was to blame, had something to do with this. She felt like she was about to dissolve into more sobs when Greg shouted at her and shocked her to her senses.
'For crying out loud Harriet, stop being so selfish,' he shouted. 'You're not the one who's missing here, it's Jake. He's the one we need to be focussing on not you and your stupid guilt!'
Harriet stopped sobbing and stared at him. How could he say that? Jake was her son, if she had taken better care of him and been a more deserving mother this would never have happened. It was bad karma.
'How can you say that?' Harriet said breathlessly.
'You're not thinking of him, you're sitting here with your head down the toilet feeling sorry for yourself, you need to get yourself together and help us find him,' Greg snapped.
She considered this for a moment. Maybe he was right, she certainly wasn't doing anything useful sitting here but his tone hurt her. He had never seemed so mean and insensitive. Of course she cared about Jake, she didn't want anything to happen to him but how could Greg accuse her of being selfish?
'But…he's my baby,' Harriet protested as she felt the tears and the shuddering sobs return.
Greg wrapped his arms around her and held her close; the warmth of his body against hers was mildly comforting despite the situation. She knew she wouldn't want anyone else here with her no matter how angry she was with him.
He hated speaking to her so bitterly but he needed to say it. He was hoping it would bring her to her senses. There was no way he truly believed she was selfish. She felt guilty about a lot of things, he knew that, but he felt the best thing to do was be cruel to be kind and try and put things into perspective. As he hugged her, he felt like crying himself. He was fond of the little boy and even more attached to Harriet, he hated the idea that she was this heartbroken.
'I can't lose him Greg, I really can't' Harriet said, wiping her eyes and appearing to try and regain some strength as she pulled away from him. Greg felt a pang of empathy and love for her. He had to help her however he could.
'I know you can't, let's go see what we can find out,' he suggested, wiping a stray tear from her face.
'They'll never let me near the crime scene, I'm involved,' she said.
'They let you do your mom's case didn't they,' Greg said, immediately feeling like a fool when he realised that case had been a murder. 'And this is not going to turn out like that, I promise.' He added in an attempt to reassure her that her son had not been killed.
He stood up and helped her to her feet. She was shaky at first but began to take a few deep breaths. Greg held her face in his hands and placed a kiss on her forehead. He didn't know why he'd done that, it was totally inappropriate but she didn't seem to notice. He put an arm around her shoulders and led her back out into the corridor.
A/N - a short chapter there just an attempt to explain more about how Harriet thinks and develop the friendship between her and Greg a little to try and make any future romance less cheesy. Chapter Twenty One where are you...?