"Just go home."
It should have been simple enough. In fact, the only thing that seemed more logical, at least in Delphine Cormier's eyes, was to take up permanent residence in the basement of the hospital where she worked. Since the incident, a mere three weeks prior, she had found it far easier to bury herself in shifts at work, getting lost in the hustle and bustle of an emergency room rather than sinking straight to the very bottom of her thoughts, which she knew to be a grotesquely dangerous place.
After a twelve hour shift, six to six, it should have been a no-brainer to go home, uncork a bottle of wine, and kick back for the rest of the night, but there was something tugging her in another direction. As she sat behind the wheel of her car, she couldn't take her eyes off of the back entrance, simply observing as people slowly filtered in one or two at a time.
One of her fellow nurses had brought up the idea of the therapy group the day before, mentioning that his sister was best friends with one of the boys that had passed and that the counseling group had really been lending her a helping hand. For Delphine, though, coping and moving along the stages of grief had not been any form of an option for her. In fact, it never really had. She was the type who moved on from things, giving a valiant attempt to bury the way she felt, the way she dealt with things. It was so much easier for her to end a phone call with her mother or father by saying that she was at work than it was to make an effort to see them, to be reminded of how miserable they were without their son, how miserable she was without her brother.
Her torso tilted forward, the warm skin of her forehead pressing to the cool leather of the steering wheel. "Merde, Delphine, just go home." She felt so torn, so conflicted, not knowing what it was she was supposed to do. Some part of her knew that to heal, she was going to have to grieve, and to grieve, she was going to have to admit to the fact that she was not as okay as she would prefer to let on. It was a systematic breakdown of how she handled things, and a habitual part of her was more than hesitant at the notion of letting that go.
Checking the time on her phone, she knew that her open window of opportunity was growing closer to shutting with each second that ticked toward six thirty. After an eternal five minutes, she found an ability to move, pulling the keys back out of the ignition of her car, a small voice inside her head crying out in protest. By the time her rubber soles were firmly on the asphalt, and the heavy metal door thudded shut behind her, she knew that she'd already made the effort, and had no other real choice but to follow through. Her thumb slid over the smooth surface of the keyfob that was clutched in her hand, but before she could push down on the lock button, another 'beep' of security sounded just on the other side of the car adjacent to hers, causing her to jump, clearly startled. What seemed to strike her attention even more so, though, was who she saw as she looked across the silver cartop.
Even in the light of the setting sun, which was so very close to disappearing behind the horizon line, Delphine immediately felt a sense of recognition- and dread- spill over her like a downpour. The last time she had looked into those eyes, a confused rage had her in its grasp, but it had since faded, leaving yet another confused woman in its wake. Instead of feeling an impossible swell of an angering tide, a sense of regret lapped over her feet, the sands of sorrow burrowing into every nook and cranny of her toes, only to be trapped there, left as a reminder, showing up in so many random places for days to come. She was fifteen all over again, so wiry and awkward, so unsure of herself, as if the last fourteen years had accounted for nothing.
Seeing Cosima so close did not regulate why it felt that they were miles apart, though only one vehicle separated them. Second guessing herself the entire way, Delphine raised a single hand in surrender, offering the smallest of waves. "Hi," she squeaked timidly. She was not sure what she expected in return, but what she got was something she had not braced herself for. Immediately, Cosima's chin tucked toward her chest and she floated forward, almost like a specter of sorts, a haunting of the mourning woman that had showed up at Jacques' funeral not a week prior. Before she could stop it, the rejection was skating off of her tongue, slipping dangerously through her teeth. "Well alright then." It was a mere grumble, just barely kissing the line between inaudible and audible, but it's reach was just far enough that the other woman instantaneously stiffened, her gliding coming to a screeching halt as the soles of her flats scraped heavily against the pavement, causing ever hair on the back of Delphine's neck to stand on end. In the passing of a second, on the turn of a dime, in the blink of an eye, a storm had rolled in and she was about to see every inch of Hurricane Cosima, up close and personal.
With her heart pounding insistently in her ears, an angered rosiness began to climb up her cheeks and Cosima's hands balled at her sides. "No," she managed sharply, turning on her heel, wagging her finger at Delphine in a way that appeared far more menacing than it actually was. "No, you don't get to do that. You don't get to be angry with me." Her jaw tightened and her eyes were ablaze, her gaze burning a hole right through the very center of Delphine. She had crossed the space between them, leaving no more than a couple of inches between them, her finger still pointedly aimed at the other woman. Delphine's eyes were wide and she had backed up into her car, a lump rising in her throat; this had not been any reaction that she could have ever imagined eliciting from the same woman who had been so insistent on grieving the loss of her students. Something had shifted in her; it was more than obvious. She may have been small, but she was proving herself a force to be reckoned with.
"I'm... I-" She wanted to apologize, but before the words could even consider venturing to the tip of her tongue, she found that she was cut short. She had lit a fuse that she could not extinguish and instead, needed to simply watch as it all exploded back in her face.
"Save it," Cosima snapped, furiously reaching up to adjust her glasses, perhaps only disheveling them even more. "You know, I felt sorry for you. I felt so sorry for all of you. You, your family. All of the other families. And I was okay with the idea that no one would feel sorry for me, or for my family. I get the idea of moral perception, and I had no reason to dispute it."
Delphine's forehead wrinkled; Cosima had implied tense for a reason. "Had?" She asked dryly, still a bit nervous at the close proximity between them, though the other woman was a good head shorter than herself.
Cosima's blood was boiling and it was inhibiting her senses, causing the mental locks she had on particular things to click open so effortlessly, releasing all of the dark things tucked away inside. "But then I found out the truth. The truth of how my own sister couldn't talk to me about what had happened in her life. The truth of how a group of boys thought it was okay to view her was nothing more than property. How your brother was one of those boys." Her voice shook unevenly and her heart was nearly in her throat. She had been trying so valiantly to hold back the tears, but she knew herself to be only so strong. A few slipped through her grasp, spilling down her cheeks in a mixture of pain, anger, and a desperation for someone to just simply understand that not everything had to be what it seemed. "The truth," she started, leaning into Delphine a bit more, her voice dropping incredibly low. "Is that your brother and his friends not only took something from my sister, but one of them gave her something that set this all into motion. Something she just couldn't live with." Her lip quivered as she backed up a step, watching as the sickening realization forced itself into Delphine's comprehension.
Just as simply as the wind blew, Delphine's entire world had shifted. It was true, she was aware, that it could be said her relationship with Jacques was not the best. He had been a rebellious teenager and she had moved on toward a career, toward a life of her own. He sought no advice or guidance from her, and she was fine with that. Yes, her parents had their hands full with him, but never once did she think that he had fallen so far off the main way. There would be time later for blaming herself, for being angry with herself that she hadn't stopped this from happening. Now, though, she had a very upset Cosima still so very close. Her heart was pounding so hard that it felt like her ribcage would be nowhere near strong enough to contain the pieces as it broke apart beneath the surface. There was a lump in her throat and a block on any rational thought.
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to call her a liar, but as their eyes locked across those few inches of space, Delphine could see Cosima's honesty nearly bleeding out of her. She had somehow found this information, and instead of spouting it off to any outlet that would listen, she appeared to be chewing it down, biting it back. It appeared to only see the surface when she simply couldn't do it any more. Even then, she chose to divulge the information to a sole source who might somehow possibly understand, who might care enough to realize that this was a solid reality and not just some story concocted by someone who was grieving in all the wrong ways. If she was so shaken and so compelled to be heard, Delphine understood that it was her duty to listen, to comprehend, and to fully rationalize. Slowly, she nodded, and Cosima's hard exterior slowly started to ebb away, finally releasing her the moment Delphine spoke.
"I'm sorry."
The words, how gravelly and broken they sounded as they collided with Cosima's ears, seemed to give more of Delphine away than her quivering lip or the few tears that had streaked down her cheeks. They revealed her honesty, and her heart. Those words, and how they struggled to stay whole, spoke volumes beyond reasonable comprehension. Even more than that, it was the very first time since Athena's passing that Cosima had heard those words from anyone. Her lips pressed together and she attempted to imprison the tears that were bound to escape, but it was of no use. In a sudden rush, everything was different. Someone had finally, finally acknowledged her loss and acknowledged the fact that it wasn't some teenage spat of anger. Athena had been hurt, felt backed into a corner, and she did the only thing that made sense to her. It was horrifying and something that never should have happened, but at the very least, there were two people in the world who understood why.
Several tears spilled down Cosima's cheeks, being halted and deterred by the rim of her glasses as it pressed to the apple of her cheek. Her hands trembled at her sides, raising one to wipe her face dry with the sleeve of her sweater. All too quickly, she realized that she had disclosed something she'd vowed to keep to herself; she felt vulnerable, like Delphine had accomplished something in getting her to crack, though it was not the case at all. "I um... I'll go. So you can... yeah," she managed, pointing back at her car, and then waving a hand toward the door to the hospital.
"Non, non," Delphine, replied, shaking her head. "You don't have to leave because I am here. Come, we'll go in together."
Although she felt like she was on a timed countdown marked for falling apart, there was something about the invitation that Cosima just could not decline. It wasn't like it changed things, only that someone else finally understood the burden she was carrying, and as it turned out, that didn't have to be such a horrible thing.