Zoe drives alone. Kaye had wanted Sharice to stay, and, not wanting to disrupt anything, Zoe had left them to it, promising to come back at four. Sharice had seemed much calmer with Kaye. With such a large weight off of her shoulders, she must have felt so much better.
She lights her first cigarette of the day and takes three long drags. Emotions suddenly crashing over her in waves, she pulls over and stops the car. Her eyes are hot with the spikes of tears. As they begin to spill over, she chucks her cigarette out the window and lights another. She hates crying. It's such an unnecessarily public display of emotion, shows weaknesses, a chink in the armour. The last time she cried like this was when Jordan left.
Pushing against the steering wheel, she berates herself for having let Sharice go. She had almost been her daughter. At least, the closest thing she has ever had to a daughter. Will ever have.
She knows she can never really be a mother, has always known, really, even before she read that horrible little word on that letter. "Infertile". Making her sound like some unprofitable piece of land. She has long since come to terms with the fact that she will never carry a child, gotten used to people awkwardly avoiding telling her about their pregnancies, playing it off as being "not the mothering kind". It didn't stop the pangs of "if only" now, though. If she had had a child of her own, maybe she wouldn't feel so awful about being second choice again.
Her tears, for her almost-daughter, for her never-daughters, begin finally to ease. Her eyes, unused to crying, are puffy. Having got it out of her system, she finishes her cigarette, covers the tear tracks with concealer, and pulls her barriers back up. She is an open person, happy for people to know her dry sense of humour and sarcasm, willing to chat and laugh on a night out with friends, but the idea of people seeing her feelings or weaknesses is abhorrent. She can count the number of people who have seen her really cry on one hand.
In the need of some light relief and some attention, she grabs her phone and starts the car up.
"Arhh Zoe you woke me up. I'm on nights..."
"Sorry," (although she wasn't), "I'm on my way over"
"Mm hm"
For all those who want zax, there is a bit in the next chapter, but I wanted this story to focus on sharice... I am thinking of writing a zax story soon though...
Thanks your the reviews :) xx