Rachel didn't sleep that night. In fact, she spent it over the toilet, alternating between crying and puking and begging whatever deity was listening for the madness she was feeling to end. Her father's had checked in on her multiple times, both alternating between holding back her hair and rubbing her back, to going into the kitchen to get her water and aspirin.
"Rachel." Leroy spoke soothingly as he once again stepped into her bathroom the next morning, around 6am. Rachel had been leaning with her back against the outside of the bath tub, head in hands and shoulders shaking slightly to indicate she was crying again. Leroy sighed softly and crouched down in front of his daughter, delicately placing a hand on her shoulder. She jumped up immediately, eyes wide with fear as she turned away from him, itching to get out of the soft grasp he had her in.
She shook her head, the tears dripping faster down her chin and onto the tiled floor as Leroy slowly retracted his hand, dropping it back to his side. "Rachel," He begins again. "Your father and I thought it'd be best to keep you home from school for a few days. We took off as well."
She swallows the lump in her throat, squeezing her eyes shut as a soft whimper falls from her lips and she nods slowly before stepping around him and out of the bathroom. Her stomach has finally settled but her body still ached horribly and as she climbed into her bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, she heard her father's voice again. "We'll just be downstairs if you need us," and soon the only thing she hears is the sound of her father's footsteps dissipating until they're gone altogether and she's met once again with silence.
She's starting to like the silence, she thinks. She's starting to like it a lot.
….
"I want to give her therapist a shot." Hiram speaks softly as he shuffles around the kitchen later on that morning. Leroy throws him a rather incredulous look and he sighs, knowing he'll have to explain further.
"I just want to try. Somewhere, deep inside is the old Rachel, and if she won't come out for us-then maybe he can drag it out of her. Slowly." Leroy frowns, digging the steel toe of his shoe into the tiled kitchen floor, staring deeply into his mug as he lets out a deep breath.
"I still don't think this is a good idea." He mumbles.
Hiram groans in agitation, throwing his hands up in the air.
"Then what do you suppose we do? I just want to try and see if the therapist will do any good. He always has before."
Leroy looks up at him, his brown eyes swimming with tears and Hiram bites his lip, walking around the counter and over toward his partner, resting his hands on Leroy's shoulders and placing a small kiss on his forehead.
"What if we tried Shelby again?" Leroy asked, his tone hopeful.
"Look," Hiram begins, sighing once more. "Let's try the therapist first, if she still isn't talking-I'll give Shelby another call. Alright?"
Leroy nods at this, as he leans his head into the crook of Hiram's neck, the two standing idly in the kitchen. It sounds selfish, he's aware, but a small part of him hopes that the therapist cannot get through to Rachel. It may seem absurd, and to most people, it probably is-but in the back of his mind he's silently thanking God for bringing Shelby back together with Rachel. After all, Rachel could really use a mother right now.
….
Rachel had woken up around two that afternoon, eyes bleary with sleep and hair tousled as she finds herself trudging slowly down the stairs and into the living room where her fathers are sitting with the television on mute, Leroy adamantly talking on the phone to someone unknown.
Hiram looks up as Rachel enters and gives her a small smile, patting the seat next to him for her to join. She clears her throat, wincing lightly at the pain that courses through it and she walks hesitantly to the red sofa centered in the middle of the room, and taking a seat beside him.
Leroy hangs up the phone, mumbling a small thank you to the mysterious person on the other line and turns to Rachel, sucking in a rather sharp breath before he begins to speak, his voice soft. "Rachel, honey-that was your therapist. We've made you an appointment at his office today around three."
Rachel frowns lightly but says nothing, running a shaky hand through her hair as she stands back on her feet. She gives him a small nod before retreating back to her bedroom, heart dropping into her chest as she closes the door behind her. The click of the lock sounds through her ears and she breathes out a sigh of relief, happy to be alone again because she felt as if only a few moments ago, she was suffocating.
Suffocating from her father's, the breaths they took, the stares they threw her way. She shakily pulls out a pair of black lounge pants and a white throw-over sweater, that is two sizes too big, so big she almost drowns in it. She changes quickly, not glancing once at the reflection in the mirror. She runs a brush haphazardly through her hair before throwing it carelessly on her dresser. Glancing back at the clock, she sees its two thirty. She frowns again. It took her thirty minutes just to get dressed, and she wasn't even trying to look remotely presentable.
Her arms felt like led and she was sure her legs would give out as she once again, descended the stairs, taking a sharp left into the living room where her fathers were speaking in hushed tones. When they see her, she licks her lips and hides her hands in her sweatshirt, motioning for the front door. It's her silent way of telling them they should probably go.
Her father's throw each other a glance and then turn their attention back to Rachel who has already started shuffling weakly towards the front door. From a distance, Leroy notices the frailty of his daughter, the paleness of her skin, the sickly features it had taken on and the pain evident in her eyes. She posses little to no energy and he more than once, has to lunge forward when he sees her legs start to shake a little and she begins to go towards the ground. With an arm wrapped tightly around her thin frame, he lifts her gently and sets her in the car, leaning over a bit to pull the seatbelt across her and click it into place. Closing the door for her, he comes face-to-face with Hiram again, both sharing the same look of dread.
Their daughter is slowly dying, inside and out and they're running out of ways to help her.
….
Her therapist's name is Ron Grunter and she's been seeing him for as long as she can remember. He's a nice man, somewhere in his early 60's with a pot belly and graying hair, the small amount he has left. His glasses are constantly perched upon his nose and she has on numerous occasions, wondered how the hell he can see like that-but never once, question's it aloud.
He holds a clipboard and pen, ready to jot down notes, and the session has only just started. Her father's have disappeared into the hallway and she is left alone with him, and although is just she and him, she feels the suffocation returning and her anxiety slowly building.
She sits on the black leather couch placed against the wall adjacent to the door. Her legs are pulled up to her chest and she is resting her chin on her knees, waiting for him to begin talking as she lets her eyes wonder around the room. She has never been in here before, but it's quite quaint, she thinks. There is a plot rested to the right side of Mr. Grunter's desk that is wilting slowly and Rachel bites down hard on her lip as she notices how similar she feels to it.
Wilting, or another word that darkens her mood, dying.
Mr. Grunter clears his throat and she just barely lifts her eyes to look at him. His mouth is moving, but she's not really listening, not really caring enough to listen. She just wants to be back at home, in bed again.
"Rachel?" She sighs unhappily. "Rachel?" He repeats.
She lifts her chin and then slowly turns her head to meet his eyes. Her breath hitches in her throat at what she sees before her. Mr. Grunter is gone, replaced by a vivid image of the man who had slowly ripped her apart no more than two nights ago and her hands are suddenly shaking and her chest suddenly feels as if an elephant is sitting on it, and she can't breathe, can't think, her eyes filling with tears as she tries to back away from him, tries to scream.
Nothing comes out, and then slowly she feels her vision clear and her breathing slow and the horrible, retched man has disappeared and Mr. Grunter has returned. She feels the tears come to a halt and she runs a sweating hand through her hair.
"Are you aware what that was, Rachel?"
She bites her lip again, shaking her head as she sniffles.
"It was what is called a panic attack. It's a sudden bout of intense fear or impending doom for little to no apparent reason at all. They come without warning Rachel, and it's obvious that yours did. Can you tell me what you saw when you had the panic attack? Was anything coming for you? Did it feel as if the walls were caving in on you?"
She swallows the lump in her throat and stays silent, still trying to recover and process the information she'd just received. She didn't want to believe him, she couldn't-because what she saw, what she felt was not, in any means a panic attack. It was real, it was here, and it was tormenting her mercifully.
"Rachel?"
She pushes herself deeper into the couch, wanting to hide away from him, from everything else that had terrified her only mere moments ago-but she can't keep hiding and she knows it. Eventually she'll have to go back to school and face everyone, eventually she'll have to see her mother, and eventually she'll have to start talking again.
"Rachel, I'm afraid our time is up, but I'd very much appreciate it if you came back in next Monday-maybe you'll feel like speaking then." She doesn't say goodbye, doesn't thank him, doesn't speak at all, instead-standing abruptly and flinging the door open and practically throwing herself back into the dimly lit hallway where her father's are waiting. She glances at the clock on the wall ahead of her, noting that it's already five. She feels as if she'd only been sitting there five minutes.
Her father's look hopefully to Ron who sadly shakes his head at the men, informing them that Rachel's next session is Monday at noon before saying a polite goodbye and heading back into his office. Rachel glances up at her father's who are silent but clutching onto her with dear life, as if she'll suddenly collapse. She takes it that Mr. Grunter had informed them of her 'panic attack.'
She yawns lightly as she climbs back into the black SUV, resting her head against the window and staring at the trees passing in a blur as they head home. Her eyelids are heavy and her stomach is turning again and she feels as if she could collapse(although she's already sitting down) and she feels her eyes filling up with tears as she squeezes them shut.
She isn't even aware that she had fallen asleep again until the sun seeps into the window the next morning and she's glaring at the large, red numbers on her alarm clock that say 10:15. She cannot remember anything from the previous night, so she isn't all too aware if she'd had a nightmare or not but as she sits up in bed and reaches for her phone on her nightstand, she sighs softly.
She waits a moment for it to turn on, and then her eyes widen as she notices the missed calls and texts she'd received. She hadn't bothered to check her phone in over four days now, but she was sure that if another text message popped up into her inbox her phone might explode. Most of them were from the Glee kids, asking if she was alright, if she needed anything, and when she was coming back, but a few were from her mother. She cocked her head to the side lightly as she read through her missed calls list. All of them were from Shelby, with the exception of four from Quinn. She wasn't quite sure why Quinn was calling, she'd never really gotten along with the girl, but she felt a hint of a smile creep its way onto her face as she skimmed over it again. She knew she should probably call Shelby back, seeing as she was her mother after all-but she was still exhausted and her stomach was turning again, and besides-Rachel reasoned, if it was truly important she'd stop by.
She found herself shutting her phone off again after deleting all the texts and slowly pushed her body out of bed and down the stairs. Her fathers were in the kitchen making breakfast, and Rachel gently slid her body into a chair at the table-giving them a gentle nod before Hiram turned around completely to face her.
"Shelby called last night while you were sleeping." He spoke. "We invited her over for dinner this evening. We thought it might do some good if you had your mother around right now."
Rachel swallowed nervously as she nodded again. What happened if Shelby asked questions like her fathers did? What if she wanted to know all of what happened that night? Rachel found herself standing up again and rushing up the stairs without warning, barely making it to her room before she found herself shaking violently with loud sobs falling from her small form. It felt as if someone had lit her on fire, and her chest was heaving violently as she closed the door behind her, leaning against it as she waited for the wave of fear she suddenly felt to pass. It was as if a bone-crushing pressure had taken refuge inside of her, an invisible band making its way around her rib cage and she found herself gasping for breath-light headed and nauseous until once again, it subsided, moments later and the only thing she could do was collapse onto the floor with her knees drawn to her chest and rock back and forth.
She was losing it, fast.