Killing Me Softly 21

Thunder in the Sky

Once Sandra had bought her stronger drink she stood there for a bit, she could sense Dan watching her and yet she was still in two minds about whether to go back or run. Running seemed the preferable option but at some point she'd have to face him and if it wasn't know then it'd be a time when she had Olivia and that would be worse timing. She had to go back.

"Sandra is she mine?" Dan repeated as Sandra sat down again.
"Yes...well maybe. I don't know." Sandra sighed.
"Why, was there someone else?!" Dan asked becoming angry at the thought that Sandra may have cheated.
"No, of course there wasn't. I did love you Dan, I might not have been great at showing it but I did."
"So how don't you know if she's mine?"
"Remember a couple of days ago I was certain she was Strickland's daughter and now I don't know."
"But you think I am?"
"Dan stop pushing. I don't know. I just don't know."
"Well we could get a DNA test sorted. I mean Strickland won't mind and I don't. I need to know one way or another." He seemed to be going by on autopilot now of what needed to be done, now he'd done that though it was becoming clear what was going on was catching up with him now. "How could you do this Sandra? How could you think I'd never find out? How could you even think about not telling me? How did decide that raising her without a dad was right?" His voice was laced with a fair amount of upset that he was trying to fight. He'd asked the questions that she'd been trying to find the answers to for three years and still she didn't have an answer.
"I can't do this, I have to go." Sandra picked up her bag and almost ran out of the pub, she needed space, she needed time to think and the place to do that wasn't the pub under the pressure of conversation with Dan or at Gerry's.

Sandra just walked for a while, she used to know this part of a London like the back of her hand but over the years since she'd left she'd forgotten a lot, after all she didn't think she'd have any need for that knowledge again. She wasn't actually sure where she was heading or where she was, she'd just walked in any direction. The weather was getting worse and worse and the rain was now pouring and thunder rumbled around her, the suddenness of it making her jump slightly. By know it was getting late and she knew she should be returning back to Gerry's, problem was she didn't know where that was in relation to where she was. What any sensible person would have done at this point would have been to find cover and then stop walking and phone for help. What Sandra did was the opposite, while she didn't know where she was she was finding a walk alone, with only the sound of rain hitting the pavement and thunder for company, therapeutic.

Finally she did stop but not for at least half an hour after she realised she was lost. She was soaked to the skin, that didn't matter, the solitude was a kind of comfort and her thoughts were becoming clearer. She'd found her way to a large body of water, it could have been a lake or the Thames but it was too dark to tell. Through the dark she could just about make out a bench and although it'd be wet, she couldn't really gotten any more wet so she sat down. This was as good as place as any to sit and figure out a plan of what to do next. By the time she got back to Gerry's she wanted to know exactly what she was going to do and feel a bit more in control of the whole situation because then she had a higher probability of getting through this and getting herself and Olivia back home.