Chapter 6:
The drive back to the lab as an interesting one. Nick. Warrick, and I discovered our varying tastes in music and we were arguing over what station to play. By the time we got back we were all in tears from laughing so hard.
We were walking to the break room when my phone started to buzz. I took it out of my pocket and my face fell when I saw my mother's name flashing across the screen. "Damn," I mumbled. "Hang on guys I gotta take this."
"Why so glum? Who's calling, the devil?" Warrick asked.
I managed a laugh. "Not quite. It's my mother. Now hush." I turned around and slowly opened the phone. "Hello?"
"Hello darling. How's work?"
"It's great. I'm actually at work right now so…"
"That's nice dear," My mother kept talking like she hadn't heard what I said, and honestly she probably didn't. "So your father and I are going to be in town next week so if you could give us your address…"
My breath hitched in my throat and my head started to spin. "Um-wha- Look I can't really talk right now but I will email you when my shift is over."
"Honey I need to know now so I can make arrangements."
I rambled off my address, we exchanged goodbyes and I wandered into the break room. Nick and Warrick stared at me and I gave them a half-hearted smile, sitting down and spreading the case files in front of me and began my report.
My feet were dragging as I made my way to the staff locker room. Today had caused me a lot of stress and I was ready to go home. I passed Grissom and he motioned for me to follow him to his office. My eyes wandered around the lab as I trudged behind him. We passed DNA and I felt Greg's eyes following me as I walked past.
He closed the door after I had stepped inside the office. My eyes travelled around the room and landed on a fetal pig in a jar, to which I raised my eyebrow but then smiled. In a weird way, it was cute. Grissom watched me as I sat down and he sat across from me. There was silence before he spoke. "What happened today? I heard you pushed one of my lab techs."
I took a shaky breath and began telling him the whole horrid tale. Freshman to senior year, the stories came one after the other and I couldn't stop them. Truthfully I had been waiting for someone to ask me that for a while, and it was nice to finally let it all out. Gil just sat there listening, sometimes nodding or saying, "Mhmm." At some point I had started crying but I didn't realize it until I stopped talking and the room fell silent again. I was expecting thousands of questions but he only asked one. "Are you okay?"
I gave him a small smile and said, "Yeah. I guess. It was nice to finally talk about it all and have someone listen, so thank you."
He gave me a soft smile and said, "As long as you are content with where you are now, the past shouldn't define you. I have only one more request; apologize to Greg. The kid was beating himself up all day trying to figure out what was wrong."
I nodded slowly and stood up, Grissom followed me and opened the door, ushering me out. I gave him a hug and he tentatively hugged back. I had only known him for one day but already he felt like a father to me.