"Move," she tells him; her tone reducing in volume but rising in demand as her eyes became terribly cold and hard. She was serious, more serious than he's ever seen her.
"No."
"Jay, I'm serious, move now."
"If you want me to move, you're going to have to physically move me."
"Why are you trying to protect her?"
"I'm not, I'm trying to protect you!"
"...by standing in my way? By not allowing me to leave and go beat her ass?!"
"Yes," he exclaims, startling the baby in his arms and causing her to cry. He looks down at his daughter, momentarily distracted, but when Erin takes another step towards him, towards the door, he looks back up. He readjusts Emma in his arms, patting and rubbing her back to encourage the crying to stop, "Erin," his tone is much lower than before, "I'm trying to protect you, it's fucking crazy out there right now, and just for the slight chance that you make it to her place in one piece, the second you put your hands on her, she's pressing charges. We both know she's not above that. She calls the police, you get arrested, you sit in jail, away from Emma, away from where you can protect her, so please tell me, what would beating her ass do?" She gives him a look, causing him to add, "besides make you happy?"
She doesn't say he's right, but based on the look on her face, he knows she's thinking it, so he doesn't mind moving to the side to let her storm out of the nursery. He doesn't know where she went, and he doesn't follow her, choosing instead to give her a minute to process it all. She at least deserves that, shit, he's had a minute to process it when he parked in the gas station parking lot. He knows it's her turn. So when she disappears in her bedroom, door shutting behind her, he leaves her be, instead grabbing the baby's lukewarm bottle and carrying Emma over to the living room window, drawing the curtains wide open for her to admire the storm alongside him.
Emma stared out at the night sky, eyes wide, alert and awake as if it's not going on four in the morning. She was fascinated by the rain falling from the sky. Through the lens of her eyes, she couldn't believe what she was seeing, fascinated by the sight up until the weather escalated. Jay moved Emma away from the window after she flinched at a lightning strike in the far distance and then burst into tears at the crack of thunder that was so strong, Jay could swear he felt it. He brought the unfinished bottle to her lips, hoping it coaxes her to eat instead of cry. And it does, her crying simmers down as she starts to drink, her gaze falling to her dad's warm and comforting eyes and she immediately forgets about the fright.
"Daddy won't let anything happen to you," he whispers for her ears only, "I'll keep you safe."
"...from the weather or from Abby?" Erin releases a snarky reply, making her presence known.
"Both," he shrugged, "everything, but getting a tattoo is a far stretch from hurting her." And when she passes him a look of disbelief, he adds, "I'm not defending her. I'm just saying."
Erin flopped down on the couch, and ran her hand through her hair, repeatedly in an effort to settle her racing heart. She's going stir crazy, and it's not because she's indoors, it's because there's a storm standing in the way of her giving Abby a piece of her mind because while she knows Jay gave her a good lashing, she's well aware that his anger is nothing on a mama bear's rage. She shuts her eyes and reopens them when Milo stands in front of her and rests his head on her lap, doing what he's trained to do as her emotional support dog to settle her nerves. It's not working, and it's not for lack of trying on Milo's part. He's better at calming her fear, and all the symptoms related to her PTSD from the break-in and assault, but this is different. This isn't fear, it's anger, it's fury and it's wrath. But, Milo didn't cause it, so she gives the top of his head a rub.
"She has to get those tattoos removed, Jay." Erin averts her eyes from Milo to Jay, watching him pat the baby's back to coax a burp, "I don't even have a tattoo of Emma and she's my baby!"
"I don't know if she's just that delusional or if she's stubborn but she's not getting rid of them."
"That's because you went about it the wrong way."
"Physical assault aside because that's not an option, what else could I have done?"
"Besides breaking up with her before it got to this point?" She rhetorically clarifies then adds, "I think maybe you could have paid attention to the signs, checked her phone because she obviously had to have a picture of Emma to take to the tattoo artist, and maybe even listened to me every single fucking time I came to you about her behavior!"
"Why are you getting upset with me?!"
"...because just like I've said time and time again, you've brought her into our lives! Emma can't defend herself, and even if she could, I'm her mom, it's my job to protect her!" She shouts then reminds herself of the late hour and decides to tone down the volume of her words because her neighbors didn't deserve to be bothered because of a psycho that lives blocks away, "look Jay, it's obvious we're both tired. It's been a really long day and emotions are high. I'm glad you broke up with her. I'm glad you told me why. And I'm also glad that despite the complexity we have in our relationship, you still chose to come over here. I made up the guest room for you."
"So that's it?" Jay sets the empty bottle down.
"What do you want me to say, Jay?"
"I don't know, but something else, something more. We can't go to sleep like this."
"I have things I want to say, but you're not the person I want to say them to."
"Abby…"
"Bingo," she points at him, then rises to her feet, "I might go over there tomorrow."
"I don't feel comfortable with you going there on your own."
"Well it's a good thing you're not my dad or my man because right now, I don't really care about doing things you feel comfortable with."
Before she could come and scoop the baby from his hands, he tries to get a hold of this conversation because it definitely went far left. He raises his free hand while his other arm holds the baby comfortably and securely to his chest, "Wait, wait, I think we're losing sight of the goal here. We don't need to be mad at each other. I came here because I realized you were right, a part of me has always known you were right and I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. I'm not here to make excuses but I did expect you to understand a little bit because you've been in a toxic relationship too. You know ignoring the red flags is not hard at all and noticing them and doing something about them is easier said than done. Looking back, how many times before the final break up did Eric do some shit where you realized, you should have ended things then? How many times did family and friends try to convince you that you deserved better but yet you still chose not to leave? How many times did people get upset with you because you didn't leave when they were ready for you to do so? How many times did he do some questionable shit and you made an excuse for it or explained it away? You lived and you learned and I'm doing that now. I'm sorry if it wasn't fast enough for you, but I'm here now and I'm not going back."
Erin falls quiet. She thinks back to the time, to the years she's spent with Eric, knowing she's stayed with him far longer than the current her would have even thought to stay. She thought about the red flags, the controlling behavior and how she looked at it as his way of showing he loved and cared for her, his need to isolate her from family and friends and how she told herself it was his way of showing that he wants to spend time with her, his hypersensitivity and how she looked at it as him being in tune with his emotions and his narcissism and how she looked at it as confidence. She thinks of the red flags she couldn't explain away, his sudden mood swings, the verbal abuse and the constant put-downs, how he blamed others for all his problems, the gaslighting, the jealousy and how he'd just be unnecessarily rude to people in the service industry, he viewed them as lower than him and despite all of those red flags, she just chose to ignore and pretend they didn't exist. If her current self met her past self, she'd be pissed at her.
She remembers being told she's unattractive when she tries to be funny, yet she stayed. She recalls him calling her a crybaby that cries over everything when she was experiencing bad menstrual cramps, yet that didn't make her want to leave. She thinks of when he told her that her pay raise wasn't much of an accomplishment because he made more in his career field and the thought of leaving never even crossed her mind. She recollected a time when he told her that he wouldn't have to raise his voice at her if she would just listen to him and the most she felt in that moment was embarrassed because he said it in front of her coworkers, and she remembers wanting to leave her job because of the humiliation but not once did she think to leave him.
After the long pause between his words and her response, Jay assumed she wasn't going to say anything so color him confused when she whispers, "You're right." She doesn't say more, she doesn't say less. Instead, she scoops Emma up and carries her into her bedroom, laying her down in the bassinet to sleep until her next feeding. Erin steps out and cracks her bedroom door to listen in, and when she reenters the living room, she sees Jay straightening up, collecting toys, folding blankets and grabbing used bottles. It's amazing to Erin how she can spend an entire day cleaning up and then by nighttime her home is in disarray again. She lets him finish, knowing he needs to do it to feel useful and then once he's done, he takes a seat next to her on the couch.
"I don't think you visiting Abby is going to solve anything. Honestly, I think it'll make it worse."
"...but I can't not do anything. That woman cannot just walk around the world with my baby's name and face tattooed on her. That's ridiculous, Jay."
"It is, and I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying if Abby sees how much it bothers you, she'll just go get another one and that's the last thing we want or need."
"So, are you suggesting we just do nothing? Just let a woman of no relation to our two month old baby walk around with her face on her chest and her name on her back?"
"I'd arrest her if it was illegal."
"Wait," Erin sits up straight and repeatedly taps his leg, "I think I know what we can do," he's all ears and when he turns to face her more, she continues, "I'll get a restraining order."
"There's criteria to be met for that."
"I can argue that she's a stalker. I'm pretty sure I can make the criteria fit for all the shit she's done. I mean what judge in their right mind wouldn't think that's weird?"
"Let's say we get this restraining order on her, that doesn't solve the tattoo problem."
"True but if she comes anywhere near you, Emma or me, she'd get arrested and we can willingly drop the charges and the restraining order if she gets them removed."
"You know that can be considered as blackmail and in Illinois it's a criminal offense."
Erin leans back in her seat, flopping against the couch cushions and sighing out loud as her hand drags down her face. It was worth a shot. She cracks one eye open and glares at him, "Do you always have to be on the straight and narrow? Why are your morals so high?"
"Sorry," he says smiling, both of them fully knowing he doesn't mean it because it's not something to be sorry for, if anything his level of morality is commendable.
"I don't know what to do," the frown lines appear on her forehead, deep, cemented, appearing to be permanent and with everything that happened, she's afraid they just might be, "but I don't think we're going to figure it out tonight and if I think about it any longer, I'm going to get depressed." She hates this, she hates this feeling of being powerless, she hates that she can't physically remove those tattoos herself without being slapped with a felony, but more than anything she hates that she can't protect her daughter. This mama bear rage building up inside of her is like no other, she's never felt this way before, this passionate about someone, this need to defend, to protect and to attack anything and anyone that poses harm to her. It's an instinctual feeling that can't be bought, and it can't be taken away. She never knew how capable she was of being this protective of someone until she had Emma, the protection she felt for others in her life was different. This feeling right here was like a rapid drop in her blood pressure combined with her internal organs being squeezed so tight that it makes her believe she absolutely has to do something right now and right away. And sitting here doing nothing hurts more than anything.
Erin is Emma's first line of defense, and she is finding it extremely difficult to harness the mama bear instinct. She knows with time and as Emma gets older, she'll learn balance, how to protect her but also how to teach and allow her to learn how to handle and adapt to the world around her.
"I honestly don't know how you do it."
Everytime they get close to calling it a night and going their separate ways, the conversation over the same topic stops them.
"How do I do what?"
"How you're so calm, how you act so unbothered, how you look like this is no big deal and-"
"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there," he rises to his feet and starts to pace, "you're making it seem like I don't care, you're making it look like those same parental instincts you have, I don't, and you make it look like I don't feel that same need to protect Emma. I do. Trust me, I do. I'm pissed off too, Erin. This anger inside me is like a volcano about to erupt, and that's why I had to get out of there. I actually thought about shoving her, and that's far from like me." He clenches his hands, and Erin realizes the emotion he's been holding down is on the verge of being released, "that's my baby too and I'm disgusted and fucking insulted that it feels like a competition over who is more protective and upset over this. I left because I couldn't stand to be in the same place as her. She followed me here in this bad weather and instead of feeling sorry like I normally would and offered to drive her home, I sent her on her way. It's not much to you but nothing short of me scraping the damn tattoo off her myself, my hands are tied. I'd say if she gets them removed, I'll get back together with her but then I'd be lying because even if I thought about changing my mind, the second she showed me those tattoos, it was over for good!"
"Jay-"
"I'm not done, Erin," he interrupts, and starts to pace faster, "I'm just as pissed off if not more because as you love to remind me, I brought her into our lives. You don't have to keep saying that, I got the message loud and clear. And I'm done with her now, it's over, for good, and there's nothing she or anyone can do to convince me otherwise. I'm going to sleep here for a few nights to clear my mind and cool off and then I'm either going to kick her ass out of my place or pack all my bags and break my lease, but I'm done. So, let's focus on Emma, and what's right by her and forget about Abby. When she realizes I'm gone for good, she'll eventually get rid of them."
She's shocked by his words, she's caught off guard by the passion behind them, so she simply nods, rising to her feet and taking a cautionary step towards him. He doesn't know what to expect but when her arms wrap around him in a hug, he realizes it definitely wasn't this. He hugs her back, his chin resting on the top of her head, "I'm sorry," she apologizes, and he simply responds with a whispered thank you,- a response his therapist encouraged him to do rather than the typical it's okay, because as Milah would say, it's not okay because if it was, it wouldn't need an apology. Jay tightens his arms around her, squeezing her tight before the two of them bid each other a goodnight, finally separating and going their separate ways.
Erin is emotionally exhausted which makes it no surprise that she falls asleep the second her head hits the pillow. She's out like a light, only waking up a few hours later when she hears the sound of laughter. From her bed, she peers over to find the bassinet empty and before she could panic, she remembers the events of the night before, and comes to the conclusion that the laughter she hears is coming from Emma. Erin stands, and walks to the door, standing beneath the threshold, she finds Jay and her baby in the living room, the source of the laughter unsurprisingly coming from Jay.
"Good morning," she greets. He looks up at her, smile still on his face and then greets her in return, "Good morning. How'd you sleep?"
"Pretty good," Erin ran her hand down her face slowly, "how long have you been up?"
"...about an hour," Jay shrugs, sitting the baby on his hip after rising to his feet, "she'd been up for about half of that, I got her before she could wake you up."
"Thanks for that," an awkward silence befalls them. You'd think they'd be over all this by now but it seems like when they take five steps forward they end up taking another back. This appears to be the story of their lives right now, but surprisingly it's Jay that breaks the silence.
"I hope you don't mind me staying a few more nights."
"Jay," she smiles obviously at Emma, and makes a goofy face to earn a baby smile, "you can stay as long as you need. I have a perfectly good guest bedroom that you can use and I'd rather you be here than there with her." It appears that a night's rest seemed to do the trick.
"So if I were to move my stuff from there to here, you wouldn't mind?"
"No, because it's not permanent. It's your restart, we all need them," she replies, heading towards the kitchen, "and besides I'll definitely be able to save more money if we split the rent."
He follows behind her, keeping up with her fast moving legs, "So, we're really doing this? We're doing the roommate thing? Co-parenting under the same roof?"
"Yeah, I mean, we're adults, and we have Emma as a mutual goal." She opens the top cabinets and pulls out two bowls, "Please don't judge the contents of my kitchen. I hope you like cereal."
He didn't really have a choice because she's pouring two full bowls of cereal, adding milk and dropping a spoon in each before sliding his bowl towards him. They stand and eat, with him disappearing briefly to grab the boppy pillow to return to set it on the countertop and lay Emma inside. Erin leans on her elbows and takes her time spooning cereal into her mouth. And Jay is ensuring Emma doesn't tilt over and is properly relaxed back on the pillow, "Imagine when she's able to sit up by herself and her head is able to hold itself up."
"I read it starts around four months."
"I'm torn between wanting the time to come vs. wanting it to take its time." He starts eating his cereal. Another silence befalls them but this time it isn't awkward.
Erin stirs the cereal in her bowl, her chin resting in the palm of her opened, free hand, and she slightly turns her head to face him, "I think I'm going to request that my landlord change the locks." That gets his attention and before he can question it, she adds, "It's for my sanity more than anything. I'm just thinking about how crazy your ex-girlfriend is, and the blood stain I saw on the floor, and it'll just make me feel better. I have no proof whatsoever but my gut is just telling me to do it. I'll give you a set of keys of course, but who knows if she ever had access to your keys and now that you dumped her, she may be desperate enough to come here. If I'm here, I wouldn't be too worried but the majority of the time my mom and Emma are here and the thought of her showing up here while they're here with Milo freaks me out."
"It makes sense," he spoons the sugary concoction in his mouth, distracted by the high sugar intake that he doesn't notice Erin's shocked face.
"Are you okay?" She lifts her hand and lays it against his forehead, checking to see if he's running a temperature; he swats her hand away and chuckles, leading her to elaborate, "I'm just saying, anytime I say stuff like that about Abby, you rush to defend her, but this time, you agreed, so just be patient with me as I process this turn of events."
"I'm just saying," he eats the last bite of cereal then pours himself another bowl, "those tattoos really freaked me the fuck out. I had nightmares and was tossing and turning all night. You could say anything about Abby right now and I'd be inclined to agree."
"Let's test this out then," she pours herself another bowl then continues, "I think Abby purposely told my dad about our relationship and you being Emma's dad. I don't think it was an accident."
"Wow, you're going way back…"
"It's best to start at the beginning," she pauses to take another bite and chew before her cereal gets soggy, "I think Abby slashed my tires. I think Abby somehow got into my apartment, Milo bit her and she caused the blood stain. I also think she's the reason Eric came to visit."
"That's a lot of accusations."
"It's killing you right now to not defend her, isn't it?" Erin chuckled, showing she's not insulted by his need to defend someone that isn't here to defend themselves.
"What can I say? I'm a good guy. I don't have proof that you're telling the truth but I also don't have proof that you're lying either so I'm just going to stay quiet."
"Stay quiet?" She repeats, eyes wider, "I think I like this new and improved Jay Halstead."
"It just took me dating someone delusional enough to think I'd appreciate her getting my baby's name and face tattooed on her body."
"Ugh, why'd you have to bring that up? It's taking everything inside of me to not leave right now and go to your place to have words with her."
A comfortable silence befalls them, both of them eating, and both of them looking at their daughter. This scene is nice, it's something they can definitely get used to if not for the large elephant in the room. Once she finishes her breakfast, she lifts the bowl, brings it to her mouth and slurps up the remainder of the milk, now flavored by the cereal that was once in the bowl.
"Ahh," she lowers the bowl, milk mustache stained above her lip and settles the empty dish in the sink, "I'm going to give Emma some tummy time." She scoops the baby up, leaving behind the boppy pillow for Jay to grab, and before she leaves the kitchen, she stops in her tracks, "Oh I almost forgot, Emma has a two month check up at the end of this week. The invitation is open if you want to come with us."
He jumps at the chance, "Yeah, I'd like that. What time?"
"Nine in the morning."
"Okay, I'll make sure I'm there." He smiles at her.
And her smile mirrors his, "Great." She leaves the kitchen, baby in one arm and then grabs the blanket with the other. Erin opens it up to the best of her ability to spread it out when a crack of thunder booms through the darkened sky. It's morning yet the sky looks dark enough to be night.
Jay eventually joins her, his sock covered feet dragging on her carpet as he holds a cup of coffee in his hand. He watches Emma on the blanket, struggling to hold her head up, "Oh, she looks so cute," Erin gushes, "I want to take a picture. Watch her and make sure she doesn't smother herself while I go to get my phone." She doesn't give him a chance to reply and she's out of the living room in seconds. Milo behind her, at her feet, sensing the urgency.
Erin rushes to her nightstand, grabs her phone off the charger and detaches the plug, before rushing back into the living room and upon noticing the unread text from Mouse, her heart starts racing. He wouldn't be contacting her unless it was to update her on what he found. She excuses herself from the living room and goes to her bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind her before dialing his number.
"Sorry I'm so late in getting back to you, we've had case after case and I just had no time to run the IP address even though it only takes like five minutes. You can thank your dad for that, he's surely making me earn my paycheck, though I do think he would have let me prioritize this if he knew what you asked me to do."
"Mouse, it's fine, you're calling now, I appreciate this. I figured it wasn't going to be your number one concern with the crime rate in Chicago right now," she remarks, suddenly finding herself overwhelmed and beginning to pace, "Did you uh, find something though? Maybe a name, a home address, I'd even take a phone number?"
"I found some information, surprisingly it wasn't really that easy to come by, but I managed, do you want to know how?"
"Mouse, I'm not the court of law, I don't care about how you've obtained it, I just need to know who the email belongs to so I can figure out who sent that message."
"I tried to trace the email through social media, through reverse email lookup and even through time zones, but the biggest hit I got was tracing it through the IP address," he starts, and it takes everything in Erin to not rush him along, "The email is obviously bogus, a made up name and number used to sign up for the account. If I had a warrant I could easily get the name from the email provider but we're doing this under the radar so I-"
"Mouse," she interrupts, patience running out, "whatever you found, I'd make it work."
"So I traced the IP address, they don't give you names or numbers though. It reveals the geolocation but not exactly the precise location, I'll still see what else I can figure out but I wanted to at least have something to show for it."
"Can you text it to me?" She gets right to the point, "the geolocation," she specifies.
"Yeah, yeah of course," he says before the two of them part ways and she hangs up.
Erin hears her name being called and carries her phone out into the living room. Emma is no longer in the midst of tummy time. She grew too impatient for her mother to come back, her frustration straining from the uncomfortable position of trying to hold her head up.
"You took too long and she started fretting."
"No worries, she does it every day so I'll just get a picture then."
Just as she says that, her phone dings and she immediately swipes up and clicks into Mouse's name, zooming in on the photo of the area the IP address surrounds. It's in the state, it's in the city, and as she closes in on the street names, she scans for one that's familiar. And when she finds it, she isn't nearly as shocked as she expected, more so because she was prepared for this, she knew her gut instinct was right. The street name in the circled geolocation was Jay's residence, and the only people she knows to live within that circle are Jay and Abby, and the former would never think to do something like this. She'd been wanting to leave her home since last night to confront the bitch for the Emma tattoos, but now she wants to storm out more than anything because Erin knows if she's responsible for some shit like this, it's no telling what other stuff she's up to and what other crap she's already done.
Jay is cradling Emma to his chest and walks over, startling her when she feels him nudge her with his shoulder. Immediately, she looks up, eyes wide as he takes her in, "Everything okay?"
"No," she doesn't hesitate to answer, "far from it actually."
"What's wrong?"
"If I tell you, you're not going to believe me."
"Erin-"
"I'm serious Jay."
"I can tell," he reassures, "and because of that, I know I'll believe you."
She clears her throat and then gives in, "I was in the room for so long because I just heard from Mouse," her voice is hesitant as she prepares to tell him and then follow it up with I told you so once he reacts the way she expects, "a while ago, I had asked him to find out who sent that email to Eric," he opens his mouth to respond but she doesn't give him a chance to, not yet, not until she's finished, "you might not understand why I'm so hyper focused on this but," she opens her mouth then closes it before opening it again, "you know my history with Eric and what I've been through with him and I couldn't just let this go. An email was created for the sole purpose of reaching out to my abusive ex to bring him back into my life and I deserved to find out by who."
"...and? Did you find out who sent it?"
"Yeah," she bites her lip, nodding pretty vigorously, "I did."
"Okay?" Now he's growing impatient, "who is it? Do we know them?"
"Abby sent it, Jay. She's the one that created that email and pretended to be me so Eric would come back. Just when you think she's incapable of going lower, she manages to do it just fine."
Abby immediately closes out of the app, her heart racing in a panic as she hopes and prays they don't decide to inspect the octopus any closer. Her hands tremble at her sides as she tries to think of her next step. She doesn't understand why the tattoos didn't work, that plan absolutely failed no matter how much she felt deep down at her core that it would work. And when she switches over to the internet browser and searches for ways to fight for your relationship, only to find herself immediately exiting out when the answers she receives are ones she views as pointless. She tried apologizing and he didn't want to hear it. She tried listening to him but he's saying nothing she wants to hear. She completely disagrees with the tip to not over-pursue it because she's never been the one for patience, she can't accept that things take time, that has never been her motto. She clicks out of that site and loads up another, stopping when she reads the first tip.
Do something out of the norm. She doesn't bother to read the blurb or the details to expand upon that point because in her mind, how would the article know what's outside of her norm? Instead, she closes out of it, and leans back in her seat, reaching beneath the couch cushion for her journal in order to list potential out of the norm ways to win her man back. She got him once, and she has every intent to get him again. It's not over until it's over and that's over her dead body.