Chapter Text
“So, how’s life been treating you Vanessa?”
Vanessa’s eyes move from one of her co-workers to another.
That's a wonderful question, how has her life been going? Well…
First, she was stabbed in the gut by her own father, whom she had dedicated her life to, leaving her in a coma for a week and forcing her out of active duty for several months. The only two people who were there for her are now just a distant memory. She has no idea about the whereabouts of her dear brother Michael, who now likely despises her more than their mother ever did. And to top it all off, she has been feeling like shit for who knows how long now.
“It’s been okay, I can’t wait to return to the station though.” A fake smile appears on her face in hopes that it will convince her, now a bit drunk, co-worker.
“Aw, typical Vanessa,” the hand of one of her co-workers suddenly appears on her arm, making her jump a little at the touch, “still as hard working as ever.”
Vanessa just hums. Her eyes keep wandering to her arm, waiting for her co-worker to remove his hand. It’s clear that she’s not comfortable with it, but the guy across from her is already too drunk to notice. Although, people rarely notice when she’s uncomfortable.
As soon as she registers someone calling out his name, the hand disappears off her arm with him. Vanessa lets out a deep breath she didn’t even notice she was holding in.
Vanessa has never been the biggest fan of birthday parties since they do a great job reminding her of her childhood. The cake, the wrapped gifts, the balloons and confetti. It’s kind of funny how these childish things tend to also stick onto the birthday parties of adults.
Each party reminds her of a person she has lost at the hands of her father.
It's no wonder that she doesn’t celebrate her birthday at this point in her life. To be honest, she doesn’t even remember the last time she did, not that she would have someone to celebrate them with regardless.
While, normally, she wouldn’t have gone to this birthday party, especially considering how ill she feels today, she figured that if she wanted to get back to work, showing up so her co-workers could see that she’s fine would really help.
She has been requesting to return back to active duty for some time now. However, all she gets in response is a firm no or no answer at all. There are so many things and problems occupying her mind and the only way she knows how to get rid of them is to distract herself with enough work to no longer have time to think about them.
However, she now wishes she hadn’t come.
A loud dinner with bright colorful lights isn’t the best place for someone with an aggravatingly painful headache to be. One look at the clock on a nearby wall tells Vanessa that it’s 7pm.
Sure, that seems like a normal time for a person to be out on Friday, but the only thing Vanessa wants to do right now is throw herself into bed. She hopes, naively, that the nightmares will give her a break and let her sleep, at least for tonight.
Her brain is too worn out to even care about Charlotte’s whereabouts. Vanessa knows she’s somewhere in here since Charlotte can only distance herself so far from her, but she doesn’t bother to know where exactly.
It’s not like Charlotte could do anything bad anyways. Everything in here is out of her control when she’s bound to her, as Vanessa has learned recently. Plus, she’ll come back around when the time comes, she might as well enjoy the little time she has left before the child returns to make snark comments about the way her life is so pathetic.
After all, she just has to make it to the end of the party, which will hopefully bring her closer to the goal of returning to work.
A sigh is about to escape her again when someone else approaches her.
“Vanessa, it’s nice to see you again!” It’s the birthday girl herself.
“The same goes for you Chief Miller.” The smile returns back onto Vanessa’s face at the voice of the Chief Deputy, AKA the Sheriff’s right hand. If there is anyone she needs to prove she’s fully recovered to, it’s her.
“Oh come on Vanessa, we’ve already been over this, just call me Sandra.” They both know she won’t, and yet Chief Miller keeps insisting.
“Well anyways, I’d like to talk to you.” Her pupils move to the right, looking at what Vanessa assumes to be the door to behind the diner, “Outside. Are you okay with that?”
Vanessa’s head just nods. She could have sworn her heart skipped a beat. It sounds important, are they planning on firing her?
Did they figure out that she was helping a murderer?
Did they figure out something about her father?
By the time Vanessa’s thoughts return to reality, Chief Miller is already halfway to the back. Vanessa stands up at full tilt, causing her to almost fall back down at the sudden spinning of her head. Luckily, she manages to keep her balance without anyone noticing.
With a quick step, she closes the distance between her and Chief Miller as they approach the door.
The view outside isn’t something to brag about. They’re both standing against the building with a huge trash can across from them. Vanessa’s mind is filled with nervousness, each thought more catastrophic than the one before. She’s patiently awaiting the question from Chief Miller.
However, Chief Miller doesn’t seem to be in nearly as much hurry as a person who had just learned about her father would be.
Her hands reach into the purse she brought with her, taking out a package of cigarettes and promptly putting one into her mouth.
As she retreats back into her bag, her gaze turns to Vanessa, as if only now realizing that she isn’t alone.
“Would you like one too?” Her hand stretched out toward Vanessa, offering her a cigarette. Vanessa realizes that she must have been staring at her, pushing her to do this.
“Not a smoker, but thank you.” She politely declines Chief Miller.
Her hand once again reaches into the bag. When she takes it out this time, the package is replaced by a lighter. After two attempts, it works, and she lights her cigarette, finally allowing her to take the first drag.
Vanessa’s mother used to smoke cigarettes . . .
Vanessa hates cigarettes.
She hates everything about them, from the smell, to the taste, and all the way to how their urning hurt against her skin.
“Okay, let’s cut to the chase Vanessa.” Chief Miller starts talking as the first bunch of smoke finishes leaving her mouth. “How would you feel about returning to duty?”
At these words, Vanessa’s eyes light up.
“Not just paperwork, but the actual field.”
It’s as if she was reading Vanessa’s mind; saying all the things she wants to hear, just like one would to a child to get their attention.
“I would love to.” Vanessa responded as quickly as she could, making a small smile appear on Chief Miller's face.
“I’m glad to hear that. Though, I just want to specify that I wouldn’t be asking you this if we weren’t short on people currently.” Her fingers come back to her mouth letting her take another drag. This time, as she lets the smoke disappear from her mouth, the smell of it makes Vanessa gag.
“A lot of the women are taking maternity leave. Luckily, that won’t be the case for me.” A soft laugh comes out of Chief Miller following her comment.
Chief Miller has a child, a son if Vanessa remembers correctly. When she first started working, Chief Miller was there with her, although she was just returning from her maternity leave.
It’s so strange to Vanessa. Mrs. Miller must have been younger than Vanessa is now and she already had a child.
Having children. That seems so distant to her. Vanessa doesn’t want to have children of her own. Or, perhaps she’s just scared of having children of her own. With the way she is, she would just fuck them up, like how her parents had with her and Michael. She’d only repeat the cycle.
“And how about you?” Chief Miller's face turns to Vanessa’s, causing a bit of smoke to waft right into her nose. She swallows back in a successful attempt to stop the bile threatening to leave her.
“Planning on getting knocked up in the near future?” The change in Chief Miller’s tone would take a stranger by surprise, but it’s not new to Vanessa. She knows Chief Miller well enough by now to know that she gets like this at the opportunity to dig up some new gossip.
In other words, she tends to be a nosy bitch.
Only a hum leaves Vanessa as she shakes her head, not giving Chief Miller any new juicy gossip.
“Aw, well, that's better for us then.” She chuckles again. “Do you have someone?” And there she continues, in hopes of at least getting something about her personal life out of her. If only she knew what’s really going on in Vanessa’s life. That would surely shut her up.
“No.” Looks like this will be the only answer Chief Miller will be receiving from Vanessa tonight.
With that, she accepts her defeat, dropping the used cigarette on the ground and putting it out with her shoe. She starts to leave, only stopping before the door and turning to face Vanessa.
“You can expect the official email to come through this week. We’ll be awaiting you the second week of July.”
With those words, she enters back into the loud bistro, leaving Vanessa to stand in the smoke filled air alone.
Finally, some quiet. She would be savoring it much more if it wasn’t for that damn smoke.
Vanessa never really understood why people smoked. They were just shortening their life and making their risk of cancer much higher.
It’s even worse when they’re doing it while their children are in the picture. Slowly, not only are they shortening their own life, but also the lives of their children. It wouldn’t be as bad if it only happened a few times, but when you have a hard time finding a memory of your mother without a cigarette in her hand, there’s a problem.
Vanessa’s stomach twists. The longer she spends out here, the more her lunch threatens to come out. Although the moon is beautiful tonight, Vanessa knows the time to retreat inside is drawing near.
Her hand quickly emerges to her mouth as her legs start to make their way inside with a swift step. God her head hurts. And her legs also aren’t in the best state, stumbling with each new step. But that doesn’t matter now, there’s no way Vanessa is going to do a technicolor yawn anywhere outside of the bathroom.
Only a few more steps of keeping it down…
A loud thud resonates in her skull as she feels that something has hit hard into her head. She can feel her back hit the ground, letting out a painful groan. That’s what she gets for not looking where she’s going.
As she carefully sits up, she notices a hand in front of her, reaching out to help her up. Great, she must have bumped into some man at full speed. Reluctantly, she takes it, gently getting back on her legs.
“Oh my God miss, are you okay?” The buzzing progressively stops, signaled by the fact that she can hear his voice much more clearly now.
“Mmm, thank you.”
Oh no, not this.
As her eyes open she finally realizes to whom that hand belongs to.
Mike stares at her, dumbfounded. As if he just saw something unbelievable. His hand drops hers as he takes a step back. He mutters something, something that Vanessa wishes she couldn’t make out.
“You’re crazy.”
Vanessa’s body freezes, she cannot move as she watches Mike get further away from her.
There’s someone going towards him, a woman. She’s not as tall as him. Vanessa can’t take her eyes off of them, something in her breaks as she watches the woman put a hand on his chest.
“Is something wrong?” she hears in the distance.
“Let’s go somewhere else.” There’s nothing else Vanessa can force herself to do as she watches them leave.
Is Mike on a date?
Looks like he has officially moved on.
That’s good, hopefully this new woman will be able to make them both forget all of the traumatic things they experienced with Vanessa.
Hopefully she’ll be able to make them forget Vanessa . . .
* * *
The sun shines on Vanessa’s face through the curtains, making her close her eyes tighter. She hadn’t gotten a good night's sleep, just like every other night. With Charlotte’s possession her sleep has gradually gotten worse, which Vanessa didn’t even realize was possible.
The fact that her brother isn’t talking to her anymore doesn’t help much either.
As much as she would love to rest more in bed, her ghost companion has other plans.
“Vanessa! Vanessa!” Charlotte’s shouts make her head buzz. If there was one strange thing about Charlotte, among the other obvious strange facts about her, it would be the way her act changes.
One hour, she’s a sweet little 12 year old girl; Vanessa’s best friend who only wants to hang out. And then within the next hour, as if she had to remember her goal, she starts torturing Vanessa, reminding her of the truth. Even though she can’t be possessing her now, because of her “fragility,” whatever that means, she is still here to make her life more miserable.
“Come on, don’t be lazy just because nobody likes you.” Before Charlotte can recover an ugly glare from Vanessa, she disappears into the other room, her laugh still heard in the distance.
A heavy sigh leaves Vanessa. Charlotte’s leave means that she can enjoy some much needed quiet for at least a few minutes. The sun is still pretty low which makes Vanessa guess that it’s around 7 or 8am max.
There’s no need to wake up yet, she should just enjoy her last weeks of being able to sleep in.
But can you really sleep in when you haven’t even slept for the last hour or so in the first place?
Perhaps it’s time to wake up already, at least before Charlotte decides to return.
Vanessa sits up probably way too swiftly, causing her head to start spinning faster than a broken carnival ride. The ringing in her ears becomes so overwhelming that it forces her to lay back down.
Maybe she should stay in bed for a little longer, at least until Charlotte returns. Her eyes close once again in an attempt to calm the buzzing a little faster.
Vanessa thinks something might be wrong with her, aside from the fact that she’s an Afton and the other obvious wrong things, she has suspicions about her physical well-being.
Her irritating headaches won’t leave no matter what she tries. Then, there is the dizziness that becomes more constant with each passing day, and recently, the dizziness has outgrown being simply aggravating, now making Vanessa throw everything in her stomach up.
If this continues to get worse, it will be hard to survive once she gets back to work.
No, she can’t think about it like that.
It will stop bothering her eventually. It’s not bad yet. Doctors are only for when something is life threatening. Why bother them with something so minor and redundant? It’s probably just stress induced anyway.
Plus, the last thing Vanessa wants to do is go to the doctor with a ghost bound to her. For all she knows, Charlotte could possibly be what's causing this.
No, no, thinking about it will only make it worse. She should stop. She needs to get her mind occupied with something else. Come on, think of something…
Mike…
No, stop it Vanessa.
Back at the bistro, he was there with another woman.
Vanessa, stop!
Was he on a date? She remembers the few dates they had been on, but were they really dates? Neither of them ever specified them to be a date. Vanessa can’t tell though. She has never been on a date just because she wanted to. It was always a task to help her father get some needed information from those men.
“Are you still not awake?!” Vanessa’s eyes jolt open at the sudden voice. Well, looks like it’s officially time to get up since this ghost won’t be leaving her alone any time soon.
This time, Vanessa takes her time sitting up in hopes that her head won’t spin as much. A groan does escape her though, but the ringing doesn’t return in her ears this time.
“The mail man was just here.” Charlotte informs her as Vanessa slowly puts her feet onto the ground. Probably just some bills. She’ll take care of it as soon as she changes out of her pajamas. Plus, some fresh morning air could help her start the day on the right foot.
The morning air hits her skin. It’s quite cold compared to her warm bed sheets, but at least it’s waking her up a bit. Her legs start making their way towards the mailbox, carefully, because her head keeps spinning.
She successfully makes it there, taking a deep breath as she grips onto the mailbox for balance. Her eyes close for a few seconds, trying to calm the dizziness down. After a minute or two, she slowly opens them, the sunlight hitting her face.
Yeah, bills. Exactly as she thought. Who else would send her mail? Her mother? The thought alone makes Vanessa laugh. It’s sad.
Well, that’s it for her outside time today. Time to return to her prison chamber and immerse herself there until tomorrow.
Just as her legs start heading back towards her prison door, a voice stops her. “Vanessa! Dear! Good morning!” She stops in her tracks, turning to face the lady. As much as she wants to go inside, she knows that there’s no escaping Ms. Taylor now that she saw her.
“Good morning ma’am!” The older lady smiles at her.
“I need a favor from you but it seems that I haven’t been able to catch you these past few days.” Yeah, no surprise there, Vanessa rarely went outside these days. The birthday party really drained her.
“Next week I’ll be travelling to my dear friend Mary’s funeral, may she rest in peace,” the older lady makes a sign of the cross. “I already have the ticket for the train, but I’m currently short on a ride to the train station.”
There’s no need for Ms. Taylor to continue, Vanessa already knows what the much needed favor is. After all, this hasn’t been the first time; she has a weak spot for her. One drive to the train station won’t hurt.
I’ll drive you there.” Vanessa gives her a resuming smile, hoping that it will possibly spare her from hearing Ms. Taylor’s life problems.
“Oh, aren’t you a dear. If only everyone your age was like you.” And here it comes. “You won’t believe what happened again.”
Vanessa has a feeling that she will indeed believe what happened again.
“The mailman does not know how to do his work. This is the third time this month he’s brought me mail meant for a different house. Never did something like this happen back in the day,” she complains.
Vanessa grows slightly more annoyed, but mainly dizzy as she stands there in the sun. Though, she doesn’t have it in her to tell Ms. Taylor off, because at the end of the day, she has no one.
Ms. Taylor has lived here since Vanessa can remember. Her mother would invite her over sometimes to brag about her husband and children; both things that Ms. Taylor never had.
From what Vanessa had learned, she lived with her two parents, dedicating her whole life to them. When they needed something, their obedient daughter was there for them. Taking care of them until they took their last breath. She was like their maid, and what good would a maid who would get married and have rascals on her own be?
One of the stories she never forgets to bring up to Vanessa when there’s nothing to talk about is about how her father would always lock her out if she was planning to go on a date with a guy. Ms. Taylor always just laughed at it, finding her father’s overprotective nature entertaining.
Through the many times, though, that Vanessa has heard this story, it became apparent that Ms. Taylor’s father was nothing more than a selfish, manipulative man. He kept her on a short leash, making sure that she was bound to him and would be there for him day and night non-stop.
Personal life, what is that? She didn’t have one because she had to obey her father.
However, in the end, everyone finishes their road of life.
The day her father was gone, the last person she could truly rely on was too. She was left fully alone in this world, suddenly having to navigate it with no family, no friends, and no one who could truly be there for her. All thanks to him.
She got to grow into an old lonely lady, watching everyone else her age live their lives to the fullest. She watched as couples raised children together from her lone house. Watching something she could’ve had if her father hadn’t been so selfish.
That’s why Vanessa is nice to her. Because in the end, she hopes that once she’s Ms. Taylor’s age, there will also be a person like her, especially since she and Ms. Taylor are virtually the same.
Since Vanessa is destined to end up like her.
“Oh, and that reminds me of another favor. Would you mind bringing this mail to the right address?”
And before Vanessa knows it, she’s sitting in the car at 7:30am on a Saturday, driving to a random address to deliver mail.
“You know, you could’ve just told her no,” Charlotte comments from the passenger seat. But Vanessa doesn’t say anything back, instead focusing all of her attention to the road. There may be barely any other cars, but driving surely doesn’t help stop the acid threatening to escape her stomach.
After what feels like an eternity trying to not divert her attention from the street, Vanessa finally stops at the said address.
Okay, you can do this Vanessa.
The only thing she’d have to do is leave the mail in the mailbox and not vomit in their front yard in the process.
Her hand reaches to open the mailbox. The family occupying the house doesn’t seem to be there currently, so she decides to just leave it there. Plus, today, she doesn’t really feel like having any contact with other people. The morning fully drained her social battery for the day.
She quickly places the mail inside. With her job done, Vanessa turns around. Three steps in and she freezes. Her pupils shrink as she makes out who is standing just a few meters away from her.
Glaring at her, from the neighbor’s house, are Mike and Jeremiah. What are they doing here? It takes her a minute, but once she realizes it hits her like an arrow.
This is where they live now.
Vanessa recalls hearing something about them moving, again, after the incident with Michael and Charlotte. Although, deep inside, she knows that it’s also because of her.
Because Mike doesn’t want her to know his and Abby’s whereabouts.
Because the last thing he wants is to see her again.
And yet, it keeps happening. For some unknown reason, they keep running into each other. Vanessa can see that he’s starting to lose his patience.
She wants her legs to move, but it’s no use. It’s as if they were glued to the floor. Her heartbeat echoes in her ears. It’s loud, or maybe her head just hurts too much to focus on anything else.
Neither of them move, waiting for the other to decide what to do first. Her breathing quickens; she can’t take the way Mike’s glaring at her. The need to leave grows with each passing second.
She needs to get to her car. Now.
Vanessa finally manages to get her legs to move, even if her pace is slower than she would prefer. Her legs become heavier with every step. With each blink, she gets closer and closer and the two men across from her become more visible.
Jeremiah’s expression is full of anger, but she doesn’t care for long; when her gaze turns to Mike, her heart aches.
His look is something she’ll never be able to forget. The way his eyebrows are slightly inwards, his eyes big as they watch her every step with shrunken pupils. The way his lips are fairly sunk. His look makes her shiver.
She can’t quite tell if there’s anger present, but there has to be, at least a little bit. Most of his emotions are overshadowed by his disgust with the fact that she’s sick enough to show up in front of their new house, that they haven’t told her about, after he cut her out of their lives.
But she can also tell he has fear. He’s scared. Scared because he knows that everything bad that happened to them was because of her.
Before her hand can reach for the car's door handle, she feels Jeremiah’s presence behind her. Her hand becomes numb. She can’t bring herself to look at his face when he’s this close. She already knows what he’s going to say and she fears it.
“Do you really think that this is okay?” Jeremiah yells into her right ear, making her eyes shut tight and her body flinch slightly. One thing that scares her the most is people yelling at her.
“You are sick!” Tears start forming in her eyes. Jeremiah might be the one saying this, but Mike’s silence hurts more.
“Look at me Vanessa!” Her heart skips a beat.
Look at him.
Her face slowly turns toward him, and though it takes more courage to open her eyes, she manages to do so.
“If you ever come near Mike or Abby again, they’ll be getting a restraining order. So leave now! Before we have to get the police involved!” With these words he turns away from her, leaving to rejoin Mike in the front yard.
Mike is still staring at her and she doubts that his eyes have left her since the moment he saw her there. She soon stops registering him, her attention being brought to the ringing in her ears growing louder.
It’s now that she notices how much the sun is burning on her head; no wonder it’s spinning so much. She needs to get going this instant. However, as soon as she tries to move, her stomach squeezes. Her nonexistent breakfast threatens to come out of her.
The realization hits her when she feels burning inside her throat. It’s strong enough to make her fully ignore her lack of balance as she runs to the closest bin, gripping its sides as she hovers over it.
Hey eyes tear up even more as she tries to grasp her breath before inevitably failing and vomiting. Although a minute or more had passed, she was still leaning over the bin, catching her breath as she got a glimpse of what had just left her body.
Finally, she manages to bring herself fully back onto her legs, and though she feels like she could fall down any minute now, her legs move forward weakly. She doesn’t care about anything now. Not the sun roasting on her unhealthily pale skin nor if Mike and Jeremiah are still there.
They might have already left but Vanessa doesn’t know and she doesn’t care much about knowing now anyways. There’s one thing she knows for sure, though.
She’ll never come near this street again.
* * *
“Thank you once again dear.” The older woman takes Vanessa’s hand in-between hers as a sign of gratitude. Vanessa just gives her a smile, barely being able to hear what she’s saying over the voices of people nervous about all the train delays and everything else imaginable.
This the first time she’s been to a train station. Well, maybe the second, but she can’t quite remember. Regardless, she’s never been on a train. She’s never even left this town.
“Oh, well look at the time! I should get going.” The warmth of Ms. Taylor’s hands leave Vanessa's as the older lady carefully steps onto the train. Waving her last goodbye, she disappears into the train.
“Ugh, finally! She hasn’t changed a bit. She’s just annoying as she was when she was younger,” Charlotte groans. Vanessa recalls the times when Charlotte would be over and Ms. Taylor would make them run errands for her.
Though, she still doesn’t appreciate Charlotte talking about Ms. Taylor this way. Vanessa lets that be known by the look she gives her. Ms. Taylor has no one, it’s not her fault that she’s forced to ask her neighbor when she needs a little help, even if it does get annoying sometimes.
“Come on, you know I’m right,” Charlotte retorts, hovering next to Vanessa as she starts to make her way through the station. She doesn’t answer Charlotte, but if they weren’t in public she would defend Ms. Taylor more. After all, Vanessa is destined for the same fate.
Her chest rises and falls as she squeezes herself through a fighting couple. The summer break just started so this place is full of them. It’s uncomfortable for Vanessa, overwhelming even.
If she thought she was feeling her worst before, oh boy, she sure was wrong. Her legs stumble through the station, barely keeping her balanced. She is covered in sweat and her skin hurts like hell. It must be a sunburn but she’s barely been outside the past week.
A long sigh escapes her as her head acts like a rollercoaster. In an attempt to cool herself down, at least a little, she uses her hand as a fan while heavy breaths continue coming out of her.
A bench. She should sit down, at least for a second.
Her body falls onto the bench, allowing her a moment of relief. Though, not too much since the universe just loves to see her suffer. Her stomach is heaving, threatening to empty its contents.
If it weren’t for the busy station, Vanessa would hear her loud breaths; an attempt to calm her dizziness, though not a successful one.
Focus, that’s right, she’s focusing too much on it. She should direct her attention to something else.
For example… her surroundings.
Yeah, that’s right, she should just focus on everything happening around her.
Let’s see, the weather seems uncomfortable for everyone here. The station is covered, thanks to a big rooftop, but it doesn’t help the heat much as most people appear sweaty. The sweat on Vanessa’s skin is unbearable. It’s one of the reasons her dizziness is worsening.
No, no, she can’t keep thinking about how she feels.
People, that’s it. She should focus on individual people.
There’s a fighting couple not far from her, they seem pretty young. Since there are three suitcases with one much smaller than the other two, she can only assume that their fight is over a lost child.
Instead of fighting, they should look for them. They should find them quickly, before it’s too late. Before someone like her father reaches them.
Sitting on the bench away from her is a man, likely somewhere in his 40’s, Vanessa guesses. From the large backpack on the seat next to him and the incomprehensible words he’s saying into his phone, she figures he must be a tourist. A backpacker probably because there is no way a normal tourist would visit this mundane town.
She wonders how many places he’s been to. Maybe she should ask him how the outside looks. Would he understand her? She can’t even tell what language he’s speaking.
Her gaze wanders to another person. A man once again. She can only see his back, but he’s hugging someone. Someone almost as tall as him; a girl. It seems that only the girl is leaving as she boards the train alone.
She turns around for one last goodbye, waving to the man standing in front of her. It’s now that Vanessa can fully make out the girl's face. Immediately, her whole body tenses. The memory of their last meeting finds its way back into her mind at a rapid speed.
By the time lowers her head in hopes that Abby won’t notice her, she knows it’s too late. Her name leaves Abby’s mouth accompanied by a big wave.
What is Vanessa supposed to do now? She never thought she would find them here out of all places. She didn’t stalk them here and she had never even stalked them in the first place.
However, she has a feeling that Mike will not want to hear any of this.
The only thing she manages to do is return a small wave to Abby. As if her body was acting purely on instinct, she stands up without thinking. From the corner of her eye, she catches Mike turning his attention to her.
It’s not until she’s three steps in that Vanessa’s mind starts registering her discomfort again. The dizziness is getting worse with each blink, telling her to stop walking and sit down.
But Vanessa doesn’t stop. She can’t stop. She has to get away from there. It’s more than clear that Mike is growing tired of seeing her around and she doesn’t want to deal with any police officers earlier than next week when she returns to active duty.
Not to mention how bad it would look for a police officer to have a restraining order.
Her legs continue stumbling, barely keeping her upright. Miraculously, Vanessa manages to make her way out of the train station. There are less crowds of people but the sun is now burning her skin.
She is almost there, almost to her car. Her legs are shaking but she chooses to ignore it. Only a few more steps and she’ll be away from here. Away from Mike and Abby with no police involved.
Only a few more steps. She can ignore the loud ringing in her ears, sudden increase of sweat, the overwhelming nausea, the way her legs want to give out…
At last, she decides to stop, seeing how long the stairs are in front of her. Her hand finds the railing, clutching it as if her life depended on it. Her breaths deepen even more, making her spinning head worse.
It feels like her whole body is giving out.
It feels like she’s going to-
“How in the world can you think something like this is normal?!” A yell pierces through her skull, only making her dizzier.
As hard as it is for Vanessa, she slowly turns around, locking eyes with the man she knows too well by now. She wants to say something, but she can’t. Either from the extreme dizziness or the fear of knowing how bad these coincidental meetings look.
“I thought that I was clear when we talked last time!” He steps closer to her. “But it looks like you don’t understand.”
“Vanessa, you're an adult! You should be mature enough to understand this! So why do you keep following us?!” There is clear anger in his eyes. He stops talking, expecting an answer from her, but there isn’t one coming.
She isn’t following them. She never was. But her mouth won’t open and her voice won’t work. As much as she wants to speak, she can’t. Her legs are slowly giving out and her head is spinning like crazy now. She can’t force out an answer like this.
“I should have known from the start… You’re just like the rest of your family.”
Those words resonate in her head.
You’re just like the rest of your family.
Nothing has ever hurt as much as this.
You’re just like the rest of your family.
What a terrible sentence that just left Mike’s mouth.
You’re just like the rest of your family.
Oh look, Mike is leaving now. Should she go after him? Try to explain everything to him?
Would he even believe her?
You’re just like the rest of your family.
Tears form at the corners of her eyes, she wants to cry, but as quickly as they were noticed they are forgotten.
The whole room is spinning now.
You’re just like the rest of your family.
Her whole body is shaking, her legs start to completely give out, unable to carry her anymore. Her vision slowly turns gray. Everything fades together.
You’re just like the rest of your-
Darkness swallows her whole.