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Ok so Bradley had made it clear that she didn’t want Laura around and, to be fair, Laura couldn’t blame her. After all, Bradley had made that video for her and with the barely-civil-in-public relationship they were working with right now, she knew she had no right to ask Bradley to let her suddenly show up and support her.
The thing was, however, that Bradley was on Laura’s mind almost constantly while she was awake, anytime she wasn’t making herself keep busy, and in her dreams at night. Not in a creepy way, but Bradley had made her way into Laura’s heart and, despite her carefully crafted reputation, she was not cold. She had fallen deeply in love with Bradley. Not the ‘oh wow you’re hot, we should be together’ way, but the ‘I care about you, your life, your passions and I want to have you in my home forever’ way. She had let herself break all of her barriers down and given her heart to Bradley. Once Laura did that, once she had woken up next to Bradley on her ranch every morning and not once felt like she needed space, she couldn’t go back. She didn’t know how.
She regretted being so formal at the award dinner. Her one chance to actually speak to Bradley more than just in passing and she had felt so stiff, so terrified to say the wrong thing. But she had overcompensated, ‘you know, since we’ll be running in the same circles.’ Really, Laura?
This was all racing through Laura’s mind as she slowly left UBA’s headquarters and got into her car. She had to go home. Go home and sit alone on her couch and try not to think about how badly Bradley was hurting. She felt helpless and that made her angry.
As she pulled up to her house her head had not stopped spinning, trying to figure out how to help, how to stop the hackers, how to keep Bradley from having to do this alone. She could call Alex to go check on Bradley. She knew their relationship had been improving in the last year once Bradley switched to evening news and they had started meeting for lunch regularly and actually becoming friends. That made the most sense, yes, Alex could go to Bradley’s and if Laura told Alex what had happened Alex was sure to be supportive and able to talk Bradley through it. God knows Alex has gotten herself into enough scrapes like this over the years, usually of her own making, but whatever, she would know what Bradley would need tonight.
But that still left Laura sitting on her couch worrying and no amount of therapy over the years had been able to stop moments like these from being shitty. Could she cope without getting drunk and doing something destructive? Yes. But was tonight going to be incredibly hard and unpleasant if she stayed by herself? Also yes.
Laura gave herself a moment as she plopped onto her couch in front of the warm fireplace. This sucked. She wanted so badly to respect Bradley’s request for space, but she couldn’t get the image out of her mind of Bradley’s reddening eyes and quivering chin even as she was pushing Laura away. If they had been on better terms, she knew Bradley would have let her wrap her into a tight hug in that bathroom and sobbed into Laura’s chest. She had done so for way smaller things than this and she couldn’t help but think that Bradley had wanted that, but been unable to let it happen while they were emotionally so far apart.
She didn’t have her phone, so tracking down Alex’s number would be doable but hard and Laura was getting more frustrated by the minute.
Finally she made up her mind. Let Bradley slam the door in her face if she wanted, at least she wouldn’t be able to say Laura hadn’t tried.
She grabbed her coat and put it on over the pajamas she had changed into when she had gotten home. Oh well, maybe the casual clothes would help Bradley remember that she was someone Bradley used to trust. Used to care about.
She looked up Bradley’s new apartment address on her computer, Gordon had sent the link to the listing when Bradley had bought it. Yeah he could be a bit nosy, but she appreciated him so much right now.
On the drive over, she flipped back and forth about whether she was doing the right thing or not a dozen times. She wished she had her phone so she could call Gordon and vent. Laura had a great track record about protecting herself, but when it came to others’ struggles, she was more likely to write them off as chaotic than chase them like this.
She pulled up to Bradley’s apartment building, put the car in park, and let out a long breath she had been holding. She felt her hands shake, something they hadn’t done in years, and her stomach twisted like she was on a rollercoaster. Her chest felt tight and she wondered how much more of this she could take before she started crying too. What if Bradley told her to leave again? She knew she would respect it if Bradley again requested space, but she was hoping that after having a few hours to work through some of the shock that she would be more open to Laura offering comfort.
She felt grateful that Bradley’s new home didn’t require her to be buzzed up, she went straight up to Bradley’s door and stood there staring at it, trying to work up her nerve to knock. She wasn’t afraid of Bradley, she was afraid of being rejected. Of being thrown out. Of being told to never speak to Bradley again. If Bradley was hurting enough, if she couldn’t see that Laura wasn’t asking for anything but to be able to check on her, she would very likely act that way and that terrified Laura.
She knocked. 3 times in quick succession, the last one fainter as she felt herself doubting her presence here. She heard movement from inside the door and Bradley’s voice call out, ‘just a second’.
Then the door opened and she was standing there, her mouth partly open as she had been about to greet whoever was there with a put-together facade only to see Laura standing a bit back from the door, her hands in her coat pockets. Laura scanned her face quickly and registered the quick flashes of surprise, then confusion, then anger, before landing on tired. Bradley’s shoulders sank a little as the energy she had mustered to be pleasant to a visitor drained into the floor.