My Heart Won't Let Me

Safe

Chapter 10

'Safe'

Okay.

Joey was definitely avoiding her.

A week had passed since Rachel broke up with Joey and the only time she ran into him was three days ago when she accidentally bumped into him at the coffee house. It was a very awkward and short encounter to say the least. It was like they became these two strangers to each other - like they knew nothing about each other, and Rachel hated that feeling. She wanted everything to be normal again, she wanted her best friend - Joey back, but she knew it wasn't that easy. They needed a break from each other, they needed to let their fresh and open wounds heal before they could mend their friendship again, but no one said it would be this hard - that it would be this painful.

She dropped her bag unceremoniously to the floor, letting her keys drop into the table, before slamming the door closed with a rather heavy thud.

"Bad day?" She heard his voice first before she noticed him sitting at the couch, apparently watching a documentary on TV.

"Yeah." She nodded and smiled weakly at him. Ross was one of the two people other than Emma who could easily make her bad day a little bit better and coming home to him had been something she was starting to get very comfortable about. She knew she wasn't supposed to get attached to the idea of living with Ross again knowing this was supposed to be a temporary fix, but she couldn't help it. There was this strange feeling of safety and comfort about it that she hadn't felt before, not even when she was living here throughout the second half of the pregnancy and the first few months after that.

This was different.

They fell into a perfect routine like they were no more than a normal family. They were in so much sync that she could barely remember that they weren't together. To her dismay however, she would run out of excuses to stay here because tomorrow he'd take his cast off and that meant he wouldn't be needing assistance from her again. That meant, she had to move back to her and Joey's apartment, which only added to the pile of reasons why she didn't want to move back.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine how awkward it’d be to share an apartment with Joey again. Only the thought of it managed to make her shiver with anxiety. All she could do right now was to pretend that she wouldn’t have to move back, sending her inner turmoil to the back of the burner – and just enjoyed the last few days of peace she’d have with Ross.

"Want to talk about it?" His voice was calm and gentle, like he genuinely cared about her day and it instantly added to the pile of reasons why she was going to miss living with him so much. No one except for him ever bothered to ask her these kinds of questions before and she'd be lying if she said she didn't like the whole amount of attention he was giving her.

"No." She pouted and settled herself next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She felt herself smiling as he gave her a quick kiss on the side of her head like it was a habit or something. She was going to miss this so badly. She looked up to find his eyes and when she noticed he was staring at her too, her heart almost skipped a beat by the intensity of it. She cleared her throat, pulling her head slightly so that she wasn't leaning on him anymore. She then noticed the disappointment in his eyes, but chose to ignore them. She told him she wasn't ready a week ago, and she knew she wasn't going to be magically ready now. She wished it was that easy. "What are we watching?"

He shrugged noncommittally, his gaze went to the TV for the slightest moment before it came back to her again - noticing the commercial break was taking over whatever he was watching before. "A documentary of an orangutan I think."