Spades and Angels

Que Sera, Sera....C'est La Vie

Maddox

The Next Week

We get till the end of the week.

The others give us as much time as they can, I know that and I know Lo does too. It's not enough though. Not to deal with it, process it, completely. Lo seems more troubled as the days go by. Expressions changing like lightning. Happy. Sad. Anxious to perfectly calm. Faster and faster even with me spending enough time to know the happy ones were masks. Veneers she hid behind after the miscarriage. The accident. After what happened when she cut ties and both her asshole of an ex and pathetic excuse of a dad hurt her. All in the same short period. All wounding her in succession until she pulled away. Hiding and pretending.

I try. I try to talk to her. To be there for her but it's not easy. Not with what Hails asked me for help with. Not with the problems of hiding Riv, or with the ones around what the Spades will do when the truth comes to light of Lo switching over. But I still try. Try to speak to her, be there with and for her but she's not the same. Distant and preoccupied but upset too. Grieving the same way I was but just coping differently. In a way that had me afraid for her since I know what she's said about coping with shit like this before but something tells me she's not realistically dealt with anything as shocking as this. Her father disowned her and threw her out, burning her childhood - or what was left of it. As her accident and miscarriage.

"Are you ok?" I try asking her the age-old question one afternoon but unlike before she doesn't try to brush it off with an 'I'm fine' or smile. This time Lo's shoulders slump and she shrugs in a dejected, lost way. "Lo?" I try again to reach her but differently to the overcompensating happiness from before I still get nothing out of her. Her emotions are almost completely locked away if not for her eyes. Those stormy grey eyes I've come to love so much can't hide it. Screaming her pain to me in a way that hurts more since she won't talk about it but also seems to have no way of curing it. Not that I do either but it's still a difficult process to go through. Watching her suffer alone. "Lo," I tap her arm and her eyes find mine, shining like falling stars with tears she doesn't shed. Keep inside. "Hey, talk to me, please. I-I...look this might be an unbelievably selfish and ashhole question but please...please talk to me, Lo. I-I can't stand to see you in so much pain all by yourself. Please talk to me. Even if just to yell. Yell. Cry. Scream I don't care what you do just please...please talk to me before I lose my mind." I whisper, hearing when her breath catches but all she does is sigh.

"What's there to say?" she replies eventually, visibly upset in how she stands. "You know as well as I do what happened mi amor, and rehashing it will only make it hurt more so what else is there to say? Hmm," She gives me a tearful look and I sigh, knowing full well what she means and hating that I can't help. "One day it'll get easier, for now I...I'll just pretend it's ok because we have bigger issues to deal with and I know the guys have given us as much time as possible. I'll be ok, one day."

She sighs, falling silent again where she was slowly coming out of the depression she'd sunk into when I'd had to tell her about the miscarriage. This keeps up for days. Seemingly happy and then unhappy. Switching like she can't decide how she wants to feel. Or maybe it's torn between that and how she thinks she's supposed to feel. Supposed to be strong, to carry on so we figure out the rest of what is going on but putting dealing with what's already happened on hold. Put a pin in it. Forgotten by her but not by me.

That's what compels me to seek out the one person I hope can help me shed light on Lo's odd behaviour since I was beginning to get worried. Even knowing what the cause was.

"Hey," I knocked on the doorframe to see Riv give me a startled look, hand over her heart where I must have made her jump more than I realised. "Sorry...can we talk?"