Through His Eyes

Through His Eyes [18]

{{Dedicated to @nightpiece, because she is a sweet pea, even thought she sometimes tries to steal my (fictional) boys}}

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The realization hit Rhea like a freight train, making her physically stumble a couple steps. All she thought she'd known for sure had crumbled around her within ten seconds and all she could do was stand in the middle of a vaguely familiar yet entirely strange kitchen and gape at the little girl before her.

It barely registered with her when Caleb crouched down by his sister to get to her level.

"Hey Care," he spoke to the girl softly, "why are you still up?"

His tone was different to anything she'd heard come out of his mouth. She thought she'd heard it all: teasing, playful, grumpy, sincere... But it still caught her off guard to hear the gentle and affectionate way he talked. His eyes shined as he regarded his sister and his lips were curled up in a relaxed smile.

"I heard the sounds, Kay-web. Why'd you come back? Who's this?" She pointed towards Rhea with her chubby little index finger.

Caleb stood up to stand next to Rhea, who'd regained a semblance of her composure and was now listening to their conversation with curiosity.

"This is my friend Rhea," he said, resting a hand lightly on Rhea's shoulder. "Rhea, this is my sister Caroline."

"Hey Caroline." Rhea smiled down at the little girl, who looked up to her, making Rhea notice Caleb and his sister had the exact same eyes. Green with specks of golden, they were the most striking feature on both siblings' faces.

"Hey Ree-uh, were you crying? You can hold Mr. Snuggles if you want, I always used to hold him after dad left. But I don't cry anymore."

"Thank you so much. I'm alright now, you should hold onto Mr. Snuggles. You two look quite inseparable, I wouldn't want to be an imposition."

Caroline regarded her intently for a whole of ten seconds, and she must have been satisfied with her answer, because a moment later she turned on her heels to make her way towards the living room after telling Caleb over her shoulder to "bring her cocoa to the living room".

"Yes ma'am," Caleb muttered while a small smile tugged at his lips.

With Caroline gone and Caleb's attention directed back to his task at hand, Rhea was once again left alone with her thoughts.

There was a simmering anger within her, above all things. The resentment, the shock, everything was overpowered and pushed to the corner by anger. The anger, however, wasn't focused on a sole subject.

She was mad at Floyd, yes. A big part of her was contemplating seven different ways of wringing his neck. At this point, it didn't matter all that much whether Floyd was actually her soulmate. What mattered was that she believed he could be. Rhea had genuinely thought he was her soulmate; she'd put her trust in him and he'd broken that trust. Cue her murderous thoughts.

But at the same time, she couldn't help but be mad at herself, too. She'd been so blind. As she stood awkwardly in Caleb's kitchen and stared into nothingness, she started to match all the snippets with all the little things she'd come to know about Caleb Archer. Caleb -her fricking soulmate-Archer. First, there was the little girl. To be fair, he'd never mentioned a sister, but the thing "he had to take care of" in the afternoons? Well, that was pretty obvious now.

Then, she stared at Caleb's hands as he reached for the overhead cupboard to retrieve mugs. They looked so familiar now; she couldn't begin to understand how she could've missed them when she spent an hour sitting next to him three times a week for the past few weeks. His fingers were long and slender, whereas Floyd's were shorter and thicker.