Chicago Love ✔️

Chapter 64: Are you okay?

"Are you okay?" Alex asks as they stand outside of the diner after having finished their milkshakes.

He had noticed the change in Hailey's demanor since the conversation with Isabelle. He had noticed Hailey was not as happy and upbeat as she had been since that morning - oh wait, since he had arrived in Chicago the day before. There was something subdued about her right now, in having something on her mind.

Did it deal with her mother? Alex could not help but catch onto the conversation Hailey shared with Isabelle and the small details mentioned in relation to Hailey's mom. There was a layer of concern. He wondered how she was doing, or whether it was different than that. It was not like Hailey ever spoke about her parents to him, with no details known to Alex other than what he had learned that day. Was that partially why they had to sell the diner?

"Hailey?" He questions after a lack of response from her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he pulls her close to him. "You are welcome to tell me what is going on. Tell me about your mother. Tell me what is on your mind. Maybe I can help you with it. Let me be there for you."

"You can't help with it, Alex," Hailey reveals as she takes a deep breath, letting out a sigh as she wishing everything was much more different than it was right now. "I've tried to help her and it has gone nowhere no matter how many times I have tried." 

Another deep breath, and she did not know if she could bring herself to say the words out loud.  There was only one other person outside of Isabelle that knew what truly went on behind closed walls between her parents. She knew before she left town, she was going to touch base with him in knowing their friendship would enable the extra assurance she was perhaps missing right now.

"Where'd your mother go?" "Nowhere," remained with her since the conversation they had following a case. It was something that haunted her every time she thought of her mom, or spoke to. She had helped a bunch of people in similar situations as her own family. Why couldn't do the same here? 

"My father is abusive to my mother - constantly verbally, mentally tearing her down," she reveals to Alex, her voice barely above a whisper. "He is always belittling her, like criticising her cooking some nights. He orders her around the house to do his biding and everything he wants, and only that he wants. She is not allowed to go see any of her friends without his approval, and him coming with her. It's always been that way. The comments, followed by arguments constantly. I grew up with it, Alex. That's why being a relationship is hard for me because I don't know what I am supposed to do."

Her eyes fall to floor in remembering the last time she repeated those very words. She had trusted those words in his hands. "My childhood was full of a slap, followed by I'm sorry, I love you." But yet he wound up running off to a foreign country, and eventually their marriage wound up in a divorce. She didn't want to look at Alex right now. What if she ran off with him to North Carolina, and the same thing happened again? She couldn't bare to stand that. She didn't know if she would be able to go through that yet again. 

"There were times my mother was ready to leave him," she recalls as she knew he was waiting to hear the rest of the details. "I remember a couple times, we were packing bags and set to leave. She was going to come live with me for awhile, or one of the CPD safe houses. But yet she couldn't bring herself to fully do that. She loved him no matter what. She believed in him no matter what. She wanted to be there for him, believing that this was the way a wife was to be to their husband. She told me that the great moments with him outweighed everything that he was doing to her. It blew my mind completely. But without any actual proof of what happened, or her willing to testify or press charges, I cannot do anything. That's why I worry about her."

"I am so sorry to hear that," Alex states, not allowing his arms to leave her sides as he keeps her held against him. "It must drive you crazy to feel so helpless to not help her. I could not imagine living through that. I would be running as fast as I can as a kid to get away from that. I would probably panic. The thought of it just makes me anxious. I cannot believe you grew up in a household with that." 

"This diner is the one good piece of our family. It's the one good thing that came out of their marriage. They built this together, and made it successful. It is now a monument in this town. It's also the place where I truly learned that I wanted to be a cop. We were getting robbed when I was seven years old. I hid in the backroom. I was found by a lady cop, who took me back to the district and kept me company until my mother was done at the hospital with stitches and the paperwork. That cop, by the way, was none other than Trudy Platt." 

"The desk sergeant?" Alex looks at her with a bit of shock as he remembered meeting her for the first time yesterday to a weird mix of emotions. That's why she had treated him differently than you'd expect at the front desk of a police station. She wasn't just looking out for one of her own. She was looking out for someone she had known since childhood. "No wonder you're so torn in why you want to leave Chicago, and why you call the Intelligence Unit your family."