Plastic diamonds - Marjorie's backstory.

Chapter 8

"What about her?" Charlotte stood there confused, usually Reece goes to Charlotte to talk about things in his childhood, or Char would turn to Reece to help surprise Mia with things. He's never been worried about Marjorie before.

"I don't even know where to start." He said looking around the car park.

"Okay how about this, instead of speaking in an open car park, we can go to the bar down the road for lunch, it's usually quiet during the week." Charlotte suggested.

Reece nodded, "sounds good." He turned back to look down at Charlotte. "I'm guessing im paying?"

Charlotte turned back around to face him, she raised her eyebrows and shrugged. Reece jokingly rolled his eyes and walked back towards his car.

A few hours later Reece was sitting in the bar waiting for Charlotte to arrive, he had already ordered their food at the bar. As he was sat waiting, he received a phone call from Marjorie. He picked it up "Hey gorgeous, you okay?"

"Hello, I was wondering if you wanted to go for lunch." Marjorie said over the phone.

Reece started panicking for a second, he didn't tell Marjorie that he was going for lunch with Charlotte, and in his head, he most definitely couldn't tell her why. "Umm.. I can't."

The phone call went silent for a second. "Why not?" She asked.

Reece started looking around, thinking for an excuse, he could not tell Marjorie that he was meeting up with Charlotte to talk about her. "Paperwork!" He blurted out, "I have lots and lots of paperwork to catch up on."

"Oh okay, well if you want-" before Marjorie had the chance to finish her sentence, Charlotte came walking in. Reece cut across her on the phone. "Gorgeous, I have to go, I love you." He then hung up the phone.

"Hey, Reece." Charlotte said, clicking him out of his own thoughts.

Reece snapped his head up and watched her sit down. "Hey, Char."

"So.. What did you want to talk about?" Charlotte asked him.

"Marjorie, I don't even know where to start to be honest." Reece started, looking away from Charlotte. She could tell he was worried.

"It's okay, take your time." She smiled, placing her hand over his and squeezing it, causing him to look at her again.

He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to think where to start. "Marjorie, had this.. I don't even know what to call it. She started freaking out yesterday, because she dropped a glass."

Char slowly nodded, trying to understand what he's getting at. "Right.."

"But, her freaking out seemed, not so much about the glass.. If that makes sense?" He continued, looking at Charlotte to see if she's catching on. "I'm following.. I think?"

"It's really hard to explain, but she was saying things, and it honestly made my heartache, it's like she was.. reliving something? In a way." Reece was trying to make as much sense as possible. "What im trying to get at is, you've obviously known Marjorie the longest out of everyone, and Marjorie barley mentions her past to me, so really I was just wondering if you knew how to help?"

Charlotte looked at Reece for a second, studying his look of concern for his girlfriend. "You know, I may have been part of Marjorie's past, however I don't really know much of it either. I mean, i've seen her go on dates, and get into horrible relationships. She was also a completely different person when i started 10 years ago, we like to call it 'her villain era.' But other than that, I haven't really asked, unless she told me herself."

Reece nodded at Charlottes response. "So nothing about, her childhood, her parents?" Reece asked her.

"Nope, she's mentioned her dad a few times to me, and im sure you know her parents aren't together." Charlotte said, and Reece nodded. "I can't remember if she's ever spoken about her mother. Really, the only thing I know about her childhood is that she started as an apprentice here."

Reece sat there silently, nodding his head and trying to take in everything Charlotte has said. "Why don't you just ask her?" Charlotte said, snapping Reece out of his thoughts.

"I've never seen Marjorie act like this before. I mean, when it happened, I tried to help but all she did was push me away. And the next morning, she was in a good mood and honestly, I didn't want to bring it up again and possibly upset her." Reece was genuine, usually he was good with comforting people, but Marjorie was different to him, he didn't want to accidentally say the wrong thing to her.

"Maybe tonight when you get home, you talk to her, she may not 'open up' straight away, but atleast she knows you're there for her. You can even tell her you've spoken to me about it." Charlotte was good to Reece, always giving him the best advice.

"Oh, I can't tell her i spoke to you, but yeah maybe I will, tonight." Reece said while looking down, Charlotte narrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean, you can't tell her you spoke to me?"

"Because she thinks i'm in my office right now, doing paperwork." He avoided all eye contact with Charlotte.

"Reece! You didn't have to lie, you could have said you were with me!" Charlotte placed her hands over her face, shaking her head.

"Yeah but- she would have asked why and i panicked!" Reece argued back, knowing full well he was in the wrong.

"You could have literally said that we were getting lunch, there doesn't have to be a reason! Marjorie wouldn't have cared." Charlotte crossed her arms and leaned back, shaking her head.

Reece looked back at Charlotte, giving her a worried look. "I.. didn't think about it like that." He placed one hand on his forehead. "I've messed up, haven't I?"

"Start digging your grave, dumb dumb."

While Charlotte and Reece were still at the bar. Marjorie headed to Tesco to pick up meal deals, Reece sounded stressed over the phone, so Marjorie thought it would be a good idea to surprise him and sit in the office with him as they have lunch together.  As Marjorie pulled up at Reece's nursery, she saw that his car wasn't there. However, she still headed inside the nursery. She walked into his office with a smile on her face, but that smile quickly dropped into confusion when she noticed his office was empty, with no paperwork laying on the desk.

As Marjorie stood there, someone popped up behind her, it was Eric. "He's gone for lunch with the mean redheads girlfriend."