Playing for Rya

35. Unravel

Song: Chandelier by Sia; cover by Sara Bareilles.

Phil's bar was as rowdy as Rya had expected it to be, even on a Monday night, but having worked at La Cura for several months, she and her friends had come to realize that the bar's close proximity to the hospital made it the destination of choice for many of the hospital staff who wanted to unwind at the end of a long day.

It's boisterousness was the reason she'd suggested to Pete and Jace that they meet Kris there and hang out for a bit before heading home.

'There's she is,' Jason said at the same time they heard their names being called.

Kris was seated in a corner, at one of the few remaining empty tables, waving them over and it wasn't long before they were seated and nursing drinks, their voices raised as they chatted over the din in the bar.

Once again, the noise, for Rya, was a welcome distraction and the drink in her hand, a temporary remedy for the numbness within her. She downed her glass of gin and tonic, her poison of choice, feeling the alcohol burn a warm trail within her and ordered another, and then another, as the tension in her body gradually unfurled in the wake of the alcohol.

She listened to her friends engage in hospital gossip, hardly taking part in the conversation as she glanced around the bar at some of the familiar faces.

From her vantage point in the corner, she smiled to herself as she paid attention to the mannerisms between a couple of co-workers she recognized, when they thought no one was watching.

The stolen glances, brief intimate touches, a whisper here, a hand on chest there, a wisp of hair tucked behind an ear...she saw it all in a different light. It wasn't against hospital rules to date, but she'd learned, from Will, that hospital staff who were parties to an intimate relationship were required to report to Human Resources to fill out a form and sign some sort of waiver.

But for various reasons people were loathe to do so.

And she understood, from personal experience, why no one would be interested in going back and forth to apprise the hospital of the status of their relationships, especially when that status could easily change and go from 'serious,' one day, to 'broken up' the next.

She gulped back the rest of her third drink and glanced around for the waiter.

'Hey,' Peter nudged her. He had a frown on his face and the concern was back in his expression, 'that's your third glass tonight Ry, are you alright?'

She nodded even as she felt the wooziness in her head, 'I'm great,' she said, wincing as her voice came out louder than she'd intended.

She watched Jace lean in to whisper something in Kris' ears and was grateful that, for once, two out of her three friends were too focused on themselves to notice anything out of the ordinary with her.

Hopefully, she would be over her breakup before they could decide to pull some of their attention away from each other, and in the meantime she would have to fend of Peter and his badgering concern for her.

'How are the parents?' he asked, his attention still pinned on her, 'you haven't said how your trip home was, are they fine?'

'They're great,' Rya responded again, as she recalled the lie she'd told them about where she was going before she'd joined Derek on their trip to the island.

She felt miserable as her addled mind struggled to process the fact that she was yet again lying to the people she loved about where she was and who she was with, an action that hadn't gone well for her in the past and had eventually taken it's toll.