Falling

Tell Me

Hi! This chapter is a little shorter, but I couldn't break up the next part and having it all together would have made the story too long! Hope you still enjoy this bit of Link's side of things. As always, leave me a comment or vote if you'd like to see this story continue. THANK YOU!

Chapter Song: Broken Home- 5 Seconds of Summer

The rest of Link's day couldn't have gone any worse. Everyone looked at him with pity and he couldn't for the life of him stop fumbling over his words after they started shooting again. At one point Stevie had even asked if he needed a break; his icy blue glare had given her all the answer she needed and they had started filming again.

Every now and then he would glance over at the little redhead standing toward the middle of the room. After her episode had shot, and they had moved on to one of Ellie's, she had fallen back and took to watching the feed in the monitors. Her slender fingers had tucked her shoulder-length hair behind her ears, and she was wearing large headphones as she watched the raw footage from her episode.

Link had been distracted a couple times by how intense she had looked; her green eyes narrowed in concentration and her bottom lip worrying between her pearly white teeth. She had been doing that outside too, biting her lip. He had known her for a while, but just in the past few weeks, he had taken note that she did the lip biting out of habit when she was thinking about something or, he guessed when she was concentrating. She had been gone by the time he had come out of his shared office space, he remembered her telling him once she likes to get to work a little early so she could leave earlier, and he had been a little surprised by how it had disappointed him that he didn't get the chance to say bye.

Now, at the end of his long day of screw-ups, the last place Link had wanted to end up was where he currently was; sitting in his car in the driveway of his house. He knew how ridiculous it sounded. This was his house, his home. His kids were inside, and Jade. All of his things and all of his most cherished memories...and the memories he wished he could forget.

He saw Christy peak through the gauzy curtains floating over the large window next to the front door. She backed away quickly when she realized he had caught her watching him, and a blooming pain formed in his chest. He tried, he really did, to see past her infidelity but he couldn't. Every time he looked into her eyes he saw another man staring back at him, and when he needed to go in his bedroom for a change of clothes he often found himself staring at the big bed in the middle of the room with pure hatred.

They hadn't even really talked about what had happened beyond her apologies and his anxiety attacks. The pain in his chest radiated to his shoulders and head and he quickly started practicing the deep breathing he had learned from a YouTube channel about meditation.

Link didn't know if he wanted to talk to Christy about her cheating; didn't know if he could stick it out if he knew the whole truth. What he did know, though, is that he couldn't stick it out not knowing either and in four months he had barely started to heal.

With all the resolve he could manage Link finally got out of his car and walked inside. He was instantly met with three happy kids and an excited wiener dog. For a brief moment, all of Link's anger disappeared as Lily started telling her dad about her new friend at school, something he was particularly interested in since this was her first year in public school. Lincoln had said a brief hi, complete with a side hug, as he scurried up the stairs to his room. At 11 all he seemed to want to do was play his video games online with Rhett's son, Locke. Link didn't mind as long as at dinner he told him about his day.