Chapter Forty-two
The next morning, the doctor discharged Raven, and she was free to leave.
While the others were having breakfast in the cafeteria giving her space for her final checkup, she got herself ready, called an Uber and split.
By the time they figured out she’d left, they were in a panic.
Therefore, when she answered Winona’s call, they all pooled around the phone to listen.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry. I can’t go to my place just yet, but I’m okay. I got myself a hotel room for now. Once they’re finished with the investigation, I’ll go back and clean out the rest of my stuff and come home. I promise. But right now, I need to be alone.”
Raven knew she was being selfish by staying away, but if she wanted to maintain her sanity, she had no choice.
Yesterday, their love and worry suffocated her to where she couldn’t breathe.
She’d refused to let anyone feel sorry for her, and in fact, she bristled when she saw their compassion and pushed away any kind of sympathy.
Not that she blamed them. Not at all. It was a human reaction for when a loved one suffered a trauma, and she knew it.
But she couldn’t handle the pressure of making them all feel better by pretending she was okay.
She wasn’t. The episode simmered over and over in her brain till she felt like it drew blood…
making her revisit the excruciating events again and again.
In her mind, she’d done her duty. Period.
And to compartmentalize the nightmare as part of her job meant she could survive the fact that she’d taken another’s life.
To keep the personal bullshit as far away as possible had to be her goal.
And though everyone tried to break through her thick wall of defense, she declined to let them by the simple act of refusing to talk to them.
Both Cane and Winona tried to get her to allow them inside her boundaries, but with a fierce stubbornness that instantly rose and took over, and in a voice filled with bitter determination, she said, “I’m fine.
Stop it. Stop talking about it.” When they kept on trying, an icy resentment formed until they backed off.
She locked herself in her hotel room and stewed, ignoring all the calls that piled up until she saw the one from her boss. Knowing she’d skipped work for the last two days, she felt obligated to at least reach out to explain her reasons for ignoring her duty.
The call only lasted a few minutes. Once her boss gave her permission to return just to pick up her belongings, saying they understood her need to use her sick time rather than return for the few days she had left, she hung up with a sense of relief.
Being granted an early discharge from her job meant that she was free and able to go straight back to Carlton Place and that meant the world to her.
Yet she refused to do so. Using the excuse that she still needed time to clear out her place in Houston, she’d called them back and basically forced them to go home and leave her alone for now.
Thinking back to how she’d handled their frantic call, she winced from the harsh way she’d dealt the blow. “Jesus, people. Give me some time. That’s all I ask. Don’t make a fuss, please. Can’t you all understand that I need to be alone for now? I promise I’ll be home soon. Now let me go.”
She watched the image on her phone of Winona and Cane with Noah and Val in the background.
Close to tears, but solid in her determination, Winona nodded at her and taking Cane’s arm, she turned them toward the van.
Her face settled into a resolution Raven remembered from her past. “Okay, baby. You got it.”
Once they disconnected, Raven’s shoulders sagged, and the tears poured from the well she’d sealed… flooding over like the river that had started this whole nightmare.
***
“She needs space. Let’s give it to her. My baby will come when she’s ready.” Winona closed her phone and urged the others to follow.
“I can’t leave her here alone.” Cane resisted, holding himself away from the others.
“She needs this, Cane. Raven has a shitload of visions that have to be dealt with and put to rest. First, she has to accept what happened, and she knows it. Look, from the time she was a child, she had no one but herself to rely on. Cissy left her alone a lot of the time. At a very young age, she learned to handle her own traumas in the only way one can… by revisiting them and giving them a place in the past in order to finally lay them to rest.”
“Once she goes over what happened step by step… and that takes time, she’ll be stronger, better able to deal with the tragedy.
Then she’ll come home to us. But she needs us to be strong for her now.
” Winona faced Cane. “My friend, you also need to deal with what happened… talk about it, get it out there so you can examine the trauma and lay it to rest. It’s been huge for you, and you too, Noah. ”
Nodding, Noah added, “We’ll talk. I promise.
But right now, I have to get back. Colin can’t be expected to deal with all the shit going on at home.
There’s too much happening. And I need you, Cane.
Now that your job is done here in the city, the faster I can get you set up in Carlton Place, the better for all of us. ”
Winona nodded and placed the van’s keys in Val’s hand. “Let’s go home. Ravens got her jeep. She’ll come back to us, I promise. But when she’s ready.”
***
Once in Carlton Place, they settled into a routine where Noah and Val moved in together, and Cane stayed with Winona and Saddie-May, spending every spare moment working on the new jail they’d opened in a larger space. And then after dark, he’d help Colin fix the trailer out back.
If they hadn’t kept him busy, he’d have gone crazy.
Daily, he found himself railing against this separation from Raven, pivoting from being angry at her for shutting him out to understanding about her need to do so.
Unfailingly, as hard as he tried not to let it happen, his mind screamed out – but what about me?
One good thing about Raven staying away, it forced Cane to reflect on the whole situation.
And listening to stories that Winona shared about Raven’s young years, he finally began to understand.
He hadn’t been in her world long enough for her to trust him with such an intense problem.
They hadn’t been able to build that strong foundation yet.
But they would. One day, no matter what happened, she’d turn to him, rely on him.
That was his goal. To love her so well that her first thought would be to come to him, so they could handle the world together.
Each night before he settled, he sent her a text message of love and commitment. And each time, she sent back a heart emoji, her way of saying I hear you… but I’m not ready yet.
Thankfully, Cane found he really liked his new job working with Noah.
They both knew Noah was his boss, but he never worded their relationship in that way.
They worked together, each as respected and powerful as the other and shared the job well.
Once they let the townspeople know they were in charge, things began to settle down.
Folks seemed to feel better, knowing they could rely on them for their safety.
***
It was Noah who broke from this routine.
Forced to go to the city with a warrant that needed his attention, he left early, without admitting to any of them that he had intentions of sticking his nose into a situation that couldn’t go on for much longer.
He’d seen the frantic way Cane moved through his days, watching the man lose weight and get paler with each hour forced to stay away from the woman he loved.
Noah knew what it felt like to be shut out of a world from a woman who refused to let him in…
to allow him to share her grief, her fears, her dying.
It put a man in a nasty, unbearable place…
to let his lady go her own way to the detriment of those who loved her and wanted to help.
It physically hurt while undermining his sense of worth.
He empathized with Cane, understanding that being ignored unmanned a guy, making him question everything.
And that shredded his guts a little more each day.
Once they’d arrived back home after the incident, he’d asked Winona and Cane if they’d had the chance to tell Raven about their sibling relationship and surprisingly, neither of them had done so. With the events happening as fast as they had, it just hadn’t come up.
Well, today she was about to find out that younger brothers had expectations of their older sisters.
And it was that they needed them to show up.
Once he finished the work he’d come to the city to do, he drove to her apartment and saw the jeep parked in the lot, which made him suspect she was home.
Taking his time, swallowing his nervousness, he knocked at her door and waited for it to open.
Her gruff voice sounded weird to him. “Just leave the pizza. I paid for it already, and I added a tip.”
Noah thought about it and answered in a lower tone than his usual, “No can do, lady. Last time the pie got stolen. I need to give it to you in person, boss’s orders.”
The latch unlocked, and she opened the door, reaching for what he didn’t have. Instead, he faced her startled stare and smiled. “Sorry.”
“Noah.”
“Yep. It’s me. Can I come in?”
Shook up and showing it, she swiveled back inside and let him follow her. With her arms crossed over her chest, she grunted, “I’m not ready.”
He closed the door and moved toward her. “Ready for what?”
“To see anyone.”
“Too bad. I decided that waiting wasn’t gonna solve the problem. You need to come home and face us sooner rather than later. How about tonight?”
“You don’t understand, nobody does.”
“You never gave any of us a chance.”