OUT OF THE RED ↝ dave grohl

eighty-four.

REAGAN WOKE UP the next morning reaching for Dave's side of the bed. Her fingers curled around empty air, dragging along the bare threads of her sheets as she held her hand out limply, searching for him in her half-awake fog.

It was only when she grabbed at nothing did she remember.

They'd fought the night before. Dave had hoodwinked her into a promotion at DGC. She hadn't earned it on her own at all.

It had been him, working behind the scenes the entire time.

She sat up with a thickness in her throat that made it hard to swallow. Usually, when Dave was home from touring, she woke up before he did. It always allowed her time to snuggle closer to him, to kiss his face as he slept and groaned for her to come closer.

Waking up to find him gone hurt worse than a physical blow to the abdomen. She didn't know where he was, though it was likely that wherever he'd run off to, it was somewhere where he could lose himself in the therapy of music.

Reagan got out of bed and checked on Gracie, who was still fast asleep in her crib. Soon enough, she'd wake up calling for Reagan like she did every morning. Reagan wondered if Dave had kissed Gracie goodbye on his way out, sliding the bars of her crib down and brushing his lips against her forehead.

Her chest ached and she forced herself not to think about it. She didn't want to imagine that she'd run him out of their home together. He had every right to stay but even then, he'd also her monumentally pissed her off.

Dave might not have understood why she was angry, but to Reagan, the gesture that he'd made acted as a kind of confirmation of all her self-loathing doubts.

She couldn't make it anywhere on her own. No one saw anything in her that was worth commenting on. If it hadn't been for Dave, she would still be at Wilson's, being drooled over by Tommy and kicking around on grease-stained floors with a broom in her hand like some kind of pitiful Cinderella.

Truthfully, Reagan really did want that promotion at DGC. She'd thought about it as she'd fallen asleep, imagining herself as someone who had an actual say in what they did for a living. She loved music, as she had her entire life, and Dave had said one poignant thing to her the night before that had made her practically burst with longing.

If she worked in the music business, then she could be as close as possible to what she loved without having to commit to a band. She could dip her toes into the one passion that had taken hold of her life while still being a mom and a person who existed outside of a band commitment.

There was no college degree, no hard-earned experience that Reagan had to prove she knew what she was doing. But she had the drive. She'd always wanted more for herself and while she'd gotten the luck of the draw with Dave and Gracie, it was high time that she settled her inner turmoil about what other purpose she had aside from being a wife and mother.

As she got ready for work, she decided that she would go ahead with her meeting with Todd. She was as stubborn as could be, but she wasn't that stubborn, and she really didn't want to stand Todd up when he'd ultimately gone out on a ledge for her.

"Dave still sleeping?" Sarah chirped happily as Reagan walked out into the living room. She was making Gracie's breakfast, looking right at home in the kitchen as she cut up a waffle into bite-sized pieces. Gracie was on the floor, banging two wooden blocks together as the television played cartoons.

"He left early. I don't know what he's up to," Reagan said, ignoring the pain that seized her. She bent down and kissed Gracie on the head. If only she could have stayed home that day, ignoring all of her previous engagements and finding comfort in her daughter instead. That would have been the easy way out.