The Return

Chapter Thirty Four

Scarlett

Wednesday April 26th 2018.

Scarlett reached a hand out and snatched the remote from Jenna-Sue's hand, switching the wall TV off. "You know this is your fault, right?"

She tucked the remote into her hospital gown.

Hospitals never had cable anyway.

"I was watching that." Jenna-Sue grumbled.

"A seagull documentary?" Scarlett sat up.

Jenna-Sue tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Everything could have played out differently if Jenna-Sue had been there. If she hadn't selfishly shut Scarlett out. She wasn't the only one struggling with the pain of Ruben Leighton's mistake.

With microphones and cameras lurking, she could always make out their white branded vans and outline the gauntlet of reporters and camera crew by the curb. Two sets of them. Channel Five with Wednesday Morning News and Channel Ten with News at Ten with Trent. Totaling fifteen people set up outside Lincoln Lane Prep.

Scarlett heard footsteps. They moved across the hall outside her door. Her eyes follow the sound.

"What's wrong with me, Mom?" Scarlett croaked. "You don't come home anymore... We don't talk ..." Scarlett wasn't a Momma's girl. As a kid, she was teased for clinging to her mother a little too much. But who could blame her? She loved Jenna-Sue; the woman understood her in a way her peers couldn't.

Jenna-Sue spent most of her life around children which easily made her patient and empathetic. Before landing a job as a NICU nurse, Jenna-Sue worked nearly a decade as a pediatric nurse. Saying the woman was good with kids was an understatement. She was the kind of woman kids felt drawn to, felt safe with. And Scarlett relished in the comfort of catching her mother up on the latest Lincoln Lane drama after school. It was their thing. But after the allegations against Ruben began to surface, Jenna-Sue changed.

Their family dynamic was never the same.

Scarlett's mind was turning too quickly. Thirst stuck her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

"Nothing's wrong with you, Sweetie," Jenna-Sue traced lines on the freshly changed linen.

"Then what?" Her throat felt like sandpaper.

"Nothing's the same." Jenna-Sue's voice was barely above a whisper. "The allegations were one thing. We could handle that. We were handling it. He's in custody, Honey, going through who knows what. And I keep thinking..." She frowned. "How in God's name are we going to afford lawyers for him?"

Scarlett's eyes fixed upwards and unmoving, like a corpse at a funeral, except, tears ran down the side of her face.

"And what happens if we can't afford one?"

"He gets a shitty state attorney," Jenna-Sue blinked back tears. "Loathes us for the rest of his life..." She could barely meet Scarlett's reddened eyes. "I want to be there for you, Scar. I do," She forced life into her tone. "But I have to pick up more shifts... I have to do whatever it takes to help him. And I know it hurts. Dealing with all of this on your own. But you're stronger than you think."

Scarlett sat back against the fluffed pillow, her stomach churning and knotting. "Why us... why him?"

It was a wicked and depraved act...

She studied her hands.

Those people, his patients... his victims had families, jobs, and friends. Ruben could have been careful. He could have taken a little bit longer to look over the fucking scans.