I'll keep you safe

Chapter 56

One hour ago...

The taxi dropped Rachel off outside her front door. She breathed a sigh of relief as she entered the house, closing the door behind her.

She was home

She was safe

As she practically collapsed onto the sofa in the living room, she finally allowed herself to reflect on the events of the day. A million thoughts were racing around her restless mind, thoughts she'd pushed to the back of her mind all day.

Had she come back to work too soon?

Was giving the Kelly's a second chance the right thing to do? Or was she just putting everyone in danger again?

Should she have let them in, in the first place? She could have easily turned them away and gone through with registering them in the proper way. But no, she had been determined to take matters into her own hands.

Had Ralph Mellor been right? Was she really the right person to lead this school?

She hadn't just put the staff and students in danger today. She'd, quite literally, put her own life on the line, trying to help Denzil. The outcome of her actions could have been so much worse.

What if Denzil had shot her whilst she was trying to talk to him?

What would have happened then?

There had been multiple moments when she had said the wrong thing to him. Any of those mere seconds could have ended her life as she knew it. All Denzil had to do was pull the trigger, and she would have been doomed.

When she closed her eyes, she saw the gun staring back at her, ready to strike in Denzil's shaking hand. She saw Denzil's frightened little face, his shaking frame curled into the bookshelf of the storeroom. Then the images changed. Stuart Hordley's cold, black eyes were burning into hers. She saw the blood from the miscarriage, smeared on her hands, thighs, the sofa, the carpet and the walls.

Her eyes shot open as she let out a scream, rocking backwards and forwards on the sofa.

She began to question if Eddie was better off running the school on his own. Whilst she hadn't been there, everything had been fine at Waterloo Road. And as soon as she'd come back, disaster had struck. She'd tried to do the right thing and it had blown up in her face. Maybe she wasn't the right person to run Waterloo Road after all. She'd upset the kids, the Kelly Family and the staff, including Eddie. She'd put everyone in danger.

And then, to add fuel to the fire, there was Melissa, turning up unannounced after 19 years, expecting everything to be ok between them. How could she think that? How could she turn up out of the blue? Rachel didn't understand. She didn't want to either.

Of course, there was a part of her that still loved and cared about Melissa. She was her little sister after all.

From the day Melissa had been born, Rachel had always been protective of her and had wanted the best for her. They had been close growing up, playing together, always by each other's side no matter what. Rachel would have done anything for her little sister.

It was memories like that, that made Rachel wonder if she'd been too harsh with Melissa today. Rachel desperately wanted to make amends with Melissa, she always had done. But after everything that happened all those years ago, she couldn't bring herself to do it out of fear of being hurt again.

And besides, Melissa had shown no remorse today. Maybe it would have been different if she had. But Rachel knew she never would. In Melissa's eyes, she'd done nothing wrong. Rachel was the one to blame for everything, her Father had made sure he'd drilled that into Melissa's head.

And of course, Eddie had found out about her sister. In all the weeks and months they'd lived and worked together, she had told him as little information as possible about her family, including the fact she had a sister. She never thought she'd have to tell him. She wanted to, of course she did, but talking about it was too painful. So she'd avoided the subject. She'd been happy with him living under the assumption that she had no siblings or family left, until she felt ready to tell him.

Eddie bursting into her office today and seeing Melissa hadn't been how she'd planned to approach the subject of her family. She knew how it looked and the last thing she wanted was for Eddie to think she was lying to him. She needed him to know that.

She'd messed everything up today. Grantly, Tom, Steph and most of the staff were against her now. Even Eddie had questioned her judgment when she'd gone back into the school to try and diffuse the situation with Denzil.

And then there was Ralph Mellor, who was probably now even more against her than he was in the first place. Maybe he'd been right. Maybe she should have resigned when she had the chance.

Did she really belong at Waterloo Road?