CHAPTER THREE
"I REALLY WISH YOU WERE HERE
RIGHT NOW, BEN."
( BAD DAY )
BEING AN ADULT WAS hard. There was nothing more tiring than waking up at the ass crack of dawn, working eight hours with teenagers, and then coming home to do more work such as grading papers, paying bills, and planning on making dinner until you realize your fridge and pantry had nothing you needed to make said dinner. Add a fifteen year old and a needy cat, and not having another adult living with you to help, it was nothing more difficult.
Natalie stared at her fridge that only had a half gallon of milk, an almost empty thing of orange juice, a couple things of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, and various other random things that, if put together, would make something nasty. The pantry was no different, except there were mostly snacks and breakfast foods and drinks. Her mood worsened right then. The day had been terrible, to say the least, which she hated because it was Friday. The students didn't cooperate with her in the slightest, and they barely got through the lesson plans for each class because no one wanted to listen to her all because it was Friday. A person had also hit the back of her car that morning, making a large dent in the fender as well as making her late to work. Thankfully, Holly decided to take the bus to spend more time with Gina Forbes.
The only good thing to come out of the day was that it was officially the weekend once school was over for the day.
Natalie huffed and shut the fridge after glaring at it for a good minute, and slipped on some tennis shoes. She had changed the moment she got home into an old t-shirt of Ben's and jean shorts that had been stained with paint, so she just found the tennis shoes and put them on, letting her hair stay in the messy half-do. She found her purse, keys and phone, and walked to Holly's bed room. She knocked a few times before poking her head in.
"I'm going to the grocery store to get things for dinner, want anything specific for a later day?"
Holly looked up from reading. "No. But I'll text you if I think of anything," she said with a small smile. "Drive safely."
Natalie smiled, then, too and nodded. "Always," she promised. She let the smile fall from her face once the bedroom door was shut again, and she pushed back a few stray strands of hair as she walked to the front door, loving on Hamburger before leaving, locking the door behind her.
To make her day even worse, traffic was terrible. It was expected since it was rush hour, but to Natalie, it felt like it was worse than every other day. Someone nearly hit her again by pulling out in front of her and a few others, but thankfully no wreck happened and eventually, Natalie made it to the grocery store in once, stressed piece. She grabbed her things and turned off the engine of her car after finding a parking spot (which was hell, by the way), and locked the car as she made her way inside the grocery store. She got a buggy while walking in and put her purse in the seat that is usually used by little kids. The single mother then went on her way to get whatever she thought she needed for dinner and other days down the road.
It was stressful, only because there were lots of people and she was already stressed to a degree, no other reason. But she got it done after forty minutes of checking each aisle just to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything. A couple of times, she was pretty sure she saw Agent Jennifer Jareau from earlier that week, but dismissed it as her just imagine things, continuing on with her grocery shopping, eventually checking out after a decently long wait in line.
The bad day didn't stop there, unfortunately. Natalie unlocked her car and popper the trunk, carefully putting in the bags. Then she tried to close the trunk. Key word: tried. It would go all the way down but it wouldn't stay locked. In that moment, Natalie was ready to burst into tears from frustration and stress. She just wanted to go home, eat, and spend time with her daughter and their oddly named cat while How It's Made played on the TV. The woman puffed out her cheeks as she tried closing the trunk again, but just as before, it wouldn't. Natalie clenched her jaw and rested her hands on the hood of the trunk, leaning against it as she lowered her eyes and shut her eyes, keeping herself from publicly showing any frustration.
"I really wish you were here right now, Ben," she whispered.
Natalie stood straight, then, and sighed heavily, blowing strands out of her face as she placed her hands on her hips. Unfortunately for her, stressful and bad days happened more than she would like. Days that made her just want to cry by the time she either got home or in bed. Right now, though, the frustration and stress were making her want to cry in that exact moment. She bit her bottom lip and tried shutting the trunk once again. It lifted the slightest bit.
"Ms. Dolan?"
Natalie quickly looked over her shoulder and saw Jennifer Jareau plus who she guessed to be her husband and their young son, the boy sitting in the buggy they had. Natalie tried to make it seem like she wasn't about to burst into tears, forcing a large smile and turning to face the small smile. "Agent Jareau, hi," she breathed out. "Um, and you can call me Natalie since we're not at the high school." She tried not to look at the other blonde's clearly concerned face.
Jennifer smiled. "Alright. Natalie it is," she said. "And you can call me Jennifer, or JJ, whichever works for you. This is my husband Will, and our son Henry."
Natalie waved at the little boy and shook Will's hand. "Hey, it's nice to meet you. I'm Natalie Dolan."
"Nice to meet you, too," Will said, southern accent prominent. "JJ told me about Tuesday, said it got a bit interestin' near the end."
She chuckled. "You could say that."
"Are you having trouble?" Jennifer then asked and pointed to the trunk of her car.
"You could say that," she repeated, sounding more tired than the time before. "Got into a fender bender this morning, and I guess now it won't close because of it." She chewed on her bottom lip and she turned to look at the trunk, soon turning fully around to try and close it again.
Jennifer made a sound at the back of her throat as she walked up with Will, Henry now in her arms and one hand on the buggy. "That can't be good," she mumbled.
"Yeah," Natalie muttered.
"Mind if I look at it?" Will asked.
"Go for it."
Natalie took a step back, moving to the side of her car with Jennifer. Her brown eyes moved between the married couple and the boy in the other woman's arms. He couldn't be too much older than six or seven. Natalie frowned and blinked back hot tears as she looked away, brows furrowing as she stared intently at the ground. It was only nine or so years ago when she had something like that with Ben, except they weren't married just yet. And then he died, changing Natalie's life forever.
Jennifer quickly noticed the shift in Natalie and looked at her with concern again. "Hey," she said gently, one hand carefully touching Natalie's shoulder. "What's wrong?"
Oh, Natalie really wanted to start crying then. But she held the tears in, refusing to cry in front of people she barely knew in public. Instead, she bitterly laughed and shook her head. "Everything," she stated. "It's been a stressful and bad day."
Jennifer frowned sympathetically but at the same time looked like she understood. "Need to talk about it?"
"Might cry if I do, so no. Maybe if we weren't in a middle of a parking lot, sure, but..." She trailed off and shrugged.
"I get that. Here, give me your phone. I'll put my number in and whenever you need to talk, just call me, okay?"
Natalie nodded and got her phone out of her purse, handing it to the slightly shorter blonde. A few seconds later, she was being handed back her phone and Will was standing up from looking at the trunk. Natalie raised an eyebrow. "What's the verdict?"
Will let out a small breath of air. "The fender bender you had messed up the latch of the trunk. It's fixable, but I can't do it. There are some cords in our car, though, that I can tie down your trunk with so you don't loose your groceries on you way home."
"Oh, you don't have-"
"Hey, no, it's fine," Will interrupted her quickly. "You can't drive with an opened trunk."
"Yeah, and one of us will get the cords from you either at the high school or someplace else," Jennifer told her.
Natalie just stared for a moment, letting the corners of her mouth turn upward, relaxing the slightest bit. "Thanks."
Will then went to get the cords from their car, and Natalie walked with Jennifer and Henry to help them load the groceries after putting the buggy she had up. Once finding the cords, he went to tie down her trunk. The two women were nearly done, Henry staying between his mom and the car, when Natalie's phone started ringing. She quickly pulled it out of her pocket and answered, moving away slightly from Jennifer.
"Hello?"
"Hey, where are you?" Holly asked on the other end of the call.
Natalie looked at the time on the watch on her wrist and frowned at seeing how long she had been gone. "In the parking lot. I'm about to leave, don't worry, okay?" She told her.
"Oh, okay. You've just been gone a while."
Natalie gave a half hearted chuckle. "Blame traffic, long lines at check out and my trunk not closing." She looked up to see Will coming back, and the man gave her a thumbs up before going to Henry, picking him up to put him in the car. "I'm leaving in, like, two minutes."
"Well that sucks, hopefully it won't be bad on your way home."
"Yeah, hopefully. See you soon, love you. Bye."
"Okie doke. Bye. Drive safe."
"Always." Natalie then ended the call and put her phone back in her purse once again as she turned to look at Jennifer and Will. "Thank you, again, you didn't have to help."
"Oh, don't worry about," Jennifer waved her hand dismissively. "We're happy to. Go and get home to your daughter, okay?"
Natalie paused. How did she know about Holly? But then she remembered Jennifer's a profiler, it's her job to profile others, and Natalie wasn't subtle with the fact Holly was her daughter when she got onto her earlier that week. Natalie smiled and nodded. "I will. You have a good weekend."
"We will, thank you. You too."
With that, Natalie went back to her car and got in, feeling the slightest bit less stress than she was twenty minutes ago yet still stressed nonetheless. She sighed and sat in the driver's seat for a moment, letting the air conditioning blow in her face after turning the engine on. She let her hair down from the half-do it was in and ran her fingers through her hair, putting her seatbelt on a second later and then driving home.
***
A/N— I'm on a roll with updating this, I'm actually proud of myself tbh. But, I am a college student with 2 part time jobs, and it's currently the weekend, so updates will most likely slow down once it's Monday again, so don't ask me to update.
Anyway, this chapter was just me showing you guys that Natalie definitely has bad days, and also it's setting up a friendship/bond between JJ & Nat, which I'm excited about. I know there hasn't been a lot of Spencer but he's making another appearance in ch5 & that's when the plot really gets going! So that means he'll show up more and more, which I am definitely excited about and I joke you guys are too.
But yeah. That's all I have to say really. I love you guys, thank you for reading. Don't forget to vote and comment!! xx