Rae was starting to feel like maybe she was losing control of the situation with her family and Topher's healing. Everything seemed to be coming full speed, and the straw that broke the camel's back, theoretically, was EJ's teething. It was unavoidable, she knew it was coming sooner or later, but she hadn't expected it quite so soon. He'd been having serious trouble sleeping at night because of it, and every time Rae would start to let exhaustion take her, something else would go happen. Whether it be EJ crying, Topher rolling over in bed, or Lucas feeling sick... something always woke her up.
Over the past month, she could count on one hand the number of good nights of sleep she'd gotten, and it was very obviously starting to take its toll. A small part of her wondered if her loved ones noticed the paleness in her face, or the bags under her eyes. She used makeup to cover them as best she could, but... it was probably starting to become obvious.
She couldn't worry about herself now, though. Especially with the worry mounting that Topher was going through some sort of relapse. Rae wasn't stupid. She'd been around too many addicts in her time as a stripper not to realize that addiction wasn't a switch that you could flick on and off. And she realized that giving Topher medication for his aches was toeing a dangerous line that could end with him hooked again. The worst thing about this whole thing was that she didn't know how to call him on it without sounding like she was accusing him. What if she was wrong? What if she accused him and he wasn't relapsing, and it made him leave her?
It was a terrifying situation, and one that she had no idea how to get out of. And if it was this scary for her, she could only imagine how it was for him.
With a glance down at EJ in his stroller, she could see the discomfort on his face. She leaned down and smoothed a hand over his head, then reached into the diaper bag to get him his teething ring, when she realized that she'd left it in Topher's room. "Damn it," she cursed, a habit she'd found herself in lately that she wished she could break. "Hold on. Here," she handed him his pacifier instead, hoping that would calm him until they got his teething ring back. "It'll only be a few minutes, okay, sweetie? Mama's hurrying as fast as she can."
And that she did. It nearly made her fall twice—the lack of coordination that had almost made her pass out more than once this past month was rearing its ugly head again—but she was hurrying.
When she opened Topher's door—knocking first never even occurred to her, because she thought they were past that—she saw both the first and last thing she expected to see. Topher, with a little orange bottle in his hands. Her eyes widened and she swallowed thickly. "Wh-what are you doing?" she asked him.
But it was a needless question. It was one thing to worry, but it was another to have her worries confirmed.