Her expression fell when he admitted that he didn't remember her telling him that. Another sign pointing to exactly what Rae didn't want to believe. She pushed some hair behind her ear and closed her eyes. "It's okay," she told him, ever the apologist when her loved ones were going through a hard time. "Today was one of those days. But he is. I think he's with George right now. Or maybe somewhere else, I don't know." It was hard to keep track of her cousin sometimes. She was glad she had April back, because she did the best at keeping him in check.
This just felt wrong. Since he'd walked into her life, everything that was broken had slowly been realigning itself and now, over the course of a short few weeks, it was all falling apart; going off-kilter again. And right now, the little bits were tumbling to the floor. Rae didn't meet his eye for a moment, fear of many different things bubbling up in her chest.
The speed of his reply was a relief, but it also brought on a barrage of other worries; worries that she knew more or less to be truths now. He wouldn't be so irritable, so distant, so moody, if he wasn't either tired of her or dealing with a relapse. And if he was so adamant that he wasn't tired of her... she swallowed thickly. "You promise?" Because she knew that overexposure could be one of the worst things to happen to a relationship. With as much as Rae loved him, it was entirely possible that he didn't love her quite as much.
She kept her eyes on her son for a few more moments, not wanting to let him see how afraid she was about this whole situation, of losing Topher, of all of it. He gummed at the teething ring, brown eyes staring at Rae with curiosity. Sometimes she was amazed at how in tune her son was with how she was feeling. He could tell that she was down. Worried. She wiggled her finger in his hand and tried to smile for him, but she knew it fell flat.
"Well, and I kind of... I guess I thought we were past knocking," she pointed out. "You have a key for my place now, so... I guess I just thought that knocking didn't matter. I'll have to remember from now on." She wet her lips.
When he snapped, she jumped. Not because she thought he was going to hurt her or anything like that, she knew he'd never do that, but he had never raised his voice to her before. She felt how wide her eyes were and blinked twice, until she heard EJ make a startled noise in his stroller. She turned her attention to him for a moment, and put the toy in both of his hands before standing up shakily. Exhaustion again.
At first, her voice was quiet when she said, "Yes," and nodded her head. "That's what I want you to tell me. Not that you're an idiot, but that you're not okay," she insisted.
The worry outweighed the nervousness that his shout caused, and she stepped forward, despite the fact that he continued to yell at her. "I'll tell you what I want," this time her voice was sterner, but no less loving, no less gentle. "I want to help you. I want to help you get past this, but I can't do that if you don't tell me what's wrong." Exhaustion took some of the levelness from her voice. It was shaky, not with anger but with gut twisting worry.
"But now that I know..." she knew that this was a risky thing to say, but, "I can help you."