What Was She Thinking?
Characters: Reece and Susanna Setting: Her room, afternoon
Reece had been putting off seeing her long enough. He still wasn’t sure just what to make of what had happened, but he was doing a bad job of giving her the benefit of the doubt. The whole damn thing just seemed too screwed up for him to really get his head around. He got violent. He’d been there, done that, but deceptive? That was usually beyond him. He was very much, what you see was what you got and as he knocked on Susanna’s door, he was starting to think that wasn’t the case with her.
Susanna had done plenty of sleeping over the last day and a half, and she was quite bored with it. Her frustrations were mounting, and she just wanted to let them out in the gym. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do that, thanks to the stupid little bitch who would pay. She’d ventured out for something to eat today, but hadn’t lingered long, not wanting any conversation with anyone here and very much not pleased by her appearance. Makeup could only cover the bruising so much.
When the knock sounded at the door, she set aside her paintbrush and went to answer it, assuming that it would be Ryan as he was really the only one who usually came to visit. When the door opened to reveal Reece and not Ryan, her expression darkened for the briefest of moments before it went neutral. She was still frustrated that his interference had got her stabbed. “Reece,” she greeted him coolly.
That wasn’t what he was expecting, not that dark look for a second or her distant tone. “Susanna,” he answered with an attempt to mimic her tone. “Thought I’d come see how you were doing.” And now he was wondering if she wanted him there at all in the first place.
While his attempt at mimicking her tone fell short, the intention was loud and clear. “I’m just wonderful,” she said dryly. “And how are you?” She was being intentionally sickeningly polite, even if there was an undercurrent of disdain to her tone.
He waited a breath then gave her a little bit of a look. “Susanna, I came by to check on you, make sure you were okay,” he said not wanting to do this nonsense. “Do you not want me here? I can leave.” Fucking Ryan. There was no doubt that he’d been let in with welcome arms, she was like that about the dick.
Susanna was far from having the energy to pretend not to be upset, and he really wasn’t making it any easier, not that she’d expected him to. “Isn’t that sweet of you.” Okay, so she could probably tone down the sarcasm some, but she didn’t feel any strong desire to. “I’m sorry, but what did you expect, Reece? You got involved when you shouldn’t have, and I got stabbed because of it,” she bit out. A moment later she sighed and gave a small shake of her head, but she didn’t say anything more yet.
“So this is my fault?” Reece asked, looking at her like she was insane. “No thank you for stopping me from bashing someone else’s head and having you sent back to real jail?” he asked. “Or trying to break up a fight you started? What the actual hell was going on Susanna?”
The anger was quick and fierce at his words, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you fucking kidding me? That I started? The bitch attacked me, not the other way around!” she countered firmly. Oh, like hell was she going to have the fight pinned on her, even if she had been looking for it. Meg was going down for this, she’d make damn sure of that. “And yes, my getting stabbed is partially your fault. She attacked me, broke my fucking nose. Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to bash her head in? I was trying to knock her out to keep her from hurting me further, and then you come in and put me in the vulnerable position to get stabbed. So yeah, it is your fault.”
“Because you gave her a reason to! What about any of that made sense to you?” he said, looking appalled. “Partially my fault? You were slamming her head into the ground. You know how you stop that? You run away. You don’t try and knock a crazy person out.” Reece didn’t need more guilt piled on to the guilt he was already carrying around, but there it was and he was thinking about how he might have actually been the reason she was stabbed. That trying to help had just made things worse.
Susanna looked at him incredulously for a moment. “Gave her a reason to? Are you kidding me? She is completely unhinged. Insane. She couldn’t deal with the truth and attacked me because of it.” She shook her head, thinking that Reece was an idiot if he really believed running away would’ve worked in that situation. “Run away? Really? So she could’ve stabbed me in the fucking back? How about you think that one through, Reece.” No, with as angry as she’d got Meg, she doubted Meg would’ve let her just walk away at that point.
“What did you say to her?” Reece asked instead, not telling Susanna what Meg had said. Sure, trailer trash was insane, but he was thinking that maybe Meg had a point in what she’d said about Susanna asking for it. Which was what didn’t line up in his head. “I am thinking it through. I think you got the jump on her and wanted to fight with someone and that freaks me out a little Susanna.”
Sighing, Susanna took a step back, holding the door open wider for him. “Come in, sit down, and I’ll tell you what happened,” she said, not wanting to get into all of it in her doorway. Her head was pounding, her face and stomach aching, so she turned to her desk for the pain relievers and bottled water she had there, taking just enough to take the edge off her pain.
He clearly hesitated in the doorway then let himself in all the way, going to sit on her couch and watch her. She looked like hell, but that was expected given the situation. “I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around it,” he tried to explain, being honest with her.
After he was inside and seated, she closed the door and moved to sit gingerly on the table in front of him. “Was I upset that day? Yes,” she admitted, seeing no point in hiding that from him since he very likely knew the reason why she might have been looking for a fight that day. “But I wasn’t looking for a fight, Reece. I came across her, complimented the jewelry she was making, and she took it as an insult because it came from me. She’s predisposed to hate me just because of where and how I grew up, and that’s not my fault.” Her words were spoken soft yet earnestly, the twisting of the truth ringing true, as if she really were the victim from the start.
“If that were true I’d hate you too,” he pointed out. He knew he wasn’t far from where Meg was on the social ladder. He thought of himself as better, but he wasn’t. “What kind of upset? Upset to the point of starting a fight with a crazy person?”
“Why? Because you’re a southern boy who didn’t come from means? That’s not what I meant. I meant Meg, specifically, despises those of us from New York’s upper society, which is ironic considering her husband was one of us until he met her.” She really couldn’t put it any simpler than that. “I did not start that fight,” she repeated firmly, annoyed that he wasn’t letting up on that belief. “She didn’t know how Dominic was removed from here. I asked her if she knew why, because I saw it happen, and it freaked me out, and I kept thinking, ‘what the hell could this guy who hadn’t seemed to want any trouble have done to get removed in such a violent, undignified way.’ So, I asked her, and she was horrified when I told her how he was removed, and it turned into a ‘shoot the messenger’ kind of situation.” She was doing her best to keep her voice calm, tone level as she explained, thinking it was important to get Reece to believe her story in this.
“I think it is what you meant, though fine, it’s just that one section. Probably because they didn’t like her being with her husband.” Reece was trying, really trying to give Susanna the benefit of the doubt, but he was struggling with it. He wanted to believe her, but it wasn’t quite the same story that Meg had told. “That’s all it was? You told her how he left? Because...that doesn’t seem like enough. Even for crazy trailer trash.”
Susanna really couldn’t blame Dominic’s parents if they had disapproved of his relationship with Meg, though she knew that wouldn’t win her any points with Reece right now, so she didn’t comment on it any further. She frowned when he pushed. “Wow, really? Why are you so quick to think so little of me?” she asked, looking hurt. “I told you - I asked her why they took him away. She insisted that he hadn’t done anything, so I asked her if she had done something. I just wanted to know why they took him away like that. You know they tasered him and dragged him, literally, into the elevator? It was horrible.” And she looked horrified despite that little thrill she felt at the memory.
Reece rubbed the space between his eyes. “You have to know that talking to someone as violent as she is and in such a state would have been a bad idea. You have to have more sense than that.” Why wasn’t this making sense? It was like things were lining up, but not quite and it was bothering the hell of out him. “It sounds horrible. But I’ve seen a lot of horrible since I got here and that really doesn’t surprise me.” In a way it almost sounded humane. At least they didn’t beat him and drag him out.
Shaking her head slowly, Susanna said, “You don’t understand, clearly. And it seems as if you’ve made up your mind about it.” And she wasn’t going to waste her breath trying to win him over if he had. How was Meg’s instability her fault, anyway? Sure, Susanna may have goaded her into the fight, but she hadn’t actually done or said anything threatening, so it was hardly her fault that Meg had snapped and attacked her. “Maybe, but this was the only time I’ve seen contact between our overseers and one of us, and it was terribly violent. Perhaps you would see it differently if you’d witnessed it.”
“Maybe I would have,” he said shaking his head and reaching out to hold her hand. “But I didn’t see it. What I’m seeing now is that I don’t know why you were acting the way you were. I feel like I don’t know who you are.”
Seeing her moment, her way in, Susanna let him take her hand, her eyes shining just a bit with moisture. “Acting the way I was? If someone attacked you, broke your nose just because they’d told you something true - and mind, I wasn’t being malicious or taunting, I was just talking to her - would you have just done nothing and walked away? She attacked me, and I’ll admit it, I responded to it, I fought back, but I won’t take the blame for it starting. It’s not my fault that she can’t deal with reality,” she said calmly, her expression tired and sad.
What was he supposed to say to that? Was there anything he could say? Instead he settled for just holding her hand in both of his, nodding slightly. “I guess I would have defended myself. I’m sorry you got hurt. I was trying to help.”
With another sigh, she nodded her head slightly in response. “I know you were,” she admitted. And logically, she did know that, even if a part of her did want him to pay for her getting hurt. She was smart enough to realize that having him on her side was more important right now than that, though. “And I’m sorry for the way I reacted when you first arrived. It was unfair of me. I’m just... angry and frustrated. The broken nose, while painful and hideous, I could have dealt with, but being stabbed in the stomach... I can’t do anything now. I can’t work out or dance. I wanted to organize some yoga classes and maybe a couple other classes, but I can’t head any of that up yet, which is incredibly frustrating. I don’t like just sitting with nothing to do,” she ranted in a soft, sad tone.
He sighed a little, distantly realizing he was a sucker, but not able to stop himself. “I know it is. But you’ve got to take a few days to get better. Then you can do everything. I have no doubt.” He wasn’t sure what else to say beyond that, but he hoped it worked.
Susanna looked at him just a little incredulously, as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying. “A few days? Hardly. It’ll likely be more like at least a couple weeks,” she corrected him. If she didn’t want to risk infecting or reopening her wound, she would have to take it easy for a while, which she would do because she didn’t want to end up out of commission longer than that. “But I will get through it, even if I have to paint my way through it,” she said with just the faintest quirk of her lips as she nodded toward the two finished canvases she’d done since returning to her room from the clinic. They were both abstract, as she had no skill in anything else, but she thought they were attractive enough. They were also both much smaller than the one she’d painted for herself and hung on her wall.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to get there slowly,” he said trying to figure that out, but hell, he wasn’t a doctor. “Even if you have to...oh.” Look at that she’d painted something. “I didn’t realize you painted.” Though he actually supposed he knew next to nothing about her when asked.
Slowly was the problem, but she wasn’t going to point that out. She let out a short laugh when he noticed her paintings. “Well, you really ought to be more observant, shouldn’t you? That one there was up the night you visited me,” she said, nodding to the large painting hanging up on the wall.
“I wasn’t really paying attention to your walls when I was here that night,” Reece pointed out, looking up at the painting. It was pretty cool. Not really his style, but cool enough. Then again, what did he know about art anyway?
She wanted to laugh at that, but she didn’t because she knew it would have hurt to do so. Instead, she just smiled at him. “That’s true, you weren’t. And how lucky for me,” she teased lightly. That had been a nice night. Confusing as hell, but nice in a way. And that pretty much summed up her whole relationship with Reece so far, which was even more reason to put an end to it. The problem was that whenever she was near him, she found herself doing just the opposite.
“Lucky you indeed,” he agreed. He needed to stop walking himself into those kind of situations, since he always had that sense of regret after the fact, but he wasn’t as good at that as he could be. “You gonna be okay?”
He really didn’t sound particularly thrilled with the memory of that night, but she couldn’t quite pin what might be going through his mind about it. “Oh, I don’t know, I’d say you were pretty lucky, too,” she purred, though she wasn’t really meaning to be flirtatious. There were times when she just couldn’t help it. “Hmm, yeah, I’m sure I will be. I’m resilient and strong, even with a stab wound to the stomach.” She was confident that she would be able to hold her own even while injured.
She didn’t quite turn it off did she? And just as always, Reece found himself leaning in closer. “I was. Don’t worry,” he promised, knowing he was even if it was something he wasn’t quite proud of outside of this room. “Let me know if you need anything okay?”
Appeased by his response, Susanna smiled at him. It shouldn’t matter, but there was just something about Reece, something that had her pulling back after a moment. Things like that were complications, and complications led to not thinking clearly, and right now she just really needed to think clearly. “I will,” she said first. And then, as if her mind to mouth filter was malfunctioning, she heard herself continue, “I wouldn’t mind some company for... non-physical entertainment. Not being able to do anything in the gym means I am quickly going insane with boredom. So, maybe a card game or something. Without alcohol,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
Reece wasn’t sure he was the best as far as companions went, but he was nodding anyway. Maybe they could add that aspect to their relationship. It was worth a shot right? “Sure,” he said nodding. “I can do that. Gotta say though, I’m good at cards.”
Susanna smiled slowly, eyebrows raised just a bit. “Well then, I’ll have to pay close attention to you when we play.” She was actually very good at card games as well, but she would let Reece find that out first hand. “Perhaps we’ll organize a game,” she suggested, thinking of James and how he’d seemed enthusiastic at the thought of poker.
“I could be convinced to join in on a game. I wasn’t too bad in prison or before then either.” He’d picked up a few tricks without cheating. Though given how she was, it could be interesting to play with her.
“Well there we go, then, we’ll get a game going.” It would give her something to look forward to in this frustrating place. She stood up, then, and headed to the door. “Thank you for coming by.” It would probably lead to much less trouble if he left now, and though she knew that a part of her would enjoy him staying, she couldn’t let that part of her influence her too much.
He could take a hint. Reece got up, lingering near her for a moment. “Call me on the computer thing if you need anything alright?” he said. Reece smiled once more then went where she wanted, out the door and headed back to his room.
“I will,” she promised, though she wasn’t sure if it was a promise she would be able to keep. Susanna watched him go, hoping that she might have helped her case with this conversation.