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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 17 2017, 11:54:10 PM (28 Views) | |
| Briar Fix | Sep 17 2017, 11:54:10 PM Post #1 |
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Kelci; muggle
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"Alright, shoes on, little beast!" Briar hurriedly threw her hair into a ponytail and stumbled into the living room, tugging her own shoes on without bothering to untie them. Ruby had built a pillow fort around herself between the wall and the couch. Briar knocked on the wall while she searched her purse for her car key. "Time to go, Rube." The only response she got was a muffled roar, so she knocked again, trying to hold onto her patience. "Let's go, love, come out so I can help you tie your shoes." "No!" Briar sat down on the couch and pressed her palms against her temples, feeling what had become a nearly constant headache throbbing between her hands. She was holding it together by the slightest thread, but she wouldn't exactly call it functioning. Still, if she could only choose one thing to give 100% of her limited energy too, it would always be taking care of her daughter. And that meant mustering a whole new reserve of patience that she wasn't sure she even had in her. "Are you having fun in your fort?" In response, Ruby kicked her shoeless foot through one of the walls, making the whole thing collapse around her. She threw herself back into the pillows, pouting. Briar closed her eyes and sighed. "Right. Ruby. I told Uncle Noah I would help him with the menu, and if we want to be at the restaurant when I said we would be there, the time for leaving is now. It makes me unhappy to be late because it's not very loving to keep friends waiting. Do you think you can get your shoes on so we can get in the car?" "I can't!" Ruby's face crumpled. "I need Daddy to do my shoes," she wailed. Briar slid her hands to her forehead as the headache shifted behind her eyes. "I know you like the story daddy tells, but unfortunately he's not here right now to help. What if you wear your rain boots today? You can put those on all by yourself." Ruby was quickly spiraling into a tantrum. This had been one of the hardest parts of not having Elliott around- seeing her sweet, easy-going kid sour and become so easily overwhelmed now that her world had been turned on its head. It didn't exactly do much for her self-confidence. Briar glanced at her watch and made a quiet sound of annoyance; they were already ten minutes late and she was about to resort to straight-up bribery. "You can have two cakes with your tea when we get there, Ruby, but we have to get there." Ruby still hadn't stopped blubbering. Briar grabbed her shoes and knelt down to put them on herself, but that proved to be a mistake when the crying became shrieking. She ignored it and struggled to lace up the first shoe while her daughter tried to squirm away. "Ruby, you have to let me help you." Her patience was on its last legs, and as it quickly faded, so did her willingness to try to have a rational conversation with a screaming three-and-a-half-year-old. "I don't want you, I want my daddy!" "Yeah, well," she finished tying the other shoe, "Feeling's mutual, kid." She was angry, now, which seemed to be her default these days. It was either an unfeeling void or an endless pit of rage; not remotely ideal but it was the only thing keeping her moving. Without it, she would have been too broken to get out of bed. She stood up and pulled her still sniffling daughter to her feet, reluctantly scooping her up into her arms and holding her tight. Of course Briar loved her, that was a given. She would do anything for her. But right now, she didn't want to have to be gentle, and that meant she had to exert an incredible amount of effort to be tender, even towards her daughter. Because what she really wanted was to punch a wall, or possibly a reporter if given the opportunity. She felt like the world's worst mother, and it didn’t help that Ruby vocally confirmed that several times a day. She sighed and dried Ruby's cheeks with the cuff of her hoodie. "I'm sorry, sweet girl. I miss him, too." She carried her outside and had just finished buckling her into her carseat when she was momentarily blinded by a flashbulb. Briar had, by necessity and in her role as an MP's wife, made several public statements following Elliott's arrest, but the reporters hadn’t been satisfied by the information she willingly volunteered. It seemed they were always lurking around, but this was the first time since the night of the arrest that anyone had had the indecency to come so close to the house. The rage she spent every waking minute tamping down suddenly fully consumed her. She closed the door and left the car running while she crossed the street. She had a fistful of the photographer's jacket before she even realized what she was doing. "You're going to delete that picture and leave our daughter out of your so-called reporting unless you want to find my attorney so far up your ass he could wear you as a suit." She let the threat sit for a moment before letting go of his jacket, crossing the street, and driving away without another word. Ruby had already fallen asleep, tired out from her tantrum. Briar was shaking so hard that she had to pull over a few blocks later; she hurried to open her door and immediately threw up into the street. When she was done, she flipped on her hazards and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel, sobbing quietly. She had never felt so hopeless and afraid in her life. She hadn't ever considered that there could be a situation so horrible that she would go off the deep-end, but it turned out that being so unjustly kept from her husband, being forced to behave with dignity in the public eye and to answer to his constituency, having to be strong for everyone else without anyone to take on a fraction of that emotional labor… this was a sufficiently horrible situation. |
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2:47 PM Jul 11