Rachel put her drink down on the glass table with a chink. “If you want to spend more time with family, then you should give up your side piece.”
Hope’s heart clenched hard. She stiffened, the lightness she’d tried to enter the conversation with leaving her instantly. The kids were still playing, as though the accusation hadn’t been lobbed in Hope’s direction.
“I know you don’t understand what we’re doing or how we’re doing it, but I don’t need you to make me out to be the Wicked Witch of the West either.” Hope put her beer down, dropping her feet to the cement and letting the cold soak into her skin and muscles. “If you’re going to come at me every time we talk, then I can just not talk to you.”
It was an empty threat. They both knew it.
“Do you understand what you’re doing to them?” Rachel shifted her gaze deliberately from Hope to Eva. “This is going to screw her up for years, if not her entire life.”
“She’d have to know about it to be screwed up from it, Rach. And she doesn’t know.”
“You think she can’t feel the shift in the air between you and Rex? That she doesn’t know that something happened and it’s affecting everything? And the way you just let Ange parade her around like they’re best friends? It’s a fucking insult to Rex.” Rachel narrowed her gaze at Hope.
“It’s not!” Hope stood up sharply. “Look, you don’t have to like the decisions that I make, but you don’t have to be so cruel about it either.”
“Even if you were single, Hope, which you’re not, I wouldn’t in a second pick Angelica Shields as someone for you. She’s not right for you in any capacity.” Rachel stood up as well, facing Hope down.
Anger lashed through Hope, and she clenched her hands into fists. It’d been a long time since she’d felt this uncontrollable force of rage.
“You don’t know her!” Hope’s voice was far louder than she’d expected it to be.
The children’s voices stopped, the laughter and play ending instantly. It barely registered in Hope’s brain though, and she barreled forward.
“She’s not this Ice Fairy that the world makes her out to be. She’s not cold or hard or uncaring. In fact, I’d be willing to bet she has far more love in her than anyone here. But people expect her to be mean and cold and unfeeling, and so she lets them think that about her to her detriment.” Hope clenched her fists hard, her nails biting into her palms. “Don’t you dare judge someone you don’t know.”
“Of course she’s going to be the enemy, Hope. She’s the one who’s breaking apart this family! She’s the one who’s putting a wedge between you and Rex and Eva, the one who’s stealing your time and your love away from the people you’ve chosen to give it to. And for what? So you can explore your sexuality on the side? So you can figure out if you’re gay or straight?” Rachel pulled her shoulder’s back, her eyes wide.
“I’m not doing that.” Hope shook her head fervently. “I know who I am, and that’s not going to change. It might have taken me thirty-six years to figure it out, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m not straight like I thought I was. I like women, and I’m not going to hold back on that ever. Why would I?”
“Because you’re married! Because you’re still married. Because Rex is right here and now and yet you keep turning away from him. And for what? Nothing. That’s what.”
“It’s not nothing!” Hope’s voice broke. Rachel was never going to understand this, was she? She and Rex were too close, and Hope had done such a shit job telling her about what was happening. And she was playing the role of big sister to the bitter end. “If it was nothing, then I wouldn’t be doing it!”
“You two need to quiet down. There’s crew all around us.” Rex’s voice was a cold bucket of water on Hope’s head.
She blinked back her tears as she continued to stare at Rachel. The tension was so thick she could cut it with a knife if she had one. Hope slowed her breathing, looked around the patio, and locked her eyes on Eva. They had to stop this argument. They couldn’t do this in front of the kids.
“Excuse me,” Hope muttered as she walked away from the patio.
She didn’t bother to snag her shoes as she walked away. The grass was cold and sharp against her bare feet as she walked across it. Eva started to follow her, but Rex called her back, and Hope was finally on her own. She’d spent so much time on her own during the filming of this episode. And she was someone who was never alone, not like Angelica, who consistently spent time on her own.
Hope walked along the sidewalk the length of the hotel and back again. She calmed her racing heart, the anger that she really needed to get under control. But then she was just left with a deep well of hurt.
Painful, hurt.
She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t even thought about it, honestly. She’d been so wrapped up in everything that was changing and happening, that sharing it with anyone beyondher, Angelica, and Rex hadn’t actually occurred to her. But she’d never expected this from Rachel.
Rachel was her greatest ally in life until now.
Hope wandered back toward the suite she was sharing with Rex, unable to bring herself to talk, text, or even be in Rachel’s presence. It would hurt too much. She let herself into her room and stopped short when she found Rex sitting at the dining room table in silence.
“Eva?” Hope asked.
“Asleep, though she didn’t go down easily,” he answered, his voice weary. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Yeah, we do.”
Hope sighed and slid into the chair kitty-corner him, but she didn’t reach out and touch his arm, she didn’t brush her toes against his leg, and she didn’t even smile at him. Nothing about this moment was happy or easy.
