Maria’s reaction was hardly a surprise. She’d always made her distaste for Raff’s wife clear. Family gatherings had seen her sitting side by side with Grace, the two women worlds apart yet united in their dislike for Helen Reyes. Grace had always been on the receiving end of Helen’s scathing retorts, especially when she and Declan filed for divorce. It had always satisfied Helen to know that her sister was undergoing something she herself would never have to. Obviously, that had changed now that Raff had put his foot down. It wasn’t a funny situation, but there was something satisfying about knowing that Grace would get the last laugh in the end.
He awkwardly twisted to the side when Maria helped him with his guitar case, having to jam the crate of records against her doorframe so he had a hand free to slide it out of the strap. Then, he followed Maria into her home, which was considerably warmer and cosier than his had ever been.
At her question, which he knew was fair game to ask, Raff sighed.
“Give me a minute,” he said, setting his records down on her kitchen table and dropping his duffle bag on the floor. He needed a few moments to gather his thoughts and explain that… nothing had happened really. He’d just left.
He sat down heavily on Maria’s sofa, his whole body sagging with exhaustion as he tipped his head back against the cushions. He stared up at her ceiling, eyebrows drawing inwards as he offered her a lame shrug.
“Just wanted to leave,” he said plainly.
There had been no huge fight this time, barely an argument. No mug had been thrown Raff’s way, his bruise from the previous incident fading to a sickly looking yellow, and Helen hadn’t even vindictively picked up one of his records and snapped it over her knee, knowing that was one of the only ways to provoke a reaction from Raff.
He rolled his head to the side, giving Maria a tight smile as she stood in the doorway.
“Seriously, that’s it. I just wanted to stop being so fuckin’ tired all the time,” he explained.
There was no need for him to be gracious now, so he could be truthful. Living with Helen had been like playing host to a blood-sucking parasite. Every interaction with her felt like all of his energy was being drained from him. He felt sapped dry of any reason to go on at the end of the day, but Raff had never wanted to do something drastic to make the bad feelings stop, not really. He wasn’t like Ted, who had been driven to despair by the unfairness of life and taken himself out of it. Raff didn’t want to do that, but he did want to stop feeling like the only highlight of his day was a text from Maverick or a quick glimpse of Harlow at the bar.
Pinning his happiness on two men who would never be anything close to his was so pathetic it circled right around the being downright painful.
“I don’t think she actually believed me when I told her I was going,” he confessed, huffing out a humourless laugh. “She went to work - or maybe somewhere to see someone else, I don’t know - and I guess I just packed my things and left.”
It wasn’t in Maria and Raff’s nature to be sentimental. She loved her cousin implicitly, but they weren’t really the sort to get all mushy about it. She’d lost enough in life to know how important it was to cherish your family and the people you loved, and she knew Rafferty felt the same, but that didn’t mean either of them were about to make a song and dance about how they had each other’s backs, or whatever. It was unspoken, proven in the simple act of him showing up at her apartment instead of Grace or Kian’s.
Still, as much as she wasn’t one to get all weepy and cuddly, she figured now wasn’t a great time to be smug about it either. She could save the unfiltered joy for coffee (Irish, obviously) with Grace and let off a few fireworks in honour of Helen’s spectacular downfall. For now, she’d be as much of a crutch as he needed in what she could only imagine was a really fucking confusing time.
There was no love lost between Helen and Rafferty, but Maria couldn’t imagine it was ever easy to walk out on a marriage. It was still a giant upheaval, no matter what way you spun it.
“Well, fair fucking play to that,” she smiled, Dylan’s ridiculous little Irishism slipping from her tongue.
What more could she say? She doubted there was really a manual on what to say when your cousin finally said a big fuck you to the woman that had made his life a living hell. Maria was proud of him, as ridiculous as it sounded. She was happy that he’d finally stood his ground and decided to take back his life. Maybe she was more sentimental than she gave herself credit for, or maybe she was just feeling a fierce sense of loyalty and warmth off the back of her Lord of the Rings-athon, but she couldn’t help but think there was still time for him to turn things around. Surely everybody had an opportunity to turn things around and still find whatever it was they were looking for, even this late in life?
Padding across the room, Maria dropped onto the sofa beside him. She tugged at the drawstrings of her hoody – she didn’t recognise it, so she could only assumed she’d swiped it from Alexey some night when the two of them had stumbled into bed beside a bashful Andy after one of their many benders – and let the cotton warm her skin as it tightened around her. She rolled onto her side, knees tucked beneath her as she let Raff talk. It was so fucking typical of Helen to not take him seriously, even in the face of him leaving her sorry ass.
“Oh, to be a fly on the wall when she realises you’re not coming back,” Maria murmured, shaking her head in disbelief.
She tucked her hands into the pouch of her hoody, thinking back on the last time she’d been forced to spend any amount of time with Helen. She’d done what she always did, plastering on a plastic smile to pander to her closest friends and whatever family members still thought of her as being slightly tolerable. She’d matched that smile with some offhand, bitchy comment about Maria that had made her want to separate her head from her neck, while Rafferty had said nothing, ignoring it and instead plying the both of them with another drink.
She had no idea how he did it, but she hoped that this was a new chapter. The end of Raff sacrificing his own voice in the name of keeping her comfortable.
“She never respected you, Raff. She always looked at you like she resented you, yet that stupid cunt was the one trapping you,” Maria huffed, teeth gritted in annoyance.
She scowled, trying not to rile herself up. She was never the best at managing her temper, not by comparison of Raff who seemed to have it mastered down to a fine art. It didn’t really help him to start going on angry tirades about a woman she knew he already loathed.
“I’m just saying. I’m glad you’re fucking free and I’m proud of you for finally getting out of there,” she shrugged, rolling her eyes self-deprecatingly. “You get to be your own damn self now.”
