callmeemily | Holy crap, there's a new business in town.

Nevermind that it looked pretty run-down. Nevermind that there was a thick layer of dust on everything, that there was peeling wallpaper, that the floors had peeling linoleum.

This.... this was going to be home. Raleigh knew it the moment she and Joel had walked inside; the run-down storefront had been a cupcake shop three years ago before it'd gone bust, and it already had some of the requisite items for a bakery - luckily, a lot of the most expensive ones like a walk-in fridge. It just hadn't had a tenant since 2011, but Raleigh'd managed to cut a deal with the landlord; she'd fix it up, no rent was due until they opened, and she'd have a discounted rate for a year.

It was more than she could have hoped for, although that meant that her days would be full of dust and elbow grease for a while. The doors and windows were wide open, country music pouring out onto the street as Raleigh - in a tanktop, cut-offs, work gloves, and sneakers - perched on top of a tall ladder. She was stripping off wallpaper in big swathes, letting it fall on the floor - not caring that she was a sight, with dirt smearing her bare legs and arms. It felt hot as hell in the tiny store, but that probably had a lot to do with what she was doing.

She's singing to herself as she pulls free more paper, but her glove catches on a nail and she frowns. "Hey!" She leans down a little as she sees somebody passing by, even though from how high she is, she can't see who it is. "Can you pass me that hammer?" It's on the floor, and she doesn't want to have to get down if she doesn't have to.

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Raleigh just sort of folded into him as she cried, and she can't help the way she just- he's safe, somehow. She needs to pull herself together, to talk to him, to actually speak, but all she can do for a minute is lean on him, to let him be there for her even if it's just him hugging her in the middle of the sidewalk.

"How can I talk to them? How can I not?" She pulls back just enough to look up at him, to have someone - anyone, give her an answer. "How does it not- You know what must have happened, right? The reason I haven't googled myself? Either everyone noticed and it was a thing, on the news and in the paper and people who I didn't even know were looking for me and now they think I'm dead, or-"

Or.

Or no one noticed.

"I don't know what to do." She said it again, and she shook her head slightly. "I'm... bad. I'm bad because I didn't look, I didn't try, I just- I did what I was told and kept my head down until I got kidnapped, and since then, I've been living this- this amazing thing, and-"

She's not talking about how hard it's been. About how she had to physically recover, that she'd not mentally recovered, yet. That she's literally been tortured, that she's only now found a stable home, that she was on the cruise ship from hell and she's not even acknowledging how that's impacted her.

All she can see right now is her mother, thinking she's dead. Her mother, when she finds out that Raleigh's alive, but then what she's been doing--

The thought is honestly almost paralyzing all by itself.

"You did what you thought was right at the time," Levi said, glad to be holding her close just so that she couldn't see him wince in pain. His head was killing him, her thoughts so loud and all over the place. He needed one of his pain pills so badly but until she pulled back a bit he'd just have to put up with the pounding in his head.

"And you definitely should not feel guilty about enjoying your life, Raleigh. Not at all."

He wondered how much of it was that, that she was doing things that made her happy and she wasn't used to that. A lot of people grew up in situations where they were taught that if they weren't always trying to please other people they were a bad person.

"But you just-" She's even more confused now, because he'd just said that she should have let them know, that she should reach out to her mother. It'd been so long. So freaking long, and it got harder as time went on.

"I don't know what to do," she said after a second, and when she does pull back a little, when she looks up at him her eyes are puffy and red. "I guess- I guess I just need to think about it. Really think, and just- I guess see what happens. See what I... what I'm going to do?" Shrugging her shoulders, Raleigh rubbed her hand over her face yet again. "I guess I'll see." Her voice lowered, and she nodded - both to him, and to herself. It wouldn't be an easy choice, she knew that. But still... he wasn't wrong. She should let them know.

"You'll figure it out," he reassured her. Levi was sure that she would. The truly difficult part of it would be to actually make the phone call or write the letter or whatever it was that she decided to do. But Raleigh was good at doing difficult things, if nothing else. Levi knew that she hadn't had an easy life to far but she didn't dive up.

"In the meantime, we can do something to take your mind off of it."

"Yeah. Yeah, let's go do... something. Anything. We can do anything. What do you want to do?" She honestly just feels tired, now. Tired and wrung out and-- no matter what he said, she's still carrying an immense amount of guilt over the whole thing. She's scared, and honestly does feel like she's-

Maybe she's not a bad person, but she definitely isn't a good one - what kind of person would do what she did? That's what it comes down to, for her.

What kind of person. And the answer she's got for that isn't a particularly good one.

Still, she smiles, and looks over her shoulder before she finally looks back to Levi, checking to see if anyone in particular actually saw this whole fiasco. "So... what do you want to do?"

"You like ice cream? I know it's not exactly a baked good but I've always found it pretty tasty," Levi suggested. He could tell that she needed to get her mind off of this, at least as much as was possible. No doubt she was going to keep turning this over and over in her mind.

"Plus pretty soon we'll have more frozen stuff on the ground than we want."

Holy crap, there's a new business in town.

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