Chapter 21
Vaughn
I’m lying on my mother’s couch, unshaven, unshowered, and still wearing the same filthy clothes from the day of my father’s reading of the will. Cradled in my arms is an empty bottle of whiskey and there’s a foul taste stuck in my mouth, it’s sour like lime-flavored dirt.
The shades are drawn, and all the unturned, mostly destroyed furniture in the room glows with a sickly yellow hue from the flat-screen that keeps playing the same breaking story of the parochial school teacher accused of sending her students, and their parents, pornographic images of herself.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this horrible in my entire life.
Claire’s career is over, and I can’t do anything to help her. I didn’t do anything to stop it. She warned me, she told me it was going to be bad, but this…the way they’re ripping apart her reputation, is not what I was expecting. And now, I’m just another person in her life who let her down.
I tried making calls yesterday when the news first broke. But no matter my name or how much money I was offering to donate, no one wanted to give Claire Radcliffe another chance at teaching for their private academies. Whoever did this to her really wanted her to pay for not finding that money. I still don’t truly believe there were any accounts, but it doesn’t matter in the end. Claire will never be able to come back from this, will she? She’s going to be brought up on charges, fuck, she might even be looking at jail time.Long jail time. I wonder if she’s going to fight it or just give up and plead guilty. I know she’s innocent, but she’s always going to remember me thanking her for being nothing more than an easy wet hole. My prejudices against her family have cost me my own happiness. I was blind to how much anger I felt for my father and Libby, and all the suspicion, all the accusations I foolishly threw on Claire.
She’ll never forgive me for it either, and I probably will never get the chance to see her again to apologize. Not that my apology would mean anything to her—I just wish I could do something that would let her know what she’s always meant to me, and how she deserves so much more than the crap she’s been living through.
Far off in the breakfast room I hear Chloe and my mother as they too listen to the news report while Ms. Lowell serves them coffee and whatever breakfast is on the menu for the day. They make snide remarks back and forth as they eat.They always expected something like this to happen to a Radcliffe. It was only a matter of time.Nothing but white trash, deserving of everything bad that comes their way.
Ms. Lowell sneaks in here and quietly leaves a tray of breakfast for me on the only table left standing upright. I tried to kick the damn thing over last night, but the bitch is nailed to the floor. My foot still throbs from pain.
I wave Ms. Lowell out of the room, away from me, I want to be alone. I need to think of how I’m going to prove to everyone Claire is innocent. Do I call the police and explain about the birthmark? Do they have technology that determines whether an image was doctored or changed with Photoshop? How can I find her mother’s phone? Whoever has it needs to be caught. They can’t get away with this—with what they’ve done. Claire isn’t a goddamn pedophile—how could anyone believe that?
Shit, it’s going to be really tough…even I thought it was really her in those pictures. I had to look hard—I mean really look closely at them to figure it out. Someone really talented in photomanipulation did a banging job.
The front doorbell chimes and I hear Willard’s footsteps tap along the marble tiled floor to answer the door. Why anyone would want to visit my family is beyond me, we pretty much suck.
There’s a rush of voices. Chairs scrape quick against the floor. Why would my mother and sister be jumping out of their chairs?
I roll over, grumbling. I don’t really care. I need to just lie here until I can figure out a way to help Claire out of her situation, even if she never wants to speak to me again. She doesn’t need to know I helped in any way, but I have to find some sort of solution. I need to get her back on her feet. Then I can work on proving to her we deserve another chance at being happy, together.Fuck, I can’t believe how much I messed it all up, how much worse I’ve made it all for her.
Willard’s heavy footfalls become louder and louder. Fuck me, is he coming in here? I should have stayed at my place, why am I still even here?
Oh, right, too much whiskey last night. Someone hiding my keys and phone.
Willard stands by the door and clears his throat. “Mister Montgomery, sir, you have a visitor.”
I despise hearing my last name. And what I hate even more is how tragic I’m feeling about all this, but the thought that I’ve let Claire down—that I’ve never see her again—it’spainful. I’m not used to this.
I flop around again, this time with a heavier snarl. I don’t want any visitors.
Claire Radcliffe stands over me, blue eyes rolling. “Let me guess, is therich boyhaving a bad morning?” She jams her fists to her waist and explodes in a dry sarcastic laugh. “I bet my entire life was way worse than your one bad morning,” she mutters.
I sit up fast and a splatter of chips and crumbs fly off my clothes spraying her pants and shoes. She doesn’t even jump back. The whiskey bottle still clings to my chest. I nonchalantly peel it from the fabric of my shirt. She watches, repulsed.Damn, this is going to be hard to come back from.
“Who isthat?Is that Claire Radcliffe?” my mother’s condescending voice assaults my ears.Oh, no, please don’t let her come in here.Not with Claire in here.
As soon as she hears my mother, Claire tilts her head up high. Her back goes ramrod straight and she’s poised like she finally realizes we’re all beneath her—she can’t look me in the eyes, though, and that hurts. That tiny shred of vulnerability is all my fault. I made her feel like she can’t look me in the eyes or she’ll feel less than who she really is, and I don’t want that sort of negative hold over her. I want to be the man that helps raise her up, not one that tears her down.
Chloe tiptoes into the room behind my mother, her eyes wide, trailing over Claire’s clothes. I see what she sees, a thin threadbare winter coat and jeans that are frayed, not purposefully, but because they’ve been well-worn for far too many years. Her boots are scuffed, and instead of the fancy designer purses my family is used to seeing, she wears an old crumpled messenger bag slung across her body.
She’s stunning. And just like the first time I ever laid eyes on her, everything about her bewitches me. It’s not only beauty, but her strength and resilience, her tenacity and her courage; it’s everything about her, it’s everything she is.
“Claire?” my sister whispers, trying to stop the smile that’s threatening to spread across her face. It’s as if for a small brief moment all the hate and years between them disappear and my sister is happy to see her old friend.
“Why isshehere?” My mother storms inside the room, about to start spitting fire. Chloe’s smile vanishes instantly.
“Claire is my guest and she’s welcome here anytime,” I growl as I stand. I try to pat down my hair and look presentable, but more crumbs just flutter off my clothes like I’m some sort of savage.
“I didn’t know whores made house calls now.” My mother whips her head in my direction and stares at me with beady, narrow eyes. “You are just like your father,” she snaps, with a huff. “It’s disgusting.”
