Iris snort-laughed, but then Spencer muttered something that sounded suspiciously likebitchunder his breath, and Iris’s smile turned into a murderous glare. Claire heard Astrid take a deep breath, then turn away and gulp from her water bottle.
“I’m good here,” Delilah said, going back to her phone.
“Are you sure?” Claire asked. She took a step back toward the campsite, willing Delilah to look up at her.
She didn’t. Instead, she just nodded, and Claire felt her stomach plunge to her feet. Iris pulled Claire’s arm toward the trail, and she went, but she couldn’t get rid of the panic bubbling into her chest. First Josh, now Delilah. She felt marooned, out of control, and very much like she was about to burst into some extremely embarrassing tears.
Five minutes into the hike, she pulled her arm free from Iris’s. “You know what? I’m going to go check on Ruby at the springs.”
“What?” Iris asked, her face going pale.
“Yeah, I just... I’m nervous, you know? About her and Josh and I just...” She didn’t know how to say it, that she simply needed togo, that she needed to cry, to wrap her arms around her daughter, the one thing in her life that she was sure of.
“Sweetie, is everything okay?” Astrid asked, stepping closer to her. “Do you want us to come with you?”
Claire shook her head. “You go hike. Have fun.”
“You heard her,” Spencer said, taking Astrid’s arm. He started walking her up the trail, leather sneakers and all. “She’s fine. Let’s go.”
“Claire,” Iris said, widening her eyes with meaning. “Are you serious right now?”
“I’ll see you back at the campsite, okay?” she said before Iris could say anything else. Guilt swirled in her gut, but still, she turned away from her friend and ran back along the trail.
SHE BURST THROUGHthe trees and into the campsite’s clearing, breathing heavy, eyes searching. Delilah was still perched on top of the picnic table, phone in her hand. Her head snapped up when she saw Claire, brow furrowing in what Claire could only hope was concern and not annoyance.
“I thought you were going to hike?” Delilah asked.
Claire tried to calm herself down as surreptitiously as possible as all the wrong answers flitted through her head.
I wanted to see you.
I was worried about you.
I was worried aboutus.
But she knew she couldn’t say any of those things. Those weren’tcasualanswers to Delilah’s question.
“I decided not to,” Claire said. “I’m going to go to the springs and check on Ruby.”
There. A perfectly breezy response. Her voice didn’t even shake.
Delilah nodded, and Claire moved off toward their tent to change into her bathing suit. She ducked under the door flap, zipped it closed, then pressed her fingers to her eyes under her glasses. The tears welled, and she tried to push them back. This was ridiculous. She fought with Josh all the time. And Delilah had every right to stay back from a hike, to stay back fromher.
But Claire had never been great with conflict. When she was young, her parents fought nonstop, her mother completely miserablefor most of their life in San Francisco. After her father took off and she and her mom moved to Bright Falls, Claire spent years making sure her mother was okay, making their life as smooth as possible, always following the rules as much as she could.
Then she got pregnant.
Even then, her mother supported her—they’d been all each other had for so long—and everything ended up okay. Wonderful even. But then she and Josh started arguing, two stupid kids with huge adult problems, and she always ended up crying when they fought, always ended up feeling pathetic. And now Iris was most certainly pissed off at her for abandoning her with Shit Trousers, so essentially, Claire had just made everything worse. Still, she couldn’t have gone on that hike without doing what she was doing right now—letting a few tears fall to get some release and heaving some shuddering breaths. She just needed a few minutes, then she’d be fine. She’d be ready to find her daughter, ignore whatever Delilah was doing, and figure out a way to make it up to Iris. She’d be—
The tent door unzipped, and before Claire had a chance to wipe her face dry or at least pull her shirt over her head to hide what were probably very blotchy cheeks and red eyes, Delilah was ducking into the tent.
“Oh, hey,” Claire said. Calm. Breezy. Except her voice sounded thick and watery. She turned her back to the other woman, squatting down to unzip her pack and find her swimsuit.
“What’s wrong?” Delilah asked, her voice so gentle it made Claire want to cry even more. Which she absolutely was not going to do.
“Nothing.” She found her red-and-white polka-dot one-piece and clutched it to her chest as she stood up. “Just... I think I’m allergic to something out here.”
God, she was getting good at lying.
