And only time will tell.
Chapter 41
Clara
My room feels like a palace after months in the RV; I hate it. There’s too much space, not enough noise, laughter, even breathing for it to feel like home.
I busy myself putting away the collection of things I gathered over the last few months. A handful of new dresses and lightweight slacks and shirts, t-shirts, jeans, sandals, more socks and underwear than I had before. All the fancy clothes I bought for Trips’ family event we pawned for less than fifty percent of what we paid for them while in San Diego, hoping to make enough money to pay for Trips’ surgery. Jansen added to the pot with a small collection of things he stole in Colorado and New Mexico.
My winter boots and coat are at the bottom of the bag, and a flash of blood on a wood sword hits me like a train to the chest. Too many bad memories.
I thought I’d processed them all. Thought that the months I spent waking covered in sweat with a scream on my lips were past me. Two weeks ago, I would have said I was mostly better.
I had an appetite. I had the energy to run, spar, and learn. Nightmares only woke me occasionally. It’d been months since my last blackout-level panic attack, since I curled into a ball in an old doorway, unable to see or hear what was going on around me.
But one glance at a beautiful gift, and I have no choice but to question coming back.
For the first time since I got this room, I wish it had a closet so I could shove my coat and boots deep inside and not see them again until I’m ready. But there is no closet, so I line my snow boots against the wall next to the army boots and sandals I left behind and hang the coat next to my dresses on my clothes rack.
Trips’ hammock is the only thing left in my bag, and I pull it into my lap, wondering why I grabbed it out of the trash in that Saturday-empty office parking lot outside of New York City.
But I know the answer.
There was one bed in the RV, and five people who needed to sleep. We created shifts as time wore on. Walker first, then me, then RJ, and Jansen joining us as the sun was rising and Walker was awake. And Trips, outside in his hammock on any clear night.
I’d jolt from my nightmares and end up on a chair near him, both of us awake when we should be asleep, Jansen idly strumming some song nearby while his mind whirred. And Trips would give me this little half smile, one so full of sadness, regret, and resignation, that my heart broke a bit. But there was hope in it too. Like, he knew things were fucked-up, but he too was taking this time to heal, to grow, to find a solution.
It was like the hammock was a safe place for Trips to just sit with all his shitty feelings and admit he had them.
We all had healing to do.
Most of it wasn’t even physical.
On an impulse, I bring the hammock out back, finding two trees about the right distance apart and string it up between them. Just as I finish, I hear feet scuffing through the grass behind me. I turn to find Trips standing three feet away, like he always is now.
“Why?” he asks.
I peer around, looking for cameras or listening devices, and after a second, Trips steps closer, in case there’s surveillance nearby. We don’t want it to catch our conversation. We know this whole place is bugged by now.
I rub the palm of my hand against my thigh, not wanting to tap out my worries. “I thought it might be nice to have a reminder. We shouldn’t forget what we had.”
Trips closes his eyes, his nostrils flaring. “What if we made a mistake coming back?”
“We might have. But it’s too late now. How long do you think we have?”
He shrugs. “It depends on how angry my father is. And what kind of mind games he wants to play. But it won’t be long. It might be an hour, or a day, but by the end of the week, we’ll be his willing little puppets.”
“Are you ready to dance?”
He opens his eyes, the blue there steel, his lips a straight line as he takes me in. “You’re the dancer here.”
“I need a partner.”
He grimaces, looking over the fence at the party house next door. The couch is gone, so there must be new neighbors this year. “I’ll play my part. But if I stumble, I’m not going to take you down with me. Not again.”
I take a risk, stepping closer, and pick up his hand, squeezing it, forcing familiarity where there has been so little lately. “We do this together or not at all.”
His eyes snap down to mine, and my breath stutters in my chest. “I know the plan, Crash. But I know my father too. No matter how many contingencies we have, he has more.”
