Dressers and a closet full of clothes—textures and colors. Chairs, a bed, a chimney, a shower and tub—small things I never thought to be jealous of. Shampoo that smells differentfrom the one she used at home, one that’s probably classy and expensive as shit, but it’s not quite right. Not for her.
I’ve locked onto a pattern, trying to keep it daily, grasping it like it’ll keep my sanity in check. Dropping it when I can’t hold my shit together any longer, before forcing myself back to the pattern like a drowning man clinging to a broken bit of mast in an endless sea of unknowns.
From when the sun rises until the shadows grow crisp on the wall, I go over every facet of the plan we made, guessing which contingencies we might still have to put into play, before rolling forward through all the possibilities, forcing myself to find a way for us to win. We’re losing right now. But there’s no future without winning. So, I won’t imagine it. The possibility alone makes whimpers tear through my chest, and it takes every mental muscle I have to drag my thoughts back to the productive. Back to the plan.
I’m locked up. Clara probably is too. Although maybe not. My father needs her at least cogent enough to take care of herself during a pregnancy. Another few days, and I might not be able to string together a sentence. My father hasn’t insisted on our mandatory baby-making time for however long I’ve been in here, which worries me more than I’d like.
His legacy is everything. He wouldn’t set it aside just because we disappeared for a few hours. This punishment is about so much more than what he’s asked of us since we came back this summer. It’s about control. It’s about getting the upper hand, keeping us from making whatever moves we might have planned. Because we came back. Twice. And my father isn’t an idiot. He knows there must be a reason. We can’t let him ferret it outuntil it’s too late.
Once the shadows begin their journey from one corner of the room to the next, I feast on memories. Times when life wasn’t just a struggle. Times when I could laugh, relax, speak my mind and feel heard. There’s frighteningly few of them. Nearly all of them involve the guys, Clara, or Mattie. But playing them on repeat reminds me why we’re doing this.
Clara insisted I needed more of those moments. Now I get why she said that.
Even playing the good times in my mind, the bad sneaks in. Not just because I have so many more of those memories than the good kind. Also, because I have no way of knowing if Jansen’s alive or dead. If I should enjoy these memories or mourn them. My dread is another thing that I have to force out of my mind. Not just because the plan is contingent on Jay’s participation, but because he’s more than just a roommate. Or a teammate. Jansen matters to me in a way I’m not sure I ever would have realized if all this shit hadn’t happened.
From the time the shadows hit the other wall until they grow hazy, I push my body hard and long, just to remind myself that I have it. I’m here. I’m alive. The heart pounding under my ribs is mine, and no one can take it from me. These muscles, spasming and aching, only hurt because they’re growing, getting stronger, a promise between myself and my body.
All I’ve ever wanted is to protect people. And the best way to do that, I’d thought, was to not get close. To be an untouchable, uncaring mountain. Strong enough to fight off a problem, smart enough to see it coming, but indifferent enough that my father couldn’t use a person as a leash to tug, forcing my compliance. But that backfired. Trying not tocare didn’tkeepme from caring, or my father from using my people against me. It just left me alone. And those people are still at his mercy, only they’re fighting this battle without the trust between us that there should have been.
On a particularly windy day, the leaves stripped from the tree outside my window before they were ready to fall, it sunk in. There’s one thing that Clara has that’s never made sense to me, a button she can press that keeps her rushing forward, one that I wish I had, but just don’t. She trusts.
I want that ability so fucking badly. I want to trust people. Trust that the people I care about are strong enough, smart enough, to save themselves, if they’re given a chance. Trust that the weight of our joint problems is easier to bear together than alone. Trust that all of us working together will make a solution so unexpected that my father, a man who always works alone, won’t be able to fathom it.
It’s so fucking obvious now that I see it—I need trust. To build it, feel it, and be trustworthy in return.
Clara demanded I become trustworthy before we came back, but I didn’t get it. Not the way I do now. Not with the silence of the walls and the ache in my chest, with the nights replaying my every mistake before I can force myself to imagine a future where all this is behind us.
It’s all built on trust.
Despite everything, despite the fuckups and pushing her away every opportunity I had, despite almost killing her, then allowing my fear to rule me, keeping her from the medical help she should have gotten, despite all that, she still trusted me. Trusts me. Enough to come into the hellscape I grew up in and keep the worst-case scenarios from happening to her,to play baitwithher, instead of running into danger alone, with nothing but aninklingof a plan and trust in everyone besides me.
Trust they’ve all earned, while I took the measure she gave me and broke it to shit.
She’s been rebuilding it around me, with me, despite my belief that trust was a scam. That you couldn’t,shouldn’t,trust someone completely. That trust only opens both people to pain.
One is always bound to fail the other.
I wasn’t wrong. I failed her.
But I’d never thought about what happens after that. I assumed trust was a one-time thing. Once broken, it’s gone, like those leaves dragged away by the wind.
And as the wind howled, echoing back my cries while the night wore on, my grip on my sanity loosened. And with the crash of a branch torn free, slamming to the ground below, I had to admit that trust might be more like that. Like the oak still standing sentinel beside my window.
If it’s sturdy, built strong over time and experience, the points where it fails are more like broken branches, a blow, one that might take years to recover from, but if the tree is strong and healthy, it will recover. Only if the tree is weak or sick will that broken branch be a death sentence.
I want to be that tree—the strong one. One that can support the people around me, a sturdy base they can grow from. To build on trust instead of necessity and proximity. Strong not in body or demands, but strong in faith in those around me. Forcing the world into the shape I want is exactly whatmy father has always done, and I won’t do the same thing in a different flavor.
Clara’s trust, the trust of the guys, of Mattie, it isn’t something I’m owed, or a fragile thing, easily destroyed. It’s the start. The foundation. The heart.
So now, as yet another night falls and my brain sinks to its blackest depths, I trust, not with one foot halfway out the door, but with everything I have.
This will get better. Clara will get her happy ending.
And I’m damn sure I’m going to be there when it’s all over.
Chapter 15
Clara
