I closed my eyes. "When this is over, when Millie is safe, and Victoria is gone, I'm going to find Claire. And I'm going to tell her everything I should have said tonight."
"And if she doesn't want to hear it?"
"Then at least she'll know." I opened my eyes, staring out at the dark garden. "At least I'll have finally said the words."
If she'd still listen.
If it wasn't already too late.
The victory I was fighting for felt like the loneliest place on earth. But somewhere on the other side of it, there was a chance, small, fragile, possibly already destroyed, that I could make this right.
For Millie. For Claire.
For the man I should have been all along.
15.Claire
There are so many issues with leaving someone you love, moral ones, physical ones; I was fighting all of them. My legs moved down the hallway of the Sterling mansion, past the cold marble and colder portraits, but my heart stayed behind in that study, bleeding quietly on Nathaniel's expensive carpet.
I made it to the front door before the first crack appeared.
"Keep it together," I whispered to myself. "Just get to the car. You can fall apart in the car."
The oak door clicked shut behind me with a sound like a period at the end of a sentence. Final. Absolute.The End.
My hands were shaking so badly that I dropped my keys twice on the gravel driveway. The second time, a sound escaped me, not quite a sob, more like the noise a wounded animal makes when it's given up on rescue. I crouched there, gravel biting into my knees, and thought:This is it. This is rock bottom. Again.
Funny how rock bottom kept having a basement.
I made it into the car somehow. Locked the doors. Gripped the steering wheel like it was the only solid thing left in the universe. The mansion loomed in my rearview mirror, all pale stone and dark windows, and I couldn't stop staring at it.Somewhere inside, Nathaniel was probably already back at his desk, compartmentalizing our entire relationship into a neat mental folder labeledProblems Solved.
"Stupid," I told my reflection in the mirror. Mascara was already tracking down my cheeks. Classic. "Stupid, stupid girl."
My phone buzzed from inside my purse. I ignored it.
It buzzed again.
And again.
By the fourth buzz, I fumbled for it with numb fingers just to make it stop. Eleanor's name filled the screen. Four missed calls. As I watched, a fifth came through, her contact photo of the two of us at last year's school picnic, both sunburned and laughing, flashing insistently on the screen.
I declined the call.
A text appeared immediately.
Eleanor
Claire, honey. I just saw the news. They're playing clips on every channel. Please call me. Please tell me you're okay.
I wasn't okay. I was the furthest thing from okay. But I couldn't explain that through a phone, couldn't find words for the particular humiliation of having your sealed therapy records read aloud in a courtroom while reporters scribbled notes and strangers looked at you like you were a specimen under glass.
Anxious attachment style resulting in codependent relationships.
The clinical phrase echoed in my skull like a curse. Seven years of therapy. Seven years of trying to understand myself, to heal, to become someone who didn't desire to be needed quite so desperately. And Victoria's lawyer had taken all that work and weaponized it in fifteen minutes flat.
Another text from Eleanor.
Eleanor
