Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires) (12 page)

“Geez,” Gwen said into the phone. “Okay, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Bye.”

She hung up and dropped her phone into her purse. “I have to go into the shop. The crazy ice lady is back.”

Claire’s eyebrows furrowed. “Can’t you just call the police on her?”

Gwen’s eyes rolled. “Don’t I wish. Apparently, it’s not about ice this time. She’s ranting and raving because there was water on the counter and it got on her wallet. Matt asked her to leave, but she’s still there. That’s not something you can call the police in for.” She sighed. “This might take a while.”

“I’ll let Lisa know you’ll give her a decision soon,” Claire said.

Gwen stood quickly. “Thanks. Nice to see you, Owen.”

She waved, and before I could answer, ran out the back door.

Claire’s eyes slowly moved to mine. “Yep.”

It was a word meant to fill the space, to cover up some of the extra awkwardness spouting up between us now that Gwen wasn’t there.

“Crazy ice lady?” I asked.

Claire shook her head. “Apparently, no matter how much ice you put in her latte, it’s never the right amount.”

“Wow. And to imagine there are people in the world worrying about where their next meal will come from.” I shook my head. “They should meet the ice lady. It’ll give them some perspective.”

Claire laughed out loud at my sarcasm. The sound made my heart lift.

“I need to go tell Lisa we’re done.” She stood and went to find the owner.

I waited in my seat, trying to resist the urge to turn around and watch her. Coming in through that bakery door, I’d been hit by so many things at once. Shock. Elation. Fear.

Was it a sign that I’d run into Claire just when I’d been conveniently convincing myself my deep feelings for her meant nothing?

Or was the truth just that I thought about her all the time anyway and, consequently, any running into her would seem like fate in action?

Either way, with the exception of the first couple minutes I’d been there, and then the other strained moments peppered in afterwards, she seemed a lot more emotionally stable than the other times our paths had crossed. Perhaps I’d worked things up in my mind and made them a lot worse than they were. Maybe she was finally healing. Had she been seeing a therapist?

“All right,” Claire said from right behind my shoulder.

I jumped up into standing. She gazed at me, an unreadable expression on her face. “I’m going to walk home.”

“I can walk you,” I offered.

She turned her face to the side and peered at me with the one eye.

“What?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“All right,” she finally said. “That would be nice.”

I stepped forward to push the door open for her, and we moved together into the glaring sunlight. Summer had hit with an intensity that took my breath away. Every morning the stagnant summer air rose before the sun. If I neglected to turn the air conditioning on in the house the night before, going for the ceiling fan instead, the heat would be my alarm clock, rousing me with a hearty shake.

The only real respite could be found underneath the shade of a tree in the evening or inside somewhere where there was air conditioning and refills on iced drinks.

We walked past the insurance office next to the bakery, then along the white picket fence ringing the first house there.

“Hey,” Claire said. “Why did you come into the bakery?”

Realizing I hadn’t so much as thought about baguettes since walking through the door, I laughed. “Bread. I can get it later. Or skip it. It was just an idea for dinner.”

The baguette hadn’t been the only thing I’d forgotten. Even the name of the girl from the meet-up who I’d briefly thought about asking out had flown out of my head upon seeing Claire.

The slightest breeze hit us, kissing my face with its coolness.

“Do you want to walk down to the river?” Claire asked, surprising me. “It’ll be a lot cooler down there.”

“Yeah,” I answered, trying to not sound too eager. “Let’s go.”

Though I knew the way, I let Claire lead. She crossed the street then took a right, heading down the road that only had houses on one side. The street turned into a narrow but paved walking trail, taking us away from town and into the lushness of the woods.

“If you take this to the end it comes out on Weaver,” she said. “Then you just double back half a block, and you’re at my parents’ house.”

“Wow. Nice. So is this the path you took when you snuck out as a teenager?”

She grinned at me. “No. But only because this trail hadn’t been made yet. Back then we had to hack our way through the woods.”

For a moment I thought I saw a flash of what teenage Claire must have been like. She was exuberant. Hilarious. Wild, perhaps, some might say. She was unbridled and open, daring and ready for whatever new adventure might come her way.

I could see bits of that imagined girl, nestled deep beneath all the pain and fear. I could also see how she might come out again someday.

Those thoughts were dangerous territory. I didn’t know what would happen between Claire and me. Since seeing her in New York, I thought I’d come to an agreement with my crazy heart: the things I felt for her were out of line, and I could take my liberties with feeling them, but acting on them would be impossible. Acting on them would make me a sleaze ball and result in her pushing me away.

If Claire needed anything in her life, she needed friends, just like everyone else.

I gave some thought to the best way to broach a change in topic.

“So,” I slowly began. “How have you been doing?”

They were heavy words, taking on so much more weight than they normally would all because of the last few months of her life.

“Okay,” she thickly replied. “Thanks for asking.”

I looked up at the tree branches stretching over the trail above us. They grew thicker as we walked, the trees further down the path becoming older.

“Have you been seeing anyone?”

I realized how that question could be construed into something I didn’t mean. A flush coming over my cheeks, I quickly spoke again. “I mean, have you been seeing a therapist or someone else to talk to?”

Claire was silent for a few seconds. “No. I’ve thought about it…”

“It can be scary,” I offered.

She looked at me. “Yeah.” She laughed. “I don’t know why.”

“Opening up is hard. Even to someone who’s there just for that.”

“Hm… you’re kind of wise, you know.”

I chuckled. “Wow. I don’t hear that very often.”

“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Hm. Same age as me.”

“We weren’t born on the same day, were we?”

“Maybe. Maybe we’re twins separated at birth.”

“Let’s hope not.”

The words slipped out before I could get to them, and I bit my tongue. Claire smiled though, looking down while she walked.

“My birthday is December eighth,” she offered.

“Mine’s November second.”

She nodded but kept looking at the ground. “Five weeks apart.”

“How’s New York?” I asked.

She shrugged. “That’s a hard one to answer.”

Just like that, her demeanor changed. Something had brought on an extreme bout of sadness. I could see it in the way her whole posture sagged, like a heavy ball and chain had just been wrapped tightly around her back. I started to apologize for bringing the city up, but she went on.

“It’s good and it’s bad. Mostly it’s bad.”

She looked up and over at the river. The trail curved, exposing the glimmering water through all the bushes and trees. A little dirt path strayed from the main one, heading for the water, and Claire took it. I followed her to a bench there.

Instead of taking a seat, she stood at the edge of the bank, her arms crossed and her eyes trained on something on the other side. I shaded my eyes to try and find what she was looking at but then realized she probably wasn’t seeing anything at all.

“Mostly it’s bad,” she repeated, the summary of the conclusion she’d already come to.

“That makes sense.”

She looked back at me, her face dead.

“I’m sorry,” I admitted. “That was a stupid thing to say. I only said it because I didn’t know what else to say.”

One corner of her mouth lifted the tiniest bit. “It’s all right. You didn’t have to say anything at all.”

“What about being here? Is it better for you?”

She looked down at her feet. “I don’t know.”

I swallowed a sigh. Her pain, and something else, was so palpable I almost felt it myself. And there was nothing to be done about it.

“Sometimes I think it’s better here,” she said. “But then I realize it doesn’t matter where I go. The things that hurt the most… they’re inside of me… in my head.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“I know.” She looked at me and smiled sadly. It felt as if she were the one comforting me, instead of it being the other way around. “Thank you.”

“How’s Gwen doing? With the wedding stuff?”

“She’s stressed. I mean, she always takes on too much anyway. But now, between Freddy’s and the wedding…” She shook her head. “She’s going to drop dead if she’s not careful.”

Claire bit her lip and looked pained. “That was a stupid thing for me to say.”

“Claire,” I softly said.

Her shiny eyes fell on mine, questioning.

“If you need anything, I’m here.”

She swallowed hard, and I could tell it was to stop herself from crying. “Thank you. I had a nice time at the Met Gala.”

It was the last thing I expected her to mention, but I couldn’t help but smile as memories of the night floated back. “Me too.”

“You haven’t been in New York since then?”

“No.”

“It would have been nice to see you,” she whispered.

Heat rushed into every inch of my body. “We can hang out while you’re here.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“That’s right. I forgot.”

I hadn’t really. There was nothing about Claire that I simply forgot. “When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know,” she answered in a small voice. She’d gone back to staring at some undetermined point across the river. “You know, I can’t quite figure you out.”

I studied her perfect profile. “I think you’ve said that before.” I sucked in a breath. “What do you want to know?”

Her gaze locked back on mine. “You sound nervous.”

I licked my lips and tried my hardest to not look away. “Ah, well, I am.”

“Why?”

“Let’s see… um, because I…” I trailed off.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No,” I quickly answered. “I do.”

Claire blinked and stared at me. Like was so often the case with her, her expression was hard to read, but I got the sense she was genuinely curious.

I selected my words carefully, doing my best to ignore the shakiness coming over me. “I don’t usually tell people a lot about myself because I’m ashamed… I’m ashamed of not having a job or a career to speak of.”

Claire’s ear dropped to her shoulder. “Didn’t we already talk about that? You told me you read a lot, and I said that I think that’s a hell of a lot more useful to the world than selling shoes or whatever. Plus, your charities are important. They help people directly.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. Try as hard as I could, it was difficult to look at her. “Yeah, we did talk about it. Thank you for saying that.”

“It’s true.”

“Then, really… thank you.”

“But the whole issue still upsets you.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose it does.”

“So get a career. Get a job.”

“I think about it. All the time.”

“So you just haven’t had enough time yet. Think about it some more.”

I shook my head. “I’m almost thirty.”

“Join the club. You don’t have to tell me what that feels like.”

I laughed. “Am I being ridiculous?”

Claire’s lips twisted. “I don’t know… you want to do something meaningful, I think. My impression is that you already do. You volunteer. You better yourself through reading.”

“I still feel like something’s missing.”

Claire stared at me. “What?”

I ran my hands through my hair. Maybe I’d said too much.

“I don’t know.”

Maybe
someone,
I wanted to say.

“Once again… join the club.”

“You feel the same way?”

Her eyes drifted away, back to the water. “I feel empty a lot, yes, but I think I know why… it’s not exactly a mystery.”

Because of him.

“What was he like?”

Claire didn’t answer. She just looked at the river. I remained motionless, afraid to even breathe. I’d offended her. That or helped bring up a memory too painful to bear. I should have just kept my mouth shut.

But then her words broke the space between us. “He was kind. He never said anything bad about anyone, and he always had empathy for others. He was calm. Nothing shook Peter. Nothing.”

Claire stared at the river, and I stared at her. My throat burned, and my eyes grew hot. The person she described sounded amazing. It occurred to me that if she had been talking about any other past boyfriend, I would have been intensely jealous, but because the man she spoke of was dead, everything was different. I grieved along with her, not because I had known Peter, but because I knew what goodness in the world looked like, and I knew how it felt to see it disappear.

And what could I say to all that? What was there that could possibly comfort her? The water below us gurgled on, moving downstream. The birds sang, and traffic honked from not far away. The most amazing soul who had ever walked the face of the earth could have just died, but still everything would go on.

“You were lucky,” I said.

It wasn’t what you were supposed to say in such a moment, I know, but Claire’s eyes fell back on mine. I’d expected to see tears there, but they were dry.

“Yeah,” she murmured. The tiniest and saddest smile formed at one corner of her mouth. “I
was
lucky, wasn’t I? I never thought of it that way.”

She laughed, but halfway through, it changed into a sob, and then suddenly she was chortling and crying at the same time.

“God,” she gasped. “It’s…”