“I should be done studying by eleven.”
“Good, because that’s about how long it’s going to take me to hobble there on my crutches. See ya, babe.”
The sound of her laughter as I hang up makes me happy. She needs someone there. She probably doesn’t want to burden Senia with this stuff since they’re both carrying big workloads with their classes. But she needs someone to talk to and I’d rather it be me than him.
The taxi drops me off near the entrance at Spencer Hall at 10:44 p.m. It’s a Saturday, so people are still coming and going and I wait less than ten minutes for someone to open the door to let me in. Unfortunately, it’s a group of girls who look about ready to go partying and they instantly recognize me.
“Oh. My. God!” a blonde girl in a purple blouse cries. “You’re Chris Knight!”
The other girls snap their heads in my direction and fix me with hungry stares. “I’m just here to see a friend.”
“You have a friend in this dorm? OMG!” the blonde girl cries.
“That is so cool!” says another girl with auburn hair and red lipstick. “Can you tell us who it is?”
“So we can stalk him?” the blonde girl says, and all four of them roar with laughter.
“Sorry. I’m trying to keep a low profile. You ladies understand, right?” I flash them my crowd smile and it seems to work as they all let out a collective sigh. The blonde girl holds the door open for me to hop inside on my crutches and I nod at her. “Thanks, girls. Be good tonight.”
The blonde girl sighs as she lets the door fall closed behind me. I pull my hood up over my head so I don’t have any more run-ins and quickly make my way to Claire’s dorm. Claire opens the door wearing plaid green pajama pants and a pink tank top.
“I dressed up for you,” she says when she catches me checking her out.
“You know how much plaid turns me on.”
“If you weren’t crippled, I’d kick you.”
Senia gets up from her bed and she’s as tall as me now that I’m hunched over these crutches. “Christopher, Christopher, Christopher. Two visits in one week. Tell me, why have you stayed away so long?”
She holds out her arms for a hug and I grab both my crutches in one hand so I can give her a one-armed hug.
“Because I’ve been a huge ass, but I’m working on not being one anymore.”
She lets go of me and smiles. “Right answer. It’s almost as if you always know the perfect thing to say.” She winks as she turns to go back to her bed.
“Aw, come on. I was counting on you being nice to me.”
She grins as she grabs her phone off her bed, stuffs her headphones in her ears, and slides in under her covers. “I’m going to read now so I’d appreciate it if you all could keep the sex noises down.”
I turn to Claire and she shakes her head. “Don’t get any ideas.”
She grabs a textbook and her laptop off her bed so I can sit. She sets the book and the laptop on a desk then leans against the desk as she stares at the floor.
“You can sit down. I’m not going to try anything. I promise.”
She narrows her eyes at me for a moment before she relents and sits near the pillow while I sit near the foot of the bed. There are at least two feet of safe distance between us, but it may as well be two miles.
“I don’t want you to have to use the money in that trust account, but I think it should go to good use,” I begin the speech I’ve been rehearsing in my head since I got into the taxi thirty minutes ago. “I want to match that two hundred grand and we can donate everything to a charity for victims of sexual assault.”
She pulls her legs up onto the bed to sit cross-legged. Her gaze slides over my face as if she’s remembering something then she smiles, the smile that I love so much.
“You look different.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do,” she insists. “You look older. Wiser.”
I don’t want to tell her that it’s probably the dismal year I spent without her that aged me. Then again, maybe she needs to know how completely miserable I was to know how serious I am about never letting her get away from me again.
“I’m only a few months older than you and I didn’t get to spend my birthday with you this year for the first time in five years. Worst birthday of my life.”
Her smile disappears and she looks down at where her hands are folded in her lap.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I just mean that I wanted you with me. And now that I know what you were going through in May, I wish I could have been there for you.” I scoot closer to her and she looks up at me warily. “I wanted to call you every day that we weren’t together, but I didn’t work up the nerve to actually do it until a couple of months after we broke up and by then you’d already changed your number. I should have tried to hunt you down, but I figured you changed your number because you moved on. Then my mom told me you weren’t calling her anymore and I began to have crazy thoughts, that you were planning the breakup for a long time.”
“That’s stupid.”
“I know, but I wasn’t in my right mind.” I pause as I think of all the times I fucked a girl in the dark hoping to convince myself for just a minute that she was Claire. “The worst part is that I’ve never been more inspired than when I was deep in that darkness. You did do what was best for me when you let me go. And as much as I hated being without you, I’ll always be grateful for that.”
I look her in the eye and wait for the right moment, that moment where her breathing slows and the connection is made.
“I’m so confused,” she whispers as she closes her eyes. “Sometimes I want everything to be the way it was before we broke up. Other times, I want everything to be the way it was before….”
“Before what?”
“Before Adam left.”
She opens her eyes and I have to look away because I don’t want her to see the mixture of pain and rage that’s boiling inside me right now. I grind my teeth together to keep from saying something I’ll regret. Part of me wants to kill him for taking her away and another part of me wants to thank him for being there for her. Mostly, I just want to kill him. The thought of the two of them together makes me sick.
I take a deep breath to drown this burning jealousy then look her in the eye again. “I want to know everything you went through while we were apart. Everything since the day we broke up.”
She’s quiet for a moment then she begins. “I was sitting in my SOC 101 class of all places when I started feeling sick to my stomach. I didn’t think anything of it until I got back to the dorm and Senia offered me some of her leftover Chinese food. The smell in our room made me so sick, I threw up in the wastebasket.
“I though it was some kind of virus, so I stayed in the dorm the next day and slept pretty much all day. The whole day I lay in bed thinking about how I hadn’t gotten my period since you and I… since the day we broke up.”
I think back to that day and I wish we had never had sex that day. Not just because of what happened with Abigail, but because I’m sure both of us were haunted by the memory of that day for months afterward. I couldn’t stop thinking of the taste of her skin and the pure bliss of being inside her. The memories were pure torture and I can only imagine what they were to her knowing she was carrying our child—the result of that overwhelming passion we shared.
“How did you find out?” I ask.
“I went to the clinic and the doctor walked into the examination room and told me I was pregnant. She looked at me with such pity when I started crying instead of jumping for joy. I wanted to slap her.” I reach forward and grab her hand and I’m surprised she doesn’t flinch. Instead, she looks up at me with the most painful look in her eyes and says, “Everyone judged me. At least, that’s how I felt.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one who should have been there for you. None of this is your fault.”
Her face is blank as the tears roll down her cheeks. “I hated m
yself for so long. I thought I deserved that judgment.”
I pull her into my arms and she buries her face in my neck as she sobs. I try to hold it together, but I can’t. Even though she’s the one who broke up with me, I feel like I destroyed her. After everything she went through with her mother, she didn’t deserve that.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I whisper into her ear and she whimpers. “The biggest mistake you made was loving me enough to let me go. I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
We talk for a few more hours and, though the subject of what went on while we were apart is a tough subject to discuss, I can’t help but feel like this is the happiest I’ve been in a very long time. It’s after three a.m. when we realize we’re both too tired to carry on. She folds down her blanket and I know she’s inviting me into her bed for the first time in nearly fifteen months.
I slide in next to her and we lay in silence for a moment, just staring at the ceiling, before she speaks. “Thank you for coming. I so needed this.”
“So did I.”
I turn my head through the darkness and glimpse a smile. I kiss her temple and she turns her back to me.
Turning onto my side, I lean forward and whisper in her ear. “Goodnight, Claire-bear.”
I lay a soft kiss on her earlobe and she pulls my arm around her waist before we fall asleep.
Chapter Thirty
Claire
I WAKE WITH MY HEAD on Chris’s chest and my arm draped over his belly. His shirt is off. He must have taken it off in the middle of the night because it was super hot in here. I peel my cheek away from his chest and find him awake.
“Good morning,” he whispers.
I glance down at his legs to make sure he’s still wearing pants and I’m relieved to see his jeans. As my gaze follows the thin line of hair under his belly button up his torso and over his chest, a new tattoo catches my eye.
“When did you get that?” I ask unable to tear my eyes away from it.
The letters CC are interlocked, one facing forward and one facing backward. Both the Cs are twisted through the letter A. All the letters are covered in thorny vines that drip with blood.
He places his fingers under my chin and tilts my face up. “I got it when I was in London a few weeks ago. I got it for you.”
I glance at Senia’s bed and it’s empty. “Where did she go?”
“She left a few minutes ago to meet her mom for brunch.”
Chris and I are alone. On a Sunday. And all my studying is done. Nothing good can come of this.
“I need you to leave,” I say as I sit up on my knees.
“Why?”
“Because.” I close my eyes so I don’t have to see that disappointed look on his face. “I’m afraid of what will happen if you stay.”
I feel him sit up so I open my eyes. He’s leaning against the wall behind my bed. I have no headboard and I try not to think of how convenient this was when Adam and I spent the weekends in this bed.
“Why are you afraid? It’s not like I’m some guy you picked up at a club. I’m not a one-night-stand. I’m your first love and the father of your child. And I’m in love with you.”
I swallow hard and try to catch my breath. “I can’t do this.”
“Come here,” he says, beckoning me into his arms.
I shake my head and he purses his lips. “Claire. Don’t make me tickle you. I still know your spot.”
I roll my eyes and he takes the opportunity to catch me off my guard and pull me toward him. I laugh as I attempt to get away, but he quickly and lightly digs his fingers into the soft flesh just below my ribs and I bellow with laughter.
“Stop!” I shriek.
He laughs as he grabs both sides of my waist and pulls me on top of him so I’m straddling his hips. We stare at each other for a moment. I don’t know what he’s thinking about, but I’m thinking of that kiss we shared yesterday. I just want to feel that way again. Like nothing has changed.
He grabs my face and pulls my lips to his. “I love you,” he says into my mouth between kisses. “I love you so fucking much.”
I’m so lost. This is wrong. I would lose my mind if Adam knew what I was doing right now. But I don’t want to stop. I want to kiss Chris. I want to feel like things can be this good again. I want to feel this good forever.
He pulls back and looks me in the eye. “I want you so bad right now. I want to make love to you, Claire.”
His hand traces the curve of my jaw and I sigh as my heart races. I’ve missed his touch, electric on my skin. This is what I dreamed of almost every night for a year before I met Adam. Even now, after learning Adam’s ways, becoming accustomed to his kiss and his intensity, I still crave the familiarity of Chris.
I shake my head as I pull away. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what I want right now and I don’t want to hurt you—” or Adam, “again.”
He nods solemnly, but I can feel the disappointment rolling off of him. “We don’t have to make love. I just want to be here with you.”
I glare at him warily. I remember how often Chris liked to have sex. I don’t know how he’s been keeping himself satisfied for the past two months, but I know he’s bullshitting when he says he just wants to be here with me.
“What?” he says as I continue to glare at him. “I can go without sex. I don’t want to go without you, but I’ll do it. As fucking painful as it will be, I will wait for you, the same way I waited until you were eighteen.” I move to get off his lap and he grabs my waist to stop me. “Are you hungry? Let’s go to Angie’s.”
“Angie’s is far.”
“But you have all day.”
Chris and I used to go to Angie’s for Sunday brunch at least once a month until I went to UNC. It was our monthly meeting with the band: Chris, me, Jake, Rachel, Tristan, and whatever girl Tristan felt like bringing. It’s strange because most people think that Chris’s band fell apart when he decided to go solo last year, but the truth is that they began growing apart as soon as I went off to college and Chris had to spend more time with me in Chapel Hill. I was their Yoko Ono.
“Fine,” I say, then something overcomes me.
I don’t know if it’s guilt from not having sex with him or from being so instrumental in the breakup of the band, but I take his face in my hands and kiss him, slowly, as a deep sigh and longing builds inside me. Finally, I pull away and press my lips together as I attempt to catch my breath.
He kisses the corner of my lips then smiles with that signature gleam in his eyes. “Sorry, babe, I’m not in the mood.”
We arrive at Angie’s Restaurant just before ten and, to my surprise and horror, the waitress who seats us in our booth recognizes us.
“Chris,” she says, poking Chris’s arm before she turns to me. “And Claire.”
I don’t recognize her and judging by the puzzled look on Chris’s face he doesn’t recognize her either. Her cheeks are hollow and her brown hair hangs all the way down to her butt in a long ponytail. Nothing about her is familiar to me, but Chris quickly recovers his wits—or his memory—and gives her his crowd smile. Ugh. I have a love/hate relationship with his crowd smile.
“Priscilla,” he says, and her gray eyes light up. “Can you believe how long it’s been?”
She hands me my menu without taking her eyes off Chris. “Where the heck have you been? Oh, wait. I know where you’ve been. You’re a friggin’ rock star now! But you look exactly the same! Except that leg. What the heck happened there?”
Chris goes into a brief explanation of the motorcycle accident, carefully leaving out the fact that he was out riding his bike that day to try to forget how upset he was over Abigail and me. She asks if she can sign his cast before she finally takes our order.
He orders the usual Denver omelet then turns to me. “Do you want the usual?”
I don’t know if he really remembers what I used to get, so I decide to test him. “Sure.”
He turns to Priscilla and she wa
its with a curious expression as he thinks for a moment. “Belgian waffle with bacon and eggs over-medium.”
Priscilla shakes her head as she jots it down. “Too cute.”
Once Priscilla is gone, I glare at him across the table. “Do you always have to show off?”
“I’m a performer. What do you expect?”
“A little humility.”
“Hey, I’m humble. I don’t go around bare-chested, wearing fucking leather pants with my shirt hanging out my back pocket.”
“Because you know I’d make fun of you if you did that.”
“No. I only do it on Wednesdays.”
Hump day.
I ignore the jealous roar inside me as I imagine how many girls have been on this end of his charming little act.
“Are you okay?” he asks as Priscilla shows up with our coffee. He flashes her a tight smile and she quickly sets off.
“I’m fine.” Just getting a glimpse of what life with you would be like now that you’re God.
“You don’t look fine. I know what you need.”
I need to not be here. I should be in my dorm moping like I have been the last few Sundays since Adam broke up with me. Instead, I’m sitting across the table from the one person, other than myself, who I can actually hold responsible for breaking us up. What is wrong with me?
“Chris, no offense, but I’m beginning to think that even I don’t know what I need.”
His smile fades and he stares at my hands for a while before he reaches across the table and grabs my left hand. He rubs his thumb over my knuckles for a moment before he brings my hand to his lips and lays a soft kiss on my ring finger.
“I know what you need.” He keeps rubbing my ring finger between his thumb and forefinger and it’s making me nervous. “It’s the same thing you’ve always needed since the day we met. You need your home.”
I swallow hard as I try not to let him see how relieved I am that he didn’t do something crazy like proposing to me in Angie’s Restaurant. A year ago, I would have loved for Chris to propose to me over a casual breakfast. I was deep in the throes of self-pity over the breakup and I wanted nothing more than for him to walk through my door and tell me he couldn’t live another day without me. Now, the thought of Chris proposing to me actually fills me with panic.
“I have a home. I live with Senia.”
“Yeah, but how about the holidays and the summer. You’re coming home, aren’t you?”
I pull my hand out of his and he narrows his eyes at me. “I promised your mom I would be there for Christmas. I’m not going to break my promise.” He shakes his head then stares out the window. “Why are you shaking your head? You can’t expect me to commit to spending every holiday at home. You’re really putting me on the spot here.”
He sighs before he turns back to me and looks me in the eye. “You want everything Claire. And to me you are everything. Do you have any fucking idea what that feels like?”
“Are you trying to make me feel guilty for being confused?”
“Did you not hear what I just said? This is it for me. I may have possibly blown my record deal and even my career to be here with you. I know you didn’t ask me to do it and I’m not asking you to drop everything for me, but can you at least pretend to care?”
“I do care. I—”
Priscilla arrives with our plates of food, one of her eyebrows raised, as she is keenly aware she has interrupted a heated discussion. She sets our plates down and leaves without asking if we need anything else.
We eat in silence, though both of us seem to have lost our appetites. When we make it back to my car, he grabs my hand before I can turn the key in the ignition. I close my eyes as I wait for him to speak.
“Can you look at me?” I open my eyes and turn to him as he releases my hand. “I need to tell you something I probably should have told you a few weeks ago.”
“What?”
He looks down at the console between us for a moment and I recognize that expression of guilt. “After I saw Abigail, I wasn’t in my right mind. I didn’t sleep that whole night.”