Maybe I’ll just eat you.
“I remember liking when you did,” she giggles. I didn’t realize I said the words out loud.
“Well, I got much better at it.” I can’t help but brag, if she let me I’d do it all night long.
She sits back down next to me and offers me a sleeve of crackers, “How about for now you just eat these?”
“You’re no fun,” I say, frowning.
“Uh-huh,” she says through a mouth full of crackers.
We eat every cracker in the box, then stare at each other in awkward silence.
She’s so closed off. I need to make her see I’m not the enemy anymore. I want her to realize I can change everything for her, make her life better. She doesn’t deserve to be in the hole she’s in. “I’m sorry about everything, Claire. Please realize you aren’t what was done to you.” I don’t think I’m using the right words, because she’s watching me with those same guarded eyes as the first time she saw me. “I shouldn’t have ever accused you of anything, or treated you like your mother.”
She looks away and exhales a heavy breath.
“You were my person. I should have never thought—”
“Don’t, Vaughn. I get it, you feel sorry for me, but you don’t have to, okay? It doesn’t matter,” she whispers.
“It matters to me,” I say a little too harshly.
“Well, don’t let it.” She crumbles up the plastic wrapper of the cracker sleeve and tosses it on the coffee table. “The only thing I’m concerned with right now is how to make those pictures disappear.”
“You do know that whoever it is isn’t going to stop just because you give them what they want. After they get it, they’re just going to find something else to take from you. It’ll never end. They’ll never be satisfied with what they think they want,” I say, trying to make her understand how it all works.
“I hate this. I can’t begin to explain how heart-wrenching and terrifying this is to me. I don’t know what to do. The thought of people thinking that’s me in those pictures, it’s sickening.” She grasps at her stomach like she’s really in pain. “I am in a constant state of thinking I might vomit at any time.”
She looks toward the window and throws her hands in its direction. “And why is it still snowing and dark? It’s nine in the morning! Is it the Montgomery apocalypse here? Can’t we call someone to come get us?”
“Do you have anyone to call?” I did of course, but I was really starting to like the thought of being here with her.
Her hands start fidgeting.
“Look,” I say, “let’s wait until the snow stops and then we can get someone here, okay? I’ll call someone and we’ll get your car down the mountain and everything will be fine, got it?”
She doesn’t look any more relieved. Her fingers continue moving restlessly, and her knees, both of them, start bobbing up and down quickly. I need to get her to talk it out and not overreact in her own head. God only knows the terror she’s feeling about all of this, but I’m betting she’s building it up to theatrical heights in her mind.
“You know, Claire, maybe it isn’t anyone you know doing this,” I say, trying to console her. “It can’t be someone who knows you and all you’ve been through.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she bristles.
“What I’m trying to say is, everything you’ve been through has made you strong and guarded. Tough. So, I doubt this person even knows who they are really up against.”
“Oh, I see. You think you could placate me with praise and I’ll just think everything will magically be okay all on its own,” she says angrily.
“I’m not trying to—”
“Yeah,” she accuses me, “you most definitely are, so quit it.” She shifts her body, snuggling more into the blanket. It’s so cold in the room now my shoulders begin to shiver, so I get up from the couch and sit my ass down right in front of the fireplace.
“Montgomery! Now you’re blocking all the heat,” she groans.
“Then come down here where it’s a hundred times warmer. I can hear your teeth chattering,” I say, patting the spot on the floor next to me.
She sighs loudly but flops down next to me. “I seriously cannot wait until all the pieces of this shitty situation come together and I finally understand why I have to deal with any of this crap.” Her tone is heavy, full of frustration.
“It’s all their fault,” I say, more to myself than her, “Silas Montgomery and Libby Radcliffe. They’re the ones to blame.”
“You know what I think is the scariest thing about that woman?” she asks the question in a nervous burst of energy. “It’s how fast and completely she lost herself in a man. She just vanished into him. Forgot she was a wife to someone else, a mother to someone.” She snorts out a bitter, dark laugh. “Now they’re both gone and there’s no one to yell at or rage against. If they weren’t both dead, I’d want to wring their necks.”
“Did you think about me?” I ask quickly. “I’m not talking about ten years ago. I’m talking about when my father died. You must have seen it on the news.”
She nods. Does that mean she thought about me or was she nodding her head to seeing the news about my father? This woman is infuriating.
“So you thought about me?” I probe. “Did you try to find out more information? About me?”
Her gaze darts up and locks with mine. “You’re like a fourteen-year-old boy right now. What is it that you want to really know?”
“Did you think about me when you heard the news? Did you think about me?” I demand.
“Sure, I guess maybe.” She has the audacity to shrug her shoulders like it’s no big deal.
I grumble beneath my breath angrily.
“You want to know if I thought about you, and what? If I peeked at your social media and stalked your life, right?” she asks, her tone bitter and full of snark.
She nailed it.
“You mean like when it was your twenty-first birthday and on every tabloid magazine cover was a picture of you and a stripper? Or when you weren’t old enough to drink but got a DUI? Or when you were accused of—”
“Okay, stop. I don’t want you to know the twenty-one-year-old me, he wasn’t a nice guy. He was still heartbroken over everything.”
“Yeah, right,” she scoffs.
“Why don’t you believe that what happened affected me too? Why is it only you got hurt?” I snap in anger.
“I can tell how hurt you were by the Rolex you’re wearing,” she argues. “Did you think about me, Vaughn? While you were driving in your luxury cars and snorting coke off a Playboy bunny’s ass cheeks, were you thinking about me?” she asks with a snarl.
“Yes,” my voice cracks. “I always looked for you too. On social media. I had your name on Google Alert in case it was ever mentioned anywhere.” I’m a little embarrassed about my confession, but she needs to know how much she meant to me, how much she meant to someone while she was going through all the things she went through.