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She’s studying the messages. I can tell by her slight frown and furrowed brow that if she wasn’t able to recite those texts by heart a minute ago, she can now.
“Claire.” I’m not even sure what I’m going to say, but I can’t let her drown in those words.
She doesn’t look up from her phone when she answers, “Yeah?” She’s just scrolling up and down through their text messages like she’s trying to find the pivotal point where it all went wrong.
“Claire,” I say again.
This time she looks up at me. She’s not crying. In fact, she doesn’t even look like she’s on the verge of tears. Now, her face shows no emotion—which might be worse. My hands are sweating, so I rub them against my jeans and start, “Listen, you shouldn’t—”
“I’m not.”
My eyebrow lifts.
“I’m not doing whatever you think I am.” She sounds so calm; I start to second guess myself.
“Then what are you doing?”
She stares down at the phone for another long moment before turning it over in her lap and looking at me. “I don’t know, but I can tell you what I’m not doing.” She takes a steadying breath. “I’m not texting him back. I’m not believing him. I’m not wishing we were still together because, clearly, he’s not the person I thought he was.” Another glance at her phone, and she closes her eyes. “And I’m trying not to picture what he was doing last night.”
I wince at her last sentence. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best.” When she opens her eyes, they’ve dimmed like I just confirmed all of her deepest fears, but I won’t lie to her. The guy is a dick, and the fact that he already had this other girl in his apartment is a pretty clear sign that he wasn’t talking out of his ass. “Hey,” I say to get her to look at me. “You’re better off without him, right?”
She nods and then stares down at her locked phone in her lap. “I know I am.”
I can’t help analyzing the shit out of her as she sits there, stone-faced. I know that look. That’s the look of someone who just overdosed on reality, and now they’re going to keep moving the only way they know how: by being numb.
? ? ?
Well, we’re in fucking Florida.
She didn’t say another word for the last four hours of the trip, and I let the silence swallow her whole. A quiet Claire might be my new least favorite thing, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. She was digesting everything that’s happened, and any attempt to distract her from that felt like I was invading something oddly intimate.
As soon as we step off the train, we’re met with the warm night air that makes it impossible to know if you’re the one sweating, or if everything else is just sweating around you.
One of the many things about Florida I thought I’d never have to relive.
It’s after 11 pm, and Ethan and Chad know I’ll be at their place soon.
I have to admit, as much as I hated the fact that I got on the damn train, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Considering her ex is a complete jackass, it’s probably a good thing that she wasn’t sitting alone for twenty-plus hours. The thought of her reaching out to him pisses me off, and a small part of me is glad that I was here to distract her from doing exactly that.
“Well, I guess this is it.”
It’s the first thing I’ve heard her say in a few hours, and even though I don’t want it to, it disappoints me.
“Yeah,” I mutter. I thought I’d be itching to get rid of her, but I’m not. “You’ve got a place to stay?”
She nods. “I booked an Airbnb, and my Uber is on its way.” She doesn’t meet my eyes as she says it, and I hate it. I want her to look at me.
As much as I don’t want to admit it, we were having fun together—for part of the ride anyway, and I want to see her smile again. I want to be the one to make her smile again.
On second thought, maybe I need some distance from Claire. She’s making me feel things that I don’t want to feel.
“My car is here,” she says quietly as she looks from her phone to the busy street.
That was fast. What are these drivers doing? Waiting around the damn corner? “You sure?” Looking out at the street, I try to follow her gaze to make sure her driver isn’t some sketchy bastard.
“Right here.” Claire walks to the curb, but I stay where I am. Turning to face me, she already has her hand on the door handle as she says, “Well, it’s certainly been interesting.”
The driver is a middle-aged woman who looks like she’s made a lifetime of shitty choices that landed her here. I’ll take it, though. Better her than some prick college kid who might try to get Claire to go to a party.
