Chapter 65 Walker
Walker
Ithought I knew what to expect when Clara and Trips got free. I thought we’d celebrate until we couldn’t anymore, then slowly fall into a structured version of Mexico. We had legitimate businesses to start, relationships to solidify, and freedom and joy to settle into.
Of course, I knew they wouldn’t come back the same. Trips had been more than clear about what kinds of things Clara might have to do to buy their freedom. I’d seen her hardly able to walk at the start of the semester, and the way she’d built up a mask as thick as my own as the months went by.
But I didn’t imagine it would be like this.
Clara, listless on the couch, curled under a blanket with her hair a tangled mess around her, deep purple circles under her eyes, a pile of used tissues carefully stacked in a corner of the coffee table.
Trips sitting like a statue in the room with her, his face gray, only coming to life when RJ passes through to ask if he’s gotten any leads on Bryce and his sister.
The third day after Clara lost her dad, a twin mattress appeared on the floor of her room, tucked in a corner, and Trips laid on it every night, the rest of us piling beside her in her bed. But he doesn’t sleep.
On a few nights, I woke to Clara crawling over me and joining Trips on the mattress in the corner, their quiet whispers nonsense in the dark.
The new closeness they share would spark my jealousy if I hadn’t watched them at their wedding, seen the way they’d learned to trust each other—if I hadn’t had to strip and have my balls tickled by some random guard because of Trips’ father’s rightful suspicions.
They’d survived months like that. Trips, a lifetime.
My parents might be inflexible when it comes to what they believe is the correct path to a good life, but I was always safe. Quick punishments followed by moving on like nothing had happened was the way my family worked. I hadn’t needed to survive years of psychological and physical warfare.
They have.
So, I settle into doing the few things I can do to help.
I make sure we have two solid meals available every day, even if I can hardly get Clara to eat any of it.
I help RJ sift through the hours and hours of security footage he’s collected looking for a hint of where Mattie and Bryce could be.
After a visit with the PI on the street, I convince him to reach out to Trips’ dad, and he gets called off, just like I thought he would.
The man knows exactly where we are, and that we’ve done whatever we set out to do. With no loyal soldiers to bring Trips and Clara back, he’s just going to have to live with them staying exactly where they should be: at home, with us.
At night, I hold Clara or just touch her if she’s settled between RJ and Jansen, needing her to know that I’m here for her.
But when the silence gets to be too much, I continue to work on my mural, every wall of my room now swathed in angry colors with hints of hope glimmering on the ceiling.
I get why Michelangelo didn’t want to paint the Sistine Chapel—it’s horribly uncomfortable. But it’s the only safe place I can put my grief and anger.
I can’t point it at Trips, not when he’s already suffered so much.
I can’t point it at his father, as the man isn’t here.
And there’s no way I could ever point it at Clara, for all this was her plan.
She’s suffered more than enough; her screams in the night and her silent tears leaking during the day are more torturous than I can stand.
So I paint, and I fume, the icy air from my open window the only reprieve I have from the fury I’m carrying.
But I don’t know how long I can continue this way. I don’t know how long any of us can. The cracks are showing, but no amount of paint will ever be structural.