17. Clayton
Chapter 17
Clayton
Kieran’s absence from my life was abrupt and, even though I’d seen it coming, it still left me reeling. I knew Patricia must have caught on that something was up because of the way she’d look at me sometimes, like she was sorry, but didn’t know how to fix what was broken.
Neither did I. But that wasn’t anything new. I’d taken a sledgehammer to my life and I was still picking up the pieces from that. Most of the time I didn’t know what I was doing. Having Kieran around had been abrasive at first, but I’d welcomed his presence. Even when he’d openly disliked and distrusted me, Kieran knew what to do.
A sound came from the computer, telling me that my therapist was calling. I liked Theresa, and I understood that therapy was helping, but I was so tired of talking. I wanted to start doing something to get my life back. I still needed to pay Shane back for everything he’d done. And Archer. And now Patricia. The list was growing longer and it made my skin itch.
Theresa had her hair braided today, highlighting the fact that the sides of her head were shaved. Sometimes she let her hair down, but I liked it better this way. It was like she didn’t care what people thought and was willing to let them know that any way she could.
“Clay, how are you?”
My heart ached at the sound of my shortened name. Kieran had started calling me Clay and I’d liked how it sounded. It made my chest warm, like we were friends. We weren’t. That much was made clear by his stunning and startling absence.
“Feeling awful cooped up, to be honest, but the cast comes off next week.” I tried not to show her how afraid I was, but Theresa was perceptive.
“And that scares you.”
Looking down at my arm, I gave voice to the fear that kept me up at night.
“Even if I never tattoo again, I don’t really care, but what if I can’t draw? What if it’s not the same? What if they fucked something up?”
Art was all I had left. When I’d burned my life down around me, it was somehow okay because I still had the one thing I was good at. The one thing that had always been there for me.
“I wish I could promise you that everything will be fine, but I try not to make promises like that. But I do promise to help you through whatever happens next.”
Of course she would. Shane was paying her to help me. And as long as he was, I’d have that.
“What do you like about your job?” I asked her, having grown tired of talking about myself. The question had been sitting at the back of my mind for a while now.
“I like helping people.”
So simple. So straightforward. Her life’s mission summed up in four words. If it were only that simple for everyone else.
“Don’t you get tired of listening to people complain all day?”
“Is that what you think you’re doing?” Theresa took a sip of her drink, probably coffee, maybe wine. I’d need wine. But I had to admit that she was good at what she did.
“It feels like it.” Honesty sucked, but I’d learned early on that Theresa could smell bullshit a mile away, even through the internet .
“To answer your question, yes, sometimes I get tired, Clay. But that’s because I’m human. I try to remember that I can only do so much. That I’m just here to try and offer people insight, perspective, and coping mechanisms so they can do all the heavy lifting. And some days are harder than others. But I don’t think of people as complaining to me.”
“What am I doing, if not complaining about the state of my life?” I shoved my fingers into my hair, tightening my grip. Frustration had me wanting to give it a tug and yank it out of my skull.
“You’re struggling, and you’re asking for help.” Theresa paused and let that statement sit with me for a moment. “Now take a deep breath, Clay. That’s good.” She praised me when I’d obeyed without thinking, without really meaning to. “Another.”
She walked me through a breathing exercise, one that she’d taught me on our first week. I’d thought it was stupid at the time. I breathed all day long, why would breathing in a different way change things? What good could it accomplish? It turned out that a lot could be changed by putting on the brakes.
“Thanks,” I said after my head had stopped spinning.
“Whatever happens or doesn’t happen with your cast coming off, Clay, I want you to know you’re not alone.”
It felt like I was alone. And that was as good as being alone. For a blink, it had felt like Kieran and I had crossed the line from casual enemies to friends. And now he was just… gone.
It had been a stupid fantasy. A momentary lapse in his sanity, most likely, that had made him kiss me. Had made him want me. If I closed my eyes, I could trace the path his hands took on my body, but remembering wasn’t the same as having. And though I’d had him for a night, he was never mine to keep. I wanted to regret what we’d done, but I was selfish and incapable of regret when it came to Kieran .
Regret was reserved for the lifetime of shitty decisions that led me here. It had no place between Kieran and me. I knew the bliss of having his mouth on mine, his hand on my skin. I knew the way his hand felt baby soft and smooth and how his stubble felt against my skin. I couldn’t bring myself to regret even the smallest interaction between us. Even back at the beginning when he’d made no secret of the fact that he couldn’t stand me. He’d disliked me on principle and who could blame him? I didn’t.
Something had changed between the day he got me from the hospital and brought me to his mom’s house and the day he’d kissed me. Whatever it was, it had obviously been as temporary as I knew it would be. Even Patricia had noticed her son’s sudden absence. She gave me one sad look filled with pity and apology and I’d schooled my expression and shrugged.
It didn’t matter that Kieran ghosted me. It wasn’t anything I didn’t expect. There was no version of history that would lead me to believe that I deserved someone like Kieran to begin with.
“What will you do if the function of your hand has changed permanently?”
I sucked in a breath through my clenched teeth. “To be honest, I try not to think about that.”
Most days it was all I thought about. What if I never drew again? What if I did? What if nothing had changed and everything about my body went back to normal, and I was still unable to get my life together? What then? Without the excuse of a ruined body and a lost talent to fall back on, what if I failed anyway?
Because if I healed right, which I was, the doctor said my function would return just fine. And that meant that despite my fears, I would draw again. My skills would still be there waiting for me to blow the dust off when the cast was removed .
And nothing in my life would be any different than it was now. Everything would still be a mess and if it stayed that way, I only had myself to blame. I didn’t wish for my arm not to heal right, or for my hand to not work, or for my talent to magically disappear. But if it did, it would mean I could shift the blame for everything onto that.
Theresa changed the subject and we talked about my gambling problem. Did I miss it? Was I struggling? Did I need a support group? I wanted the answer to all of those questions to be no, but I couldn’t say for sure if I missed it or not. I didn’t have the compulsion currently, but I also lacked the means. It was easy to avoid doing something you couldn’t find a way to do. Not that I’d been trying.
“I’m okay right now.” I told her, wiping the sweat off my palm. “It’s… it hasn’t been my focus.”
Kieran was. His anger and his patience, his dream of taking a road trip. His smiles. Kisses. The way he touched me, the heat of his hand on my body. The way his stubble scratched at me and the sounds he made.
Theresa reminded me to practice my breathing exercises before the session ended. Sometimes I doubted that they made any difference, but she’d told me once that if we can’t breathe, we can’t think. And if we can’t think, we spiral. Breathing doesn’t solve anything, but it allows us an opportunity to solve things instead of making them worse. Acting instead of reacting.
The television was on in the living room when I was done with my session and I sat on the recliner in the corner. Some kind of nature documentary was on and I watched a few minutes of it. The quiet drone of the narrator was soothing, almost meditative. After the third time my eyes drooped, I stopped pretending I was going to stay awake and I let sleep take me. I deserved it after the shitty week I’d had, and the way I’d barely slept at all. Night after night, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
A lot of things were keeping me awake. Kieran was at the top of the list. But my nightmares were another. I hated waking up sweaty and anxious, my heart thrashing in my chest, my limbs tangled in the sheets. I’d been getting better about the nightmares, but the one at the hotel had scared me into wondering if I was always going to have bad dreams.
I came awake more slowly than I’d fallen asleep, the deep timbre of a familiar voice stirring me toward consciousness. I couldn’t make out what he said, but Patricia’s voice cut through the fog clear as a bell.
“He’s barely slept all week,” she said. In the background, I heard dishes rattle around. Cinnamon and vanilla filled the air and my stomach growled. Patricia was always baking and cooking. It didn’t matter what mood she was in, or what her day was like, how busy she was, there was always time for a batch of cookies.
Kieran said something else that was too quiet for me to hear. Keeping still, I strained to listen to the conversation that was going on in the other room. Patricia’s replies were muffled, probably because the woman never stood still. If she was baking, she was cleaning as she went, rinsing dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher.
“I’m handling the dessert, but Shane insists on grilling something. I think he just wants to keep a barbeque between him and Clayton.”
Hearing my name, I strained even harder to listen in.
“I could pick you up and we could have dinner at Shane’s instead.”
“I’ve already arranged to have dinner here. Plus, I’ve invited some of the girls, so there will be plenty of people to act as a buffer.”
My heart lodged in my throat. Shane and Archer were coming here. For dinner. And I was expected to attend. I could think of a million things I’d rather do than face Shane and Archer again. Like subject myself to a million tiny paper cuts then go swimming in lemon juice. Or maybe licking a frozen pole in the middle of winter. Swimming with crocodiles. Tightrope walking. Anything was more appealing than the idea of sitting in the same room as Archer and Shane. The idea of facing them was like swallowing glass but I couldn’t think of a way to get out of it. But it would be worth it, I thought, if Kieran was going to be there.