Chapter Twenty. Clara
CHAPTER TWENTY
CLARA
NOW
MY MIND REELS WHILE I dress for Shakespeare in the Vines, guilt pulling at the edges of my choice to block him. But I can’t see his name on my phone or his photo on my screen. I can’t breathe when I do.
Anxiety grips my stomach as I check the Legacy Lore profile again and see more people have been commenting.
Dude @reidrousseau making the rounds after hooking up with that sluuuut all last year.
The one who was disqualified??? WOW.
This behavior is hardly acceptable for a Legacy @reidrousseau. My kids looked up to you!
There are at least a dozen more comments like that. All equally hurtful and judgmental. I’m used to the scorn of Woodhurst. But Reid isn’t. He’ll be gutted when he sees that last one. Which I shouldn’t care about … but I can’t pretend like I don’t.
I know firsthand how damaging gossip can be. How hard it is when people believe the worst about you without allowing space for context or an explanation.
My phone buzzes with a string of texts on the group chat about carpooling tonight. Really, Mitchell? I should just leave this group chat and block Delaney while I’m at it.
But something stops me. Now that the initial shock has worn off, I realize I don’t have to take Reid’s word for what happened.
I check the clock. We still have a few hours before Shakespeare in the Vines. Without another thought, I snatch my keys off the hook and run to my car.
Delaney answers the door dressed all in black. Her makeup looks half-finished, but it’s thick and theatrical for the play. She tucks her sleek blond hair behind her ear. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?” I ask. My voice is too loud, my pulse wild.
“Uh—sure, I was just finishing getting ready.”
I follow her through her house and into her bedroom. Agitated fury radiates from every single cell of my body.
I settle on her familiar purple bedspread, where her two chunky tabby cats, Tater and Tot, are snoozing away. I haven’t seen them in months, and an ache forms in my throat at the sight of them. All the sleepovers where they would curl around our legs as Delaney and I talked for hours.
So much has changed.
Tater purrs in his sleep as I start to pet him, and Delaney settles back on the carpet in front of her full-length mirror, her makeup kit strewn around her on the floor in a cascade of tubes and jars of various sizes and colors.
Her eyeshadow brush never stops moving against her eyelid as she asks, “So, what’s up?” All casual. Like this is totally normal.
“Did you see the post?” I ask.
She gets more shadow on the brush and starts on the next eye. “Oh god, is there another one? I’ve been avoiding it. What did it say?”
“Oh, it basically implied you and Reid had sex in his dorm room.”
The brush freezes. We stare at each other in the mirror, and I watch the color drain from her face.
“What?”
Her shock seems genuine—it’s almost enough to convince me she didn’t make the post after all, but I can’t be sure if she was so willing to lie to me about Reid. So willing to betray our friendship.
“Nothing stays a secret in Woodhurst. In case you forgot.”
She spins around. “That’s not what happened.”
My pulse is thundering so loud my voice shakes when I ask, “Then what did?”
Eyes wide and lip trembling, she comes to sit beside me on the bed.
But still she hesitates. The makeup brush twirls fast in her fingertips, and I want to snatch it out of her hands.
The longer the silence stretches, the more freaked out I get filling in the blanks myself. “I swear if you don’t start talking—”
“Okay.” She takes in a steadying breath. “I reached out to him because I’d heard he’d fallen at a race or something, and I know if I got injured my first week at school I’d be freaking out. So I texted him and made plans to hang out when I went to his campus.”
Was I the only person who didn’t know about his fall?
“Why didn’t you tell me that you were doing that?”
Delaney shakes her head. “I tried. I was calling you a lot then, but you never answered.”
I don’t meet her eyes. That’s true. Which was why Mitchell kept giving me shit for avoiding everyone.
“When we met up, Reid just wanted to get pizza, but I was on one about going out. I just wanted to have some fun. He also seemed lonely, and he has a hard time making friends, you know? I wanted to help.”
I swallowed.
“Anyway…” Tears are in her voice when she says, “I ended up drinking too much and had to sleep over. I don’t even remember how it happened, just that one second we were talking, the next we were kissing.”
Even though I was braced for impact, it’s like getting sucker punched all over again.
Before Delaney, I didn’t have girlfriends.
I had Kenji to hang out with and otherwise was okay being a loner who didn’t know how to do things like makeup and adhere to girl code.
I broke it with Nicole and Amaya last year without meaning to.
I know I’m not a perfect friend. But even I know that hooking up in any way with your best friend’s ex-boyfriend is at the top of the list of don’ts.
“He stopped it before anything else happened. I’m pretty sure I initiated it because of how upset he got.”
I don’t know how to feel about that. Better? Worse? Each possibility makes the whole of my chest hurt.
“It was so shitty of me.” Her voice breaks, and the tears spill over, streaking through her stage makeup. “I’m sorry, Clara. I’m so sorry.”
I need to ask her what I’m most scared to ask. I’m surprised when my voice comes out as calm and even as it does. “Do you have feelings for him?”
She looks appalled. “No, it wasn’t like that. It had nothing to do with him. Which is even worse, isn’t it?” She wipes her nose, regret plain on her face. “I was … lonely and drunk and he was familiar and there. I’m pretty sure it was the same thing for him.”
That stops my thoughts cold. That, above anything else, I get. Because it’s exactly what I did with Josh last year. I bury my face in my hands.
“But it didn’t mean anything,” Delaney insists. “Reid was really mad about it, actually—especially knowing how hurt you would be. He cried, Clara.”
My throat is dry and too tight.
Delaney goes on. “He slept on the floor and talked about you the whole night. Well, except for when he called me out for not eating anything and getting so drunk. Ever since, I couldn’t get the intro of your video from the assembly out of my head.”
The endless pirouettes and the full plates of food she never ate.
“After that night, I actually started seeing a therapist for my … body stuff. School has been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I’m not trying to make excuses—I’ve just been struggling for a long time, you know?”
Fresh tears are pooling in her eyes, and I can’t help but feel her pain, too. Because I have known that. Instead of documenting it, I should have talked to her about it.
“It’s only been a few weeks, but my therapist is super smart and doesn’t let me get away with anything.” She grimaces. “Honestly, it’s really annoying.”
I want to laugh because I’ve missed Delaney and her snarky humor. But my eyes heat instead.
“But seriously, Clara, it was a wake-up call. I think we were both just trying not to feel miserable for a minute. Obviously in a super-messed-up way that ended up making me feel worse than I ever have. I get it if you never want to speak to me again.”
Silence fills the room. Her and Reid’s stories are the same. Deep down, I know they’re being honest. Both about what happened and how they felt about it.
I slump a little, my fingers curling through Tater’s fur. “I’m really proud of you for getting help.”
Her eyes go softer. “Thanks.”
“I just … wish you had told me all this instead of ignoring me for a month,” I say.
Delaney bites on her bottom lip, swiping at her eyes again as she considers her words. “You’re right. I should have. I really wanted to. But after everything you went through last year, I was the last person who ever wanted to hurt you. I can’t stand that I have.”
The part of me that is afraid to need both of them wants to back away and act like I’m only angry. But the strange thing is, I’m not. Because I actually get it. I made the worst decisions when I was at my lowest last year and Delaney was so good to me through it, never judging me for any of it.
“I’ve already lost so much,” I start.
Her face crumples, and she looks down. “I know, I’m so sorry—”
“I can’t lose you, too.”
Her head whips up, and she stares at me in disbelief before throwing her arms around me. I hug her back, feeling bruised and shaken but also lighter. I’ve missed her. This is awful, and I’m still hurt, but it’s not bad enough to erase our friendship.
Or, I realize, how I feel about Reid.
The guilt from blocking him gnaws at me even more.
We talk awhile longer—catching up on everything from the past month.
She redoes her makeup while we talk about her school, my doc, my mom.
The shows she’s in. The therapy she’s doing.
I apologize for sinking into my own self-loathing this summer and avoiding her calls.
She confides how disconnected she’s felt from home and me and herself by moving away.
“But it hasn’t been all bad,” she assures me. “I love the freedom. I love living in the city. But ballet isn’t an easy environment for me right now. If Legacy didn’t prohibit it, I might even change majors. I just wish … I didn’t feel like I was one mistake away from letting everyone down.”
It reminds me of what Reid’s been saying. The pressure they’re both feeling to constantly perform well. That their entire hometown is invested in a trajectory they’re not even sure about. Based on some of my interviews, it seems to be a similar struggle for all Legacies, even the older alumni.
Which leads me to ask, “Do you think that’s why there’s always drama when people come home? Everyone is so terrified to make a mistake they hunt out everyone else’s?”