Chapter Twenty-Nine. Clara
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CLARA
NOW
“WHERE IS SHE?” REID grinds out. He springs up quickly—too quickly—and he nearly topples over. But I’m right there, gripping his arms to steady him.
“Is it your knee?” I ask.
A muscle jumps in his jaw. “Yes, but I’m fine.”
I glare at him. “Bullshit.”
Though I keep my grip firm on his forearms, he guides me away from him. He tries to take a step, and the lack of expression on his face betrays just how much pain he’s in. I blink around the room and notice that several people are watching us. Watching him.
Looking at him with greedy eyes, delighted in their shock that the Golden Boy finally snapped.
Considering just how hard to push him off the pedestal they put him on.
Panic flares, hot and fast. I may be irritated with the way he keeps avoiding this, but that doesn’t mean I want any of his secrets to come out under anything but his own terms.
“Lean on me,” I say quickly.
“I don’t need—”
I crowd his space and get the line of my shoulders under his arm. “Shut up and lean on me. Like Josh did with Amaya, act like it’s from the fight.”
Contempt curls his lip, clearly unhappy at the prospect of giving Josh that satisfaction.
But he must see there’s no other choice because the stubborn champion finally relents.
He hunches onto me and grips his rib cage.
I notice Josh smirking across the auditorium, and everyone still hovering around starts talking again in hushed whispers.
A pained grunt escapes Reid.
Biting my tongue, I slowly lead him out behind the school, where we used to run practice drills. I’m carrying a lot of his weight, and it takes longer than I expect to make it to the media room where I edited all my footage for the yearbook. Thankfully it’s unlocked.
When we finally get inside and I close the door, he slumps in a chair, sweat beading his brow.
“What do you need?” I ask.
He scrubs a hand across his good eye, battling some internal war before he finally says, “Ice.”
I nod and run back to the gym to get him a pack left on the table. When I return, he has his leg propped up and he lays the ice across it.
I study him a long moment. A black eye, swollen and bruised knuckles, and an injury he refuses to let heal.
It takes everything in me not to tell him to talk to his dad again.
He didn’t want that from me this morning.
But it hurts to see him like this. Battered and exhausted.
Angry in a way that no amount of fighting will fix.
“Why, Reid?” I start. “Why won’t you just ask for some help?”
“I—” He shakes his head, his chest rising and falling more rapidly. But when he looks in my eyes, instead of more excuses or denials, the truth finally slips out. “I don’t know how.”
His face flames with the admission.
My voice goes soft, and I can’t keep the words from shaking. “Can I help you figure it out?”
He looks around the room at the camera equipment, understanding my meaning. I’m asking him to trust me enough to share his story. To see that maybe by doing so, it might make a difference, even if neither of us knows how yet.
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
I smile a little.
“But before we do this, we need a plan to confront Nicole,” Reid says.
My smile immediately falls. I stand up and busy myself with attaching the camera to one of the tripods and checking the lighting and sound without responding.
The realization was thrilling at first, but now it’s settling in.
Nicole hated me that much. Walked into the room that I thought was private and decided instead of confronting me then or even after, to film it.
And not only that, but to play it for the entire school and half the town and take what was rightfully mine right out of my grasp.
It’s such a gross violation, a shiver runs across my skin.
“Clara.”
I almost knock over the camera as I spin to face him. “And do what? Humiliate her like she did to me? Like Legacy Lore is doing to all of you?”
His tone is icy. “To start.”
I entertain the fantasy a moment. I imagine unveiling her confession at the banquet. Hearing the town’s shocked gasps and maybe even laughter at her. Turning the tide away from me, only to pull her under.
It makes my stomach ache.
“That’s not who I am, Reid. I just wanted to know. And now that I do, I can move on.”
“Bullshit.”
I glare at him. But his gaze, bruised and swollen as it is, is unflinching.
It’s the same thing I just said to him knowing he’s hiding behind “fine,” and I hear his callout in a new way. My bad habit is to pretend, too. To let my features smooth and my emotions still. But I don’t want to do that with him anymore. I don’t want to do that with him ever again.
“You can’t let her get away with this, Clara. She wasn’t chosen. You were. She stole Legacy from you.”
My heart races at the seriousness of his tone.
The protectiveness in it. He’s right. She did.
And I don’t even quite understand why. But I don’t want to be the messy, lost girl anymore.
What I have here for my documentary about Legacy is something real.
An investment in my future. If I come for Nicole without hard proof, I look petty and trapped in the past.
I say as much and he drops his hands, frustration plain on his face. “I get that. I do. But what if we get proof?”
“How would we do that? She’s not going to tell me anything.”
His good eye narrows and he sits up straighter. “True. But maybe she would tell me.”
“You?”
He swallows and won’t meet my eyes again when he says, “She likes me.”
The pink of his cheeks is too sweet to tease him about. But I can’t keep the irritation out of my voice when I say, “Oh, I know.” Because I’ve known that for a long time.
“We could do it at the banquet tonight,” he says significantly. “We can get her to confess it on camera, and all we do is hand it over to Principal West. Nothing public. Just evidence that she was the one who did this. It wouldn’t be doing anything other than telling the truth.”
I nod. I don’t like it, the idea of setting her up. But I don’t know if there are any appealing alternatives. I could confront her, but she could just lie. There’s no way she’s going to share it without prompting, knowing she could lose her scholarship for unsportsmanlike behavior.
But it also might come out another way. Now that Amaya’s screenshots have been revealed, that leaves Nicole and Reid as the final intro posts that Legacy Lore hasn’t followed up on.
“What exactly did the post say about Nicole again?”
We look it up quickly.
@LEGACY_LORE: Meet Nicole Kelly: This scholar and athlete is determined to win at all costs. That cutthroat ambition will get you far … or get you caught. More soon
My pulse is pumping knowing what this means now. “Whoever is running Legacy Lore knows she took the video, too. I bet that’s the evidence they’re going to drop.”
He nods, the idea clearly taking hold. “This would be a hell of a thing to get caught for. Nicole humiliated Amaya, too. She has to be behind Legacy Lore.”
It makes sense, but something still feels off. Partially because Amaya seemed genuinely upset about all of this during her interview. But if it’s not her, I have no idea who it could be. Which would mean I have no way of stopping them.
“What Nicole did is obviously going to come out anyway, Clara.” Reid leans forward, forearms resting on his knees. “You should be the one to tell this story. Not anyone else.”
There’s a hint of the competitor returning to his voice that infuses a confidence in me, too.
My head is spinning, and Reid’s eye is getting more purple by the minute. I’m aware I’m running out of time to get his interview. Running out of time to edit before the banquet tonight. Running out of time to set this right before everyone leaves tomorrow.
My anger started as a slow simmer, but it’s beginning to boil.
This is truly my last chance to settle this.
“Tonight,” I agree finally. “We can do it at the banquet tonight.”
He grins. It’s lopsided from the swelling, but I have to admit, the black eye works for him in a rugged, brooding way.
I adjust the camera’s focus and pull out my notebook, opening it to a page covered with questions.
“Can we get started now?”