Chapter 41 Claire
Claire
Ispent the rest of the day at Chloe’s, listening to her rehash what she could remember from the night before.
Apparently, Ronan told her that her car-bombing was impressive — one sentence I hope he never uses in a parking garage — and she proceeded to spend the rest of the night showing off her skills.
After ordering food from the Chinese place down the street and stuffing ourselves with crab rangoon, vegetable lo mein, and orange chicken, we watched the end of Sixteen Candles, and I left for my tutoring session on middle school grammar.
Somewhere between comma usage and the you have to write out words like “are” and “you” rather than using single letters lesson, my phone buzzed in my bag on the floor.
I gave Brian, or B-Rye as he prefers, a few examples to try on his own and pulled it out just long enough to see who the text was from.
Seeing Jay’s name on my screen caused me to heave a huge sigh of relief.
All day I told myself that he was busy, rarely checks his phone at work, or isn’t one to talk much anyway, but I couldn’t silence the voice in the back of my mind that kept telling me he regrets last night and he’s not sticking around.
I shoved my phone back into my bag and decided I could read it later.
Just knowing he wasn’t avoiding me was good enough.
But then I saw the text. Long after my tutoring session had ended, I still sat, staring at the screen.
JAY: Busy day. I’ll call you tomorrow.
Alright, so it was something. He had the decency to at least text me back, but after last night, and the place that I thought we had gotten to, I expected more than essentially a day of silence. I returned the text asking if everything was okay and it went unanswered.
My first instinct was to be annoyed, but I knew what I signed up for when I decided to start falling for a man who told me he’s not good with communication. So, instead, I channeled all of my frustration into the book.
I stayed up way too late writing three more chapters about Alice and Owen and sometime after Alice started a new school, I fell asleep with my computer in my lap.
I wake up now, to once again, no texts or calls from Jay. Sure, he didn’t say he’d call in the morning, but at this point, it’s been twenty-four hours since he asked, no told me, to be with him and then totally ignored me.
Rather than letting the anxiety fester, I decide it’s time to take a much-needed run.
I change out of my pajamas and into my running shorts and tank top.
I grab my headphones and turn on my Run Like You Stole Something playlist. By the time I stretch and get to the street, the chorus of DJ Khalid’s All I Do Is Win is playing in my ears.
An appropriate anthem for the headspace I’m aiming for.
My first mile is quick and way beyond my normal pace, but it’s like my body is fueled by the stress coursing through my veins. By mile two, I’m slowing down, both physically and mentally. The endorphins hit their pace as I hit mine, calming the chaos that was rising in my head.
I pass my parent’s house and see they’re still not home.
Good, I think, because I am definitely not ready to deal with that right now.
Before I know it, I’m rounding the corner of Main Street where Monroe’s Motors sits at the end.
Would it be absolutely ridiculous to show up to Jay’s work for a third time?
Sure. Is it just as crazy to run by and look for his truck in the lot?
I’m going with only slightly and that’s good enough for me.
I jog by the bay doors and peer inside. Without slowing down to total creep-speed, I can’t see anyone who looks like Jay.
Being that he’s over six feet tall, has arms like a coloring book, and is somewhat massive in size, I would think he’d be hard to miss.
But, while I’m here, I decide to take my run around the back street where the parking lot is before heading back toward my apartment.
Once again, I slow down, lessening my pace just enough to scan the cars. Nothing. There’s not even another vehicle the same color as his, parked anywhere near the garage.
“Claire!” I nearly trip on the curb in front of me, hearing my name being called from the direction of the shop. I slow down to almost a walk and see Sean waving a hand towel in my direction.
“Hey, Sean,” I call, still across the parking lot. I’m not quite sure if this is a stop and talk situation or if he’s just saying hello.
“What are you doing?”
Okay, so not only are we stopping and talking, but we’re stating the obvious too.
“Just my morning run,” I say awkwardly, half looking for Jay and half hiding from him too.
“Ah, good for you. I could never.” He points to his very young, clearly unathletic legs. “Bad knees.”
“Mmm,” I say half-listening, suddenly slightly nauseous from thinking about Sean’s joints.
“So, where’s Jay been?” He’s got my full attention now.
“What do you mean? He’s not at work?” I was slightly out of breath before from the exercise, but I’m breathing even heavier now.
“No, we were both supposed to be on the whole week after the cookout, but he called off yesterday and then again this morning.”
Suddenly I can barely breathe at all. My legs go weak, my heart rate quickens and none of it has to do with running.
“So you talked to him?”
“Well, Zeke did. Called both days to let him know he couldn’t make it in. Not like him at all, but Zeke said he sounded fine on the phone.”
He called them. Jay — who I slept with, who told me he wanted to be wherever I am, who insisted that I be with him, who hasn’t called or texted in over an entire day sans six words, called them.
The part of my brain that worried that maybe something had happened to him, relaxes, while the other part, which was fully convinced he was ghosting me, is going off, lights and sirens.
“I, I, I got to go,” I stammer and take off in the opposite direction.
“Have fun!” Sean calls out completely oblivious to the mental breakdown happening right in front of him.
“Asshole!” Chloe says over the phone. I’ve been walking aimlessly way past my apartment at this point and decided calling her made more sense than listening to Taio Cruz’s Break Your Heart on my running playlist over and over.
“I don’t know Chlo, maybe it’s me.”
“What? As in maybe you’re the one who Magic Miked your way into his pants, and then abandoned him?”
“If anything it was more like Paul Walkered into them from Fast and Furious," I say dimly.
“Okay, fair. My point is, you are not the asshole,” she clarifies.
“I know, but he told me over and over again that he doesn’t do this kind of thing. That he’s broken, and damaged, and I somehow thought none of that would matter.”
“And it shouldn’t.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t see him, Chlo. This thing with his brother really tore him up.”
“Listen, I’m just saying we all have shit.”
“I think his shit is a little bigger than our shit,” I say.
“Ew,” Chloe says. “I'm just saying, we all have things going on. No one else is disappearing and then lying about it by omission.”
“I know,” I say. And I do know. But that’s the problem.
Besides his “people,” only I know how tormented Jay seems to be about anything and everything that’s happened in his past. How he holds onto his mom, his brother, foster care, like they’re lifelines instead of anchors.
“I’ll keep you posted.”
“You better. But Claire,” she says, sighing into the phone. “He’s not gone yet.” She ends the call, and I’m left paused in the middle of the sidewalk.
And there it is. The center of my fear. The reminder that my teaching career, my future, Dad’s support, even Mark for Christ’s sake, all just…ended. Giant parts of me that came crashing down after one conversation.
“There’s just no need for your position.”
“I cheated on you.”
“I never said I supported this.”
And now here’s Jay, slipping away too.
A man of few words offering not even one.
After literally hours of walking, I find myself at the shopping center with Busy’s and Enzo’s. I have no money with me, so coffee is out, but maybe I can at least bum some air conditioning from Ronan and Mikey.
I open the door to the restaurant, the smell of the pizza oven just coming to life, wafting toward me. Ronan, who is sitting at the register counting bills, looks at me from behind the counter and pulls his hands to his bruised face.
“Please don’t hit me again,” he jokes before lowering his barricade.
“Very funny,” I say. “Glad to see your nipples are completely out of view.”
He shoves the rest of the money into the register and comes around the side of the counter.
“What’s up? Hungry?”
“Oh no, I don’t even have any money. I was just wandering and was kind of hoping to cool off before heading home.”
Ronan looks me up and down and takes in my sweaty…everything. “Take a seat,” he says.
I find the nearest table, the one that Jay and I happened to sit at the first time we ate together and push my phone and headphones off to the side.
Minutes later, Ronan comes over with a large cup of ice water and a slice of Hawaiian pizza and places it in front of me before sitting in the other chair.
“Jay told me it’s your favorite.” He gestures to the pizza, and I play with the edge of the paper plate.
“Have you talked to him yet?” I ask. He turns his head away, staring at the floor, thinking.
“Now that you mention it, no I haven’t. Not since the cookout the other day.” I nod my head and continue playing with the plate. “What happened?” he asks.
I shake my head, keeping it down, trying to hide the fact that I feel tears forming behind my eyes. When I don’t speak, Ronan repeats himself. “Claire. What happened?”
I look up and the concern on Ronan's face breaks the dam. Tears fall and he reaches for napkins, giving me time to get myself together. My heart breaks for Jay, and for myself, as I tell him about everything from his brother buying Dad’s car, to him asking me to be with him, to his radio silence.