Chapter 34 Clara #2
Then I told her about the jobsite. About the stairs and the slick wood and the way his leg had gone out from under him.
The crew, the humiliation, Austin calling Hayes.
The way Wes had come home vibrating with shame and turned it on me because it was an emotional overload from already turning it on himself.
The words he’d thrown between us like a barricade: lessons, practice, faking being normal.
Saying it out loud made my chest ache all over again.
“I told him I loved him,” I finished, voice fraying. “And then I told him I loved myself too. Then I picked up a bag and walked out.”
Silence settled between us, thick and stunned.
Kit stared at me for a long beat, her jaw tight. She did not, miraculously, say I told you so or men are trash or a single thing about how I should have kept my distance from a situation that complicated.
She simply exhaled. Hard.
“I swear to god,” she muttered, “emotionally unavailable men should come with warning labels.”
A wet laugh hiccuped out of me. “He did have one,” I said. “It was just written in sarcasm and trauma and posted on the refrigerator.”
“Yeah, well, I want it printed on a forehead next time so we can all see it from space.” She bumped her shoulder into mine. “For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing.”
“It feels like shit,” I said.
“Right things sometimes do,” she answered, because she was annoying and usually correct.
My nose started to run. I sniffed, patted my pockets for tissue, and came up empty. With a groan, I dug into the duffel instead, pawing past leggings, a bundled hoodie, and my toiletry bag. My fingers knocked against something small and hard at the bottom.
Of course.
I wrapped my hand around the velvet box and pulled it out like a magician producing a very inconvenient rabbit.
“I’m a mess,” I muttered, throat burning again. I popped the lid open, caught one glimpse of the diamond glaring up at me like a floodlight, and snapped it shut so fast the hinge clicked. The box landed on the coffee table with a dull thunk.
Kit’s eyes went sharp. “Is that—”
“Greg’s,” I said. “Well. Mine. Whatever.”
She reached for it without asking, flipped it open, and slid the ring onto her finger. It dwarfed her hand, the stone catching every bit of weak winter light sneaking through the blinds.
“Damn,” she said reverently. “You could signal ships with this. Are we sure this isn’t actually a weapon?”
Despite everything, a reluctant laugh shook loose. “You should see it under church lighting. It basically started a small sun.”
She wiggled her fingers, watching the diamond flash. “What are you going to do with it?”
That was the question that had been tapping on the inside of my skull for weeks.
“I keep thinking I should give it back,” I said slowly.
“To Greg. Like it’s . . . evidence. Proof I’m still tethered to a life I walked away from.
” Emotion rose sharp and hot in my throat.
“Like as long as I have it, some part of me is still standing in a dress at the front of that chapel, waiting to be rescued from my own bad decisions.”
Kit snorted so violently the ring almost flew off. She caught it and shoved it back into place, scowling at me.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “Fuck no. That is your time-and-trauma tax. If you give it back, I will never speak to you again.”
A laugh escaped me. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Correct.” She slid the ring off, dropped it back into the box, and shut it with a snap.
“He lied to you. You tried to martyr yourself into being the world’s saddest supportive wife.
Then you detonated your life to stop doing that.
The least you get out of that disaster is market value to start over. ”
“I don’t even want to look at it,” I said. “I can’t wear it. I can’t shove it in a drawer. It’s too much . . . everything.” I rubbed the empty place on my finger, remembering how heavy it had felt, how wrong. “It’s not even something I would have picked.”
Kit’s expression softened. “Okay,” she said. “So we agree we’re not giving it back. Next option: Convert it.”
“Convert it into what?” I asked, even though somewhere between my ribs, an answer was already stirring.
“Into something you actually want,” she said simply. “Pawn it, sell it, make a necklace, whatever. Turn it into a thing that belongs to you instead of a ghost of bad decisions past.”
The idea flared up inside me, bright and terrifying.
“I could,” I said, heartbeat loud in my ears. “Maybe. Sell it and use the money for a studio. There’s that empty storefront by the Crooked Spine.”
Kit’s eyes lit. “The one with the big front window and the awful green carpet?”
I snorted. “Yeah. The carpet looks like it’s seen some things.”
“It’s perfect,” she said, grin going soft at the edges. “You do like a fixer-upper. Very on brand, Clara Darling.”
Hope and fear tangled in my chest. “I don’t know if it’s enough,” I said. “Or if anyone would actually book me enough to pay rent, or if I’d just end up crying in a room with terrible flooring and a very expensive mistake.”
Kit shrugged one shoulder. “That’s a later problem. Right now, all you have to do is admit that there is a version of your future where your name is on a lease and not on someone else’s to-do list.”
My eyes stung again, for an entirely different reason. “It feels right,” I whispered. “In a way that makes me want to throw up.”
“Congratulations,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe that’s how you know it’s a real desire and not just something someone else told you to want.”
She pushed to her feet, scooping up the ring box and setting it carefully next to a stack of padded mailers on the tiny table by the kitchen. Then she grabbed a scrap of lace from the back of a chair and started stuffing it into an envelope.
I swiped under my eyes with the cuff of my sweater. “What are you doing?”
“Working,” she said. “Unlike some of us, I don’t have a rich ex-fiancé’s diamond to liquidate yet.”
She taped the envelope shut and reached for a sheet of address labels. That was when I noticed what exactly had disappeared into the white padded rectangle.
My eyes narrowed. “Did you just put underwear in that?”
Kit didn’t even look up. “Sure did. Do you know how much money I’m making from this?”
Horror and fascination warred in my chest. “Please elaborate immediately.”
She grinned. “Say hello to your sister’s thriving niche enterprise. Men on the internet will pay truly stupid amounts of money for nicely packaged lingerie.”
I stared. “Are you selling used underwear online?”
“Relax,” she said, rolling her eyes as she slapped a label on. “It’s not that bad.” She paused. “Technically, yes, but if it makes you feel better, it’s not to a bunch of creeps. It’s only one creep. Some guy paid extra to be the only person who gets my goods.” She waggled her eyebrows.
My jaw dropped. “Kit, that is . . . disturbing. What if he tries to find you?”
She waved a hand. “Do not yuck my yum. I have bills to pay, Clara. Also, I use a PO box and a fake name. The only way this man is finding me is if the USPS goes rogue, and frankly they have enough on their plate.”
A shocked laugh burst out of me. “Our mother would die.”
“Our mother thinks I make all my money on Etsy and freelance painting gigs,” she said serenely. “Which is also technically true. Everyone wins.”
She dropped back onto the couch, leaving the labeled envelope and the ring box side by side on the table. Past and future. Disaster and possibility.
“Okay,” she said, nudging my knee with hers again. “Game plan. Gaudy ring becomes studio, eventually. You crash here as long as you need. I will provide carbs and questionable streaming choices. That part is easy.”
Her eyes gentled. “But what are you going to do about Wes?”
The question landed in my chest like a stone dropped down a wishing well, sinking until I couldn’t see the bottom.
“I don’t know,” I said. The admission came out on a breath that shook.
Tears welled again, less explosive this time and more like something worn-out giving way.
“I don’t know how to love a man who can’t even love himself,” I whispered.
“Not without disappearing again. Not without contorting myself into whatever shape makes it easier for him. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that. ”
Kit’s arm came around me, tugging me in until my head rested against her shoulder. She pressed her cheek to my hair, voice low and fierce.
“Then don’t,” she said. “You are allowed to love him from over here. But don’t climb into the hole with him. If he wants you, he can crawl out.”
My throat closed. I nodded, because words felt dangerous.
“And if he doesn’t,” she added, squeezing me, “then we swap out that hideous green carpet and hang your name in the biggest window on Main Street as a daily reminder to him of what he lost. We can build you something that is yours. With or without him.”
I let my eyes close, listening to the hum of the fridge and the muffled music from the shop downstairs. I could still feel Wes somewhere under my skin, like a bruise I kept pushing on. I still loved him. That wasn’t going anywhere.
The difference was, for the first time, I could imagine loving him without erasing myself to do it.
I could see a studio with bad flooring and beautiful light. I could see my name on the door in pretty lettering. I could see a version of me who chose herself, even when it hurt.
For now, that version of me was the only thing keeping my heart from splitting clean in two.