32. Claire
thirty-two
“I just don’t seehow you guys have time to read,” Lucy says, shaking her head as she stabs her salad. “I don’t have children, and Aaron and I are exhausted by the time we get home most nights.”
“Reading is my me-time,” Juliet says. “Sam and I have to find time to ourselves. Between the kids and both of us coaching, sometimes, you need to be alone. And, I just so happen to like to do that with fictitious men and the things they do in the bedroom that I could never imagine my own husband doing.”
She shrugs. I snort. Penelope tosses her head back in laughter.
“What?!” Juliet exclaims. “Sam would never choke me and I’d never ask him to. But that tattooed biker in PJ Layne’s newest? Hot damn.”
“I have DMed her on Instagram about how good her smut is. No shame,” I say.
“At least Sam gets to reap the benefits afterward,” Lucy shrugs.
Juliet pumps her eyebrows, smirks, and says, “One-hundred percent.”
I absolutely needed this—time with women I’ve decided I can call friends, talking about absolutely nothing important. So far, no one has asked me about anything other than how my weekend was, and my preference in fictional men. No one is digging below the surface, because they’re all too clearly bogged down by the Monday blues to handle much more than surface level conversation. After the weekend I had, this is about as much as I can handle.
“The reading I can understand,” Penelope interjects. Her ankles are crossed, feet propped up on the student desk in front of her. “It’s the romance I can’t wrap my brain around.”
“What do you read then?” I ask.
“Murder mysteries. Psychological thrillers. I really like to freak myself out before I fall asleep.”
“We should start a book club!” Juliet suggests. “Seriously guys, it’ll give me an excuse to get out of the house.”
“Can it be the upcoming PJ Layne?” I ask. “I hear it’s supposed to be super age-gap. Like, ex-boyfriend’s dad, age gap.”
“Like, she dates her ex-boyfriend’s dad?” Lucy asks, exasperated.
“Mhm,” I nod. “Nothing says revenge like ‘I call your dad Daddy now,’ am I right?”
“Have you seen the dedications?” Juliet says. “They’re always, To Chris, or To Shane. I hear she writes all of the men who have wronged her as the villains in the stories.”
Juliet and Lucy start to speculate about PJ Layne characters, but I notice Penelope is more reserved, her cheeks flaming the color of her hair.
“What days work best for everyone?” Juliet asks.
Immediately, all three women get out their planners, and I follow suit, but slowly. Maybe, if I can bide my time long enough, the bell will ring before they even realize I’m still “searching for a pen.”
The fact of the matter is, days no longer work for me. After what happened on Friday and Saturday, my parents sat me down and demanded my schedule from now until break, adding it in bright blue ink to the family calendar. No wiggle room. No chances to “act out.” I am an adult who has effectively been grounded, and I am both too embarrassed to admit that to my friends, and too ashamed to stand up for myself.
“…about you, Claire?”
Lost in the bottom of my tote bag, I don’t realize that it has taken the ladies all of a minute to match up calendars. My hand closes around a pen, almost in unconscious protest. Put them on the calendar. Prove a point.
“I, umm…”
I swallow. And it’s when I can’t force it all the way down, because there’s a big ball of immovable emotion lodged there, I choke out a sob.
“I can’t,” I laugh around a ball of tears. “I’m grounded.”
Something in my body believes this place to be safe, these people to be safe, and I tell them what happened this weekend. I loosen the chains around my heart and let it out. They all eye me skeptically, save for Lucy, who chews her bottom lip, because she knows at least part of the story. Penelope raises a brow. Juliet’s furrow.
“I am essentially a third parent to my siblings. I’ve never really… You guys are really the first friends that I’ve had, and it took me kind of until now to realize how fucked up this truly is—okay, maybe not to realize it, but to want to actually make a change. Like I finally understand what I’m missing out on with friendships and relationships and living for myself. But they don’t like it. Not one bit.”
They’re silent for too long, and I have to convince myself that it’s just because they’re processing, not because I freaked them out with my trauma dump.
“That’s fucked up, Claire,” Penelope says in a chilled whisper. “I never realized it was that bad.”
Juliet and Lucy nod and give me their own version of that sentiment. My head hangs, both in gratitude and exhaustion. I’ve never said it all aloud like that before. Pieced it all together. It was freeing, a weight slithering its way off my heart and making room for the comfort and support of others that was always meant to be there.
“So they just… Let me understand this better.” Penelope plants her feet on the ground and raises both hands between us like a stop sign. “You’re like Mommy number two? Like an unpaid nanny?”
I nod.
“They basically have you doing a full-time job without pay, and without asking?
“Mhm. My mom doesn’t want to work, but doesn’t want any of my dad’s money being spent towards things that are unnecessary instead of going straight into her pocket. Why spend money on a nanny when she could just use me instead?”
She blows out a breath.
“I can’t wrap my head around what’s worse: the not paying or the not asking.”
“The not asking, for sure,” Lucy says.
“Agreed,” Juliet chimes in. “You have your own life. You’re not their slave, you’re their daughter.”
I choke out a laugh at that sentiment.
“I don’t think I’ve felt like their daughter since before Michael was born.”
It’s the look of pity in their eyes that I hate—the reason I’ve never really unloaded on people in the first place. Then again, I’d have to have people to unload on, but maybe that’s why I’ve always kept people at a distance—just far away enough so they can’t pick apart the very seams that would bust me open.
“Okay. How do we help?”
Penelope’s arms fold over her chest, and I tilt my head.
“What do you mean?”
“Yeah, what can we do?” Juliet asks.
I blink, blink again, and stare from Penelope to Juliet to Lucy. They’re all eagerly awaiting instruction with wide hopeful eyes, and at the absence of pity, I realize they’re serious.
“I don’t even know,” I laugh pathetically. Here I am, with six arms extended, and I can’t even give them direction.
“What’s your biggest barrier?” Penelope asks. “Why can’t you tell them no?”
I chew on my bottom lip and stare at my shoes.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I guess they’ve never really given me a reason not to?”
I shrug, glancing around the circle for a life raft.
“Do they make threats? You know, if you put up a fight against their control.”
“It’s kind of underhanded,” I admit. “I don’t know, I mean, they feed me and they put a roof over my head, so it’s not like?—”
“That’s it!” Penelope interjects. “You need to move out.”
That sentiment hits me like a pile of bricks. It’s a novel idea. But…
“It’s not that simple.” I smile sadly. “I don’t have the money saved up to be able to do that yet. I’d need a job that pays better than this, but my dad already said he’s going to force me into working for his company once my contract here runs out, and then?—”
“So, you stay with one of us while you look for a job and get on your feet.”
Penelope shrugs like it’s that simple. I smile, feeling every inch of the desperate pain in the stretch of my cheeks.
“I couldn’t put you guys out. Juliet and Sam have a family, and Lucy just moved in with Aaron, and you?—”
“Have plenty of space.”
Penelope is always so strait-laced. She’s brunt and forward and in your face. But softness rings those four words, offered up to me on a platter made of gold. Like it is that simple. I gaze around the circle of women, and feel my heart settle into place.
Maybe it can be this easy.
Take career advice and guidance from Lucy.
Move in with Penelope until I can make it on my own.
Start a smutty book club with Juliet.
Set out on my own two feet, and peel myself out from the claws that my parents have caged me beneath.
The bell rings—not in time to interrupt an interrogation, but in time to let a weighty decision settle on my chest.
While I teach for the rest of the afternoon, untold stories play in the back of my mind. It’s like I’m Barbie, with a closet full of futures I can try on. The world very well may be at my fingertips.