35. Walker
Chapter 35
Walker
I t echoes in my head, “I choose you, you’re mine,” and I can hardly breathe. Is it really that simple? Do we just choose who we want to be with, and that’s it? Because if it’s that easy, sign me the fuck up.
What does that mean, though? What does this look like? I have this amazing, beautiful woman in front of me, and I know I want to be with her—no question. But I bring her home to meet my family, and what? Or she brings us all home to meet hers? It’s not like she can marry all of us. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.
Although it’s not like following the law is my strong suit.
I promised I’d try. And I want to. Keeping away from her, it’s been like yanking out a part of my soul. My campus studio is a mountain of destroyed canvases, a testament of her true role as my muse. I’ve spent hours looking over those photos from Chicago, the joy on her face. Pretend joy. It’s not what I want.
Only, neither of us was pretending—not entirely. We were sharing a mask, a joint way to move through the world, together, with no one guessing what we really were. Just two kids falling the fuck in love.
And I love her.
Damn it.
I love her.
Despite all odds, she chooses me. I don’t know if it’s love, but the way she’s looking at me, the tension in her fingers where they dig into my neck, the tears that are lying unshed in her eyes? It’s damn close to the same thing.
I love her.
I’ll try. For her, I’ll love her and ignore the rest.
She’s smart enough to figure it out. All I have to do is be with her, be her anchor, make her world a little more beautiful. It’s not much, but it’s important. I want to be important—to be enough—for someone.
And to Clara, I am.
I nod, not trusting myself with words, afraid I’ll blurt out the “L” word and scare her away.
“Oh thank God,” she murmurs, collapsing against my chest, and the relief in those three words, it makes my foolish heart sing.
I lift her chin for a kiss, savoring her lips, her floral scent, the hint of coffee and ketchup on her tongue. I relish each moment, each breath, hoarding them like the miser I am, each one filling what I thought was a bottomless hollow inside me looking to be wanted, to be needed, to be enough, just as I am.
We kiss. Just kiss, nothing else needed. My knees are jammed against the center console, my seat belt is digging into my shoulder, the heat is blasting against my ear, threatening to turn the thing into a freaking fried onion ring, and it’s perfect. Or maybe even better—it’s imperfectly beautiful.
Eventually, we pull back, both of us short of breath. “Let’s get your stuff, then we can head back to the house and celebrate, yeah?”
Her smile is genuine joy, and I wish I could capture it, keep it, bottle it up and pour it onto the canvas whenever I need it. “Deal,” she says.
She holds my hand the whole way to her parents’, pulling it across the car to kiss it, first the back of my hand, then each finger, slowly pulling them one by one into her mouth, her tongue circling, and it’s all I can do to keep my eyes on the road instead of pulling over and hauling her into the back seat and fucking her until we both know we belong to each other. “Tease,” I mutter.
She laughs, patting the back of my hand like a perverted grandmother as we wind into her neighborhood. Small two stories line the street, one-car garages and shared driveways, blue collar, but prideful.
I look at the woman who came from here, and it fits.
We pull into her driveway, the lights on in the front room. Clara squeezes my hand. “Shit.”
“We can just go back, buy you new toothpaste or something. ”
She taps her leg, one two three four five, pause, one two three four five, before throwing her shoulders back. “No. I can do this.”
“Would it be better if I stay in the car?”
She whips around to look at me. “God, no. Come with me. Please.”
I turn off the car and lace our fingers tight, happy to see a little of the tension across her shoulders ease. “Of course.”
The inside of her house is warm, worn, and smells faintly of bleach. Clara pulls me through the living room, making a beeline for the stairs.
A woman with brassy-blond curls strides out from the kitchen at the back of the house, blocking our access. “So you finally showed your face after embarrassing me in front of my brother’s family. Really mature, Clara, running away. I half expected to find you’d stolen our car. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Would you have preferred I stole your car? I wasn’t staying there, Mom. And I’m not staying here either. Not unless you give me an apology. You went too far.”
“Dear God, you’re turning into your father. You might as well take up stealing cars after having been who knows where with whoever this, this, person is.”
“Mom—“
The woman steps closer, the fluidity in her step eerily like her daughter’s. “You’re a disgrace. Just go to your room. I’ll deal with you later.”
Clara’s dad wanders around the corner, a relieved smile lighting his face, his eyes a picture of exhaustion, but he says nothing, even though the house is small enough, there’s no way he’s missed his wife shouting at his daughter.
“So you’re not going to apologize?” Clara asks.
The slap rings out before I even see it coming, and I’m there, between Clara and her mom, ready to protect her from more. Gently, Clara pushes me back, and it’s all I can do to take first one step, then another, going no farther than her side, shifting my weight to my toes. I may not be a fighter like the other guys, but I have three big brothers. I can keep her safe from one small, vicious monster. The rage boils as I wait for my chance to jump in.
“If anyone needs to apologize, it’s you, Clara. You’ve embarrassed me. And now I have a headache on top of it. I’ve had enough. Get rid of this stranger and go to your room. Now.”
I take a second to glance at Clara’s dad, surprised he’s still silent. I catch his eye in time to see a flash of regret before he disappears back into the kitchen, the hum of a TV muffling the sound of his feet.
Clara’s hand grasps mine, a deep breath shuddering through her. “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Walker. We’re going to go get my stuff and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
My heart pounds in my chest—her boyfriend. She just told her mom I’m her boyfriend. This is a shit way to meet the parents, but it’s still true. I’m hers. She’s mine. And as long as I don’t fuck this up any more than I already have, nothing is going to change that.
Clara’s mom turns to me, her eyes pinched with uncontrolled rage. “Walker, is it? Tell me, are you planning on becoming a doctor? Maybe a lawyer, or, I don’t know, a goddamned engineer? My daughter has been making selfish choices lately. Are you yet another of them?”
Clara shifts so she’s between her mom and me, but I tug her back, not wanting her any closer to this creature. I force out the words that hurt every time I have to justify them. “No ma’am. I’m an artist.”
A smile creases her face, and if she had pointed teeth, they’d all be on show. “An artist. How lovely.” She snatches Clara’s other arm, and even through her sweater, I can tell her mother’s nails are digging in. Clara hisses beside me, but if I drag her away, she’ll have bloody slashes down her arm. Damn, this woman is fast. “Clara, upstairs. We’ll finish this later. I’ll see your guest out.”
“No.” Clara yanks her arm from her mother’s grasp, her mother screeching as she moves to latch back on. I block her rush with my body, her mother’s nails scrabbling on the nylon of my coat. I block Clara from her bitch of a mother as we rush up the stairs. Dashing into her room, she slams the door behind us, both of us pressing our backs against the door, our hands still entwined.
Her mother’s fists pound against the hollow wood. “You will get that boy out of my house right this instant, Clara Grace McElroy, or I swear to God, you will not like the consequences.”
I reach for her ruined arm, blood already soaking through the yellow of her sleeve. “We’ll need to clean this,” I say, her mother’s screams and threats clear through the door, but easy to ignore. She doesn’t matter. Clara does. And Clara’s never coming back here, not if I have any say in it .
Safe in her space, the tears pool in her eyes as she plucks the fabric from her arm. “It’s fine. Nothing a little hydrogen peroxide won’t fix. I just wish you didn’t have to see that.”
“Oh, princess.” Opening my arm, she’s there, cradled safe against me as her mother’s shouts move downstairs, presumably directed at Clara’s dad. The sharp crack of a slap sounds, the yelling never ceasing.
The thought that she knows how to get the blood out, it makes my chest tight. I wasn’t talking about her dress. I was worried about her poor arm. Running my hands through her curls, the texture cool and a little stiff from whatever she put in there to keep it springy, I hold her tight. And even though this is a damn disaster, I can’t deny that even this feels right.
She feels right.
“You know none of this is your fault, right?”
She rubs her nose against my chest. “Mostly. You know, if I just apologized, then she’d be a pleasant, gracious hostess. You’d be welcomed with open arms. God, it’s so fucked up, but it’s true. It’s the only way this family works. I’m just so sick of being sorry, Walker, especially when I know I did nothing wrong. All those pretty apologies? I used them up. Between my mom and Bryce, there just aren’t any more left. Not even for you. Or Trips, or apparently anyone. I think I’m broken, Walker.”
I press her as tightly as I can to my chest, my heartbeat echoing in my ears. “We’re all broken, Clara. It’s what we do with the shattered pieces that matters. You can use them to cut others, to make everyone around you bleed like your mom does. Or you can sweep them up and fix them into something new—a beautiful window that lets your light shine through.”
She looks up at me, tears caught on her eyelashes. “I’ve never been good at building things, Walker.”
“I’ll help.”
She sniffles. “What if I’m too broken?”
I hold her face in my hands, her cheeks damp under my thumbs. “If you’re too broken, then I’m nothing but colored sand. But we can work on it together, you and me, as long as it takes. As long as forever, Clara.”
She chews on her lip, searching me. But I have no mask for this. Just an honest need to be with this woman, to grow with her, to learn with her. To build something beautiful from our shattered pieces.
Finally, she smiles. “Forever it is, then.”