33. Jonah
33
JONAH
“I’m white?” I take a seat across from Claire on the bed, careful not to jostle the chess board between us. “Is that because after my detox, I’ll be pure as the driven snow?”
She rolls her eyes. “I thought you’d want the first move advantage. But if you don’t want it, fine.”
“I’ll take it.” I move my rook pawn up two spaces. “Your turn, Trouble.”
Claire smiles sweetly, then proceeds to hand me my ass in seven moves. Then she beats me in two more consecutive games just as swiftly. I rub my forehead and inhale slowly.
“You’re only winning because I can’t focus.”
She glances up at me as she sets up the board again, this time making herself white. “How bad is it?”
I drop my head into my hands and huff a pained laugh. “Not as bad as it could be.”
Meaning, I’m not vomiting or seizing or having thoughts of jumping out of the window just to make it all stop. In rehab, I was under constant supervision during detox. Thankfully, it’s never been that bad since. I don’t tell her that, though. I don’t want her to have that visual of me.
“My head pounds. My body aches. I haven’t fully calmed down from the nightmare. And to be completely honest, it’s taking a lot for me not to tear the room apart just to find your script. ”
She folds her lips between her teeth and nods. “I learned to play chess when I was in rehab for my eating disorder. It was a good distraction.”
My eyes widen, then I whistle. “The only thing I learned in rehab is how to be a better liar.”
Claire’s brows furrow, and she forces a laugh. My stomach twists. I am an idiot. I squeeze my eyes shut and give my head a shake. I never should have said that, but my brain is so fucking fuzzy. I start to spiral, but then she speaks again, and all my attention focuses back on her.
“I started purging when I was fifteen. I had a therapist in college who said it was a maladaptive coping strategy for my anxiety disorder.” She laughs. “I thought it was just because I hated myself, but I was wrong.” She moves her king pawn two spaces, then looks at me. “Your move.”
I want to comfort her, but I don’t know what to say. So instead, I move my piece and give her one of my truths.
“My older brother Theo died when I was ten. He had a brain tumor. Cancerous. Inoperable. The hospital triggered those memories.”
“I’m sorry. I knew you had an older brother who’d passed. I didn’t know how. How old was he?”
“Seventeen.”
“Wow, you really were the baby.” Her eyes bounce between mine, and I see the moment she makes the connection. “Your middle name is Theodore.”
Yep . My parents weren’t even subtle.
“He was the favorite,” I say with a shrug. “They’d never wanted a second child.”
Her lips purse, and then she drops her eyes to the board to make her next move.
“My father used to hit my mom and my brother, but never me. He’d hit them, then tell me I was the only one who never let him down.”
“What a prick.”
She laughs. “Yeah. And after he and my mom split, he’d cancel plans or break promises, then blame my brother for it. I was young and didn’t see it for what it was. Really hurt my relationship with Macon.”
“Macon’s your brother?”
She nods, and I shake my head. “Are all dads assholes? ”
“I hope not.”
“I’m glad I don’t have kids. I don’t want to think of all the ways I could fuck them up.”
“Right.” Her answering huff of laughter is forced, and she wipes at her eyes. When she smiles, it’s almost mournful. “Your turn.”
I consider the board as I speak.
“After Theo died, I basically did, too. I worked my ass off for a few years. Graduated high school early with honors. Got accepted to Yale. Thought if I was perfect, I’d earn my way back into my family. Realized halfway into my first semester at Yale that I was wrong.”
“Your brother died when you were ten and your parents just...abandoned you?”
I smile at the protectiveness in her voice. “They didn’t abandon me. They just...stopped talking to me or looking at me or acting like I existed, unless it was to tell me something I did wrong.”
“That’s disgusting.”
I move my piece and shrug. “I asked them to send me away for school my sophomore year of high school. They said it was too expensive.”
Claire’s jaw drops. “Your dad is a multi-millionaire.”
“C’mon, Trouble. That money is for the people they care about. Themselves .”
She bites her lip, looks at the board, then looks back at me. “Your mom, too? I mean...I know your dad is terrible, but I guess since he cheated on your mom, I thought she wouldn’t be as bad. I had her positioned as a victim in my mind.”
I laugh. “Everyone is a victim of Conrad Henderson, but my mom was definitely a villain, too. When Theo died, something broke inside her. She went from tolerating me, to resenting me. She just kind of shut down. That’s when Dear Old Dad started taking mistresses.” I smile. “Once I caught him with my classmate’s older sister.”
Her eyebrows slant, and she averts her gaze. Shame. She’s feeling shame. I reach over and take her hand. I give it a squeeze.
“He’s the asshole. Not you.”
She doesn’t respond, and her attention goes back to the board. She’s quiet for a long time before she finally speaks again. This time, her voice is quieter. Sadder .
“My brother overdosed at a party when I was a senior in high school. I didn’t know until months after.”
She sniffles, and when a tear rolls down her cheek, she swipes it away with the back of her hand.
“I didn’t understand his struggles when we were younger. I was crass and cruel. I had no compassion. Then he almost died, and I had to hear about it from some random guy on the football team.”
Her eyes stay on the board, but she doesn’t move one of her pieces. I get the feeling she’s not thinking of chess anymore.
“You were struggling too, Trouble. Trust me. When you’re ear deep in your own shit, it’s hard to have compassion for anyone. I would know.”
She shrugs and wipes away more tears. “Macon and Lennon were the two most important people in my life, and I...” She scoffs and tilts her head to the ceiling. “When I actually tried to help, when I tried to step out of my own mess long enough to help them, I just made things worse.”
“What do you mean? What did you do?”
She hesitates, chewing on her lip and dropping her eyes to the floor. Then she blows out a slow breath and nods.
“At the end of senior year Macon got beat up pretty bad. Dealers. Someone he used to sell for, too. They beat Macon up and left him for dead, but not before threatening Lennon’s life. It was a big, convoluted web, honestly, but the guy who did it was untouchable in our town. Lennon’s dad decided to send her away, but Macon wrote her a letter and put it in her suitcase. It explained everything. Said he would wait for her. Begged her to wait for him.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I took the letter. I kept it. So, she went away thinking everyone had abandoned her. I thought it was best for both of them, but it...it had so many repercussions that I never could have predicted. When the truth came out...” She shrugs. “Well. Now you know.”
She takes a deep breath, looks back at the board, and makes her move. Then she forces a smile and looks back at me. “Your turn.”
I hold her gaze, shimmering blue with the tears she’s trying to hold back, and all I want to do is pull her to me. I want to hold her.
Instead, I look back at the board .
“The first time I used was after we’d signed our record deal. It was celebratory and experimental. Everyone else was doing it.”
I close my eyes and picture Sav and Torren. High and in love. Seemingly unburdened. I wanted it. I wanted to feel less heavy. I wanted to be carefree, too.
“It was like cutting a brake line. I went from never touching anything harder than extra strength NSAIDs to a full-out druggie in a matter of a month. It just got worse when I realized that coming down meant contending with reality, so I just...never came down.”
Claire sighs. “I understand that. The brake line part, I mean. With the purging...well...I don’t know. It felt like the only thing that I had full control over, I guess. It was more than just wanting to be perfect, or my fucked-up self-image. It was about control, but in the end, all it did was make me spiral out of control. Ironic, right?”
I laugh. “Yeah.”
Ironic, but so fucking relatable. We’re the same, her and me.
“I OD’d on the anniversary of my brother’s death. I’d been through many of them, so I don’t know what it was about that one that set me off. I just wanted to quiet everything down. I just needed some peace. It wasn’t a suicide attempt, but I didn’t care if I died.”
I move my piece, then make eye contact. “Your move, Trouble.”
She surveys the board, moves her knight, then smirks at me. “Check.”
“Fuck.” She laughs, and I quickly move my king. Then I arch a brow. “How many times have you passed up a chance to win?”
She doesn’t answer, and I frantically search the board. “Could I be in checkmate right now?”
She shrugs coyly. “I’ll never tell.”
I shake my head and fight a smile. She’s brilliant. She’s brilliant, and I’m in love with her. I’m in love with her, and it fucking hurts. I nod back to the board.
“Your move. Again.”
She purses her lips and taps her chin. She’s pretending, I realize. This whole time, she’s been pretending to play. She’s probably seen ten different paths to victory, but she’s drawing it out just to distract me.
“My eating disorder hit an all-time low just after college. The truth about the letter came out. I’d kept it to myself for years because I was scared and misguided, and after it came out, my fiancé left me. I found out later he was only with me because he was still in love with my stepsister.”
A pang of jealousy overwhelms me. She was engaged. She’d said yes to someone once. Accepted their love only for them to leave her.
I’d never do that. I’d never leave her. But...
I can’t be with an addict.
I breathe through the need to scream and instead make a joke.
“This is the stepsister who is also your ex-best-friend and your brother’s baby mama?”
Claire scrunches her nose playfully and nods.
“That’s the one.”
“Your fiancé had dated her?”
She cringes. “Not really. He was into Lennon, but Len was always into Macon. Eric never stood a chance. When he realized that, we ended up getting into this huge fight and he confessed that he’d never loved me. He just thought I’d bring Lennon back into his life. Then he took back the ring and kicked me out. Kind of set me on this path of self-destruction, I guess. Ended up with pretty bad ulcers in my throat. Had to be hospitalized for a couple days to receive IV fluids.” She smirks. “Upside of making myself vomit for over a decade, though, is that I barely have any gag reflex. You’re welcome.”
I bark out a laugh. “Thank you.”
“Anyway, after I was discharged, I checked myself into a treatment facility. Then I got my teeth fixed and moved to New York to start fresh. Met your dad a few months later. Relapsed a couple months after that. And now I’m here. A statistic.” She moves her piece, then looks back at me. “Hooray for me.”
I shrug. “I’m glad you’re here, Claire. Even if you had to fuck my dad to get here, I’m glad for it.”
Claire sighs. I wait for her to say she’s glad, too. That she’s happy to be here with me. She doesn’t. Her brow furrows as her eyes fall back to the board.
“Something Mabel and Sav said has been sticking with me lately. Sometimes you have to cut away the worn-down parts of yourself so you can move forward.”
“What if there’s nothing left? ”
She flicks wide eyes back to mine. She opens her mouth twice but says nothing.
“What?” I ask, but she shakes her head.
Then she gives me a sad smile and answers on a whisper. “You have to have faith that you’ll grow back better.”
I glance down at the board. Grow back better . I can’t even fathom it.
“What if I don’t deserve to grow back better?”
Her hand rests gently on my cheek, and she guides my eyes back to hers. She’s crying again. So am I.
“You do, Jonah. You do.”