3.
no
Once upon a time—five years ago, give or take—Claire and Elias met by the ocean.
It was spring break, and Claire had taken the train up from Boston to New York for the weekend with Annie, her roommate, and Annie’s friends.
If asked, they would’ve said they were Claire’s friends, too, but that was mostly by virtue of proximity.
Annie was the popular one, the one with the full social calendar.
Annie had been content to have Claire along for the ride ever since they’d been randomly assigned to the same room their first year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They got along well, well enough that even when life and loans got in the way and their stints in higher education stretched past the expected four years, they’d moved into an off-campus apartment together.
Despite their friendship, Claire assumed that the reason Annie invited her along was that Claire never had plans that interfered.
The detachment Claire had cultivated from her uglier emotions had bled over into a detachment from other people, too.
Most of her friendships were made from her being thrust into the same situations as others, and she’d never nurtured a knack for socializing beyond that.
With a friend like Annie, though, you didn’t really need to. Her personal gravity was enough for others to easily acquire an orbit, which was how Claire found herself invited to a three-day city extravaganza, beginning with Coney Island and ending with an off-off-Broadway production of Avenue Q.
Claire was loitering by Zoltar, the fortune-telling machine, and eating a hot dog when a cute blond guy sidled up to her, jerking a thumb toward the leering mechanical face. “He tell you anything good?”
Even Claire, who was not generally one to be flirted with, knew that in this moment she was being flirted with. She fought past her initial instinct to run, sure she would somehow fuck it up. Instead, she grinned around her hot dog, raised a brow. “I haven’t asked yet, actually.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” He turned toward the machine, fishing in his pocket for change.
Tall and muscular in an unassuming way, with gold hair and bright-blue eyes and a serious tilt to his mouth.
He could have been mistaken for a celebrity, and the wink he flashed her—cringey from anyone else, charming from him—said he knew it.
A quarter fed to the slot made Zoltar jerk to life, but Claire’s eyes were on this mysterious flirting stranger rather than the robot fortune teller.
His blue eyes flicked from Zoltar to the direction of the beach and back again.
He almost seemed nervous, but that didn’t make sense.
Why would this guy be nervous talking to her?
Brown-haired, brown-eyed, average height and build, averagely pretty.
She didn’t stick out in a crowd, not like him.
So her nerves, fluttering in her gut and making her hot dog unwelcome, were entirely justified.
She was still holding the hot dog and didn’t really know what to do with her hands, afraid that if she put it down she would reveal the large dollop of mustard working its way over her index finger.
Licking fingers was supposed to be sexy, but she didn’t think it counted with mustard.
The blond guy’s hands were shoved in his pockets, his brows drawn down as he watched Zoltar. But he glanced down at her through pale lashes with those brilliant-blue eyes, flashed her a small, self-conscious smile. And it soothed her, to see that he really was nervous, just as nervous as she was.
Claire threw the rest of her hot dog in the trash and surreptitiously licked up the mustard while the blond guy watched the fortune teller’s slot, not even trying for sexy.
When the card was printed, Claire grabbed it, flipped it back and forth in her fingers. “Does it count if you didn’t pay for it?” God, she was bad at this. “I mean, will the fortune be for me or for you?”
“Read it first.” Another one of those grins, and already they made her chest feel warm, like she was the only person for miles. “If it’s a really good one, I might take it for myself.”
Claire smiled back, then looked down at the card, deepening her voice to what she hoped were arcane tones. “‘You will always go back to the ocean.’” A snort. “Yeah, you can have that one.”
When she looked up, his face was pale.
He recovered quickly from whatever had thrown him off; his hand twitched, like he might reach out and take the paper, then dove deeper in his pocket when he realized that wasn’t the right move.
It was endearing, to see that all this was as foreign to him as it was to her, to see that he didn’t really know what to do with himself, either.
Flattering, to know he’d approached her out of everyone here, despite his nervousness.
Her pull had been strong enough to overcome his apprehension.
Claire had never thought she was the type.
Everyone else seemed to come and go so easily.
“I’m Elias,” he said. “And if you have the room for another hot dog, I would love to buy it for you.”
She cocked her head, emboldened, feeling somehow brighter, like all the colors that made her up were more saturated because he was looking at them. “Make it a soft pretzel instead, and I’m in.”
They’d spent the rest of the three days together.
Claire skipped Avenue Q to walk with him in Central Park, wandering around the benches and weaving through dog walkers.
He made conversations seem deep while staying easy—talk about childhoods that wasn’t really talking about them, just mutual acknowledgment of them being lackluster.
Elias told her he’d just come from five years of working for his family’s business.
“So you started when you were, what? Eighteen?” She’d been working the cash register at a Wendy’s when she was eighteen.
“They start us early,” Elias answered. “It’s a lot to learn. I’m glad to be done with it.”
“Is that how it usually goes?” She had zero knowledge of family businesses. Of families. “You only have to work there for a few years?”
“Not usually.” He shrugged. “My parents—for all their flaws—have done a lot to make sure their children have a good life. So much more than anyone else would ever do.” His lips twisted. “I don’t like them. I don’t talk to them. But I respect them.”
Weird. But she was in no place to judge.
“So the deal was, I do my years in the business, and then I get my trust.” A shy glance of blue eyes.
He seemed shy so often, in those early years.
Like he thought he might scare her away, before he knew that there was nearly nothing he could do to make her go.
“Most of my obligations are fulfilled now. I guess I don’t really know what to do with myself. ”
Claire was just as aimless. She had a year left in her marketing degree, but no leads on what to do after that. “The future is freelance,” she said, with a half-hearted laugh.
“You can make that work,” Elias responded. “If you have someone to take care of you.”
An outdated statement, one that should’ve tugged her into calling him out. But instead she grinned, still feeling that effervescence, that brightness. “Are you offering to take care of me?”
No one ever had. Not since the accident, not since she went to live with Aunt Margo, not since Aunt Margo cut her loose the moment it was legal to do so.
Independence was a thing to be valued, certainly, but was it so bad to want solid ground beneath you?
Being taken care of sounded nice, really, and part of her wanted a chance to try it out.
There was nothing small or hesitant in his answering smile, this time. “Yeah.” One hand came out of his pocket, twined around hers instead. “I guess I am.”
She was caught, then, like a fish on a hook.
○ ○ 2. ○ ○
Two years later, after Claire graduated, they had the house in Connecticut, the one on five acres in a historic district that she thought of as a mansion but he referred to as a bungalow.
Claire worked because she wanted to; so did he.
She took long walks every night, because she liked the solitude, but also because she wanted to stay in shape.
A guy like Elias didn’t deserve someone who let herself go.
The car came up behind her silently—or at least, silently to Claire, who had drowned out ambient noise with Cardi B in her headphones.
It kept playing as the car bumped her calves, almost like an insistent cat, kept going until her legs were mostly beneath the hood and her head cracked onto the cement.
It was gone in a blur of black paint and blue headlights.
○ ○ 3. ○ ○
He took her to the fanciest restaurant she had ever been to the night he proposed, after she was released from the hospital, still weak and bruised but mostly fine.
Despite her injuries, Claire was the happiest she had ever been.
He was perfect, so perfect that even the times when he got frustrated and yelled, and the one night he’d thrown the wineglass at the wall, and once when he’d called her a bitch for saying he should tip their Uber driver, were all almost moments of relief.
Proof that he was human, that she wasn’t dreaming.
That he was perfect, yes, but not godlike, so he wouldn’t leave her. Especially not now.
He’d stayed by her bedside in the hospital, unfailingly vigilant, holding her hand. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, over and over again. “I’m so, so sorry.”
And even though she hurt all over, Claire felt like she was glowing, like the light of her happiness was so bright it must be seeping from her pores.
The chef greeted him like a close personal friend. The table was on the roof, under laden arbors and chains of Edison bulbs. The food was delicious, and when he stood up to slowly sink down on one knee, Claire almost cried right then, because it was perfect, it was perfect.
“Yes,” she said, before he even opened his mouth. “Yes, of course.”
And maybe a shadow passed over his eyes, or maybe it was just the wine. He smiled, and as he slipped the three-carat ring on her finger, he said, “This is the most important thing I’ll ever do.”
And she glowed inside, bright as blue headlights, bright as sunrise on the ocean.