39. Clara
Clara
The silence is louder than any storm.
Three days. Seventy-two hours of a hollow, aching void where Adrian used to be. No texts. No calls. No sarcastic jabs in the library. No large, warm body sliding into the seat next to me in class. Just empty space that feels carved out of my own ribs.
I try to tell myself it’s fine, that it was casual, physical.
A wildfire meant to burn out. But my body disagrees.
My chest is a locked room I can’t find the key to.
My stomach is a tight, anxious knot. I haven’t slept in two nights.
Coffee doesn’t help. The words in my textbooks blur into an incoherent mess.
Every time I walk across campus, my head whips around at the sight of a dark hoodie, my heart lurching with a sick mix of hope and dread.
But it’s never him. He’s the one who vanished. And I’m the one who’s wrecked.
A sharp knock on my door makes me jump. My first, stupid thought is him. But the knock is followed by Zoe’s impatient voice. I ignore it, pulling a pillow over my head. The door opens anyway—Zoe has a key, a fact I constantly regret—and my three friends file in.
Zoe takes one look at my messy room, the unread books, my huddled form on the bed, and her usual bubbly energy deflates. “Okay, intervention time,” she says, her voice soft as she sits on the edge of my bed. “You look like actual shit, Clara.”
“I’m fine,” I say, the lie thin and brittle, my voice muffled by the pillow.
Genny sits on my other side, her presence a quiet, steady warmth. “He just disappeared,” she says for me, her voice a calm statement of fact.
Talia lingers by the door, her arms crossed, her expression a mixture of sympathy and something knowing. “My dad benched him from practice today for his attitude,” she says quietly. “He’s spiraling too, Clara. This isn’t just you.”
The information hits me like a body check. He’s spiraling too. The thought doesn’t make me feel better, but it makes me feel less alone in the chaos. I finally sit up, pushing my tangled hair out of my face, and nod at Genny’s statement, my throat too tight to speak.
“That’s what guys like him do,” Zoe says, her voice uncharacteristically gentle, taking my hand. “They burn bright and then they burn out. They don’t know how to handle something real, so they run. It’s not your fault.”
“That’s how this story usually ends,” Genny adds quietly, her gaze intense. “The powerful boy breaks the girl who got too close, and she’s left to pick up the pieces. But it doesn’t have to be your ending, Clara. You get to decide what happens next.”
I shake my head, a hot, angry tear finally escaping.
The pity, the narrative of me as the broken one—it ignites something fierce and defiant in my chest. “No. I won’t let that be the ending.
If he’s done, if this was all just some game to him, he’s going to say it to my face.
I’m not going to let him turn me into a ghost.”
After they leave, their worried glances lingering in the air, I call my mom. I lie, of course, telling her I’m just stressed about finals, but she hears the tremor in my voice.
“Clara, honey,” she says, her voice a warm balm. “You are the strongest person I know. Whatever it is, you can handle it. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel small or disposable. You fight for what you deserve.”
Her words are the final push I need. I am not disposable. And I deserve an answer. I’m done waiting. I’m done being the ghost.
The weather breaks around midnight. Rain first, sharp and sideways. Then sleet. Then snow, the wind howling like a razor against the windows. I pull on my boots, yanking the laces tight with angry, decisive tugs, and grab my warmest coat.
I find him where I knew I would: outside the rink.
Hoodie up against the driving snow, hands shoved deep in his pockets, pacing like a caged animal in the swirling vortex of white.
He’s a storm of his own, and I’m walking right into the eye of it.
He sees me and stops dead, his face a mask of shock, guilt, and a pain so raw it steals my breath.
I don’t hesitate. I march right up to him, my chest heaving, my heart hammering so loud it echoes in the frigid air. The wind whips my words away, but I shout them anyway. “You don’t get to do this.”
His mouth parts, snow melting on his lips, but I barrel on, the words a torrent of pain and fury.
“You don’t get to wreck my life, sleep in my bed, kiss me like you can’t breathe without it, and then disappear like I never mattered!
If you’re done—fine! But you say it to my face. Be a goddamn man about it!”
He doesn’t speak. He just stares, his eyes a haunted, broken landscape. I see the war in them—the pride fighting the shame, the arrogant Hale captain fighting a man who looks completely lost. My throat burns. My pulse hammers. My voice drops, breaking on the final plea.
“Say it,” I whisper, a plume of white breath carrying the words between us. “Say it, Adrian, and let me go.”
The silence holds, thick with the hiss of falling snow. Then he steps forward, slow and deliberate, a storm cloud with teeth.
“I’m not done,” he says, his voice hoarse and raw. “I’m fucked, Clara.”
Then he’s grabbing me, his hands cold and shaking on my arms. Mine are colder.
But when his mouth crashes into mine, none of it matters.
His lips are ice-cold from the storm, but the kiss itself is pure fire.
We kiss like it’s an act of violence, like it’s penance, the only thing keeping us alive in the middle of the blizzard.
It’s a brutal, punishing kiss, full of rage and relief and a desperation so profound it feels like we’re both drowning.
I fist his soaked hoodie, pulling him closer.
He cups my face like he’s scared I’ll vanish, his thumbs stroking over my frozen cheeks.
Snow melts in my hair. Ice slides down my spine.
And I still open for him, still breathe him in like he’s the cure and the poison both.
He pulls back, forehead resting against mine, his chest heaving as he tries to anchor himself. His hands are trembling where they frame my face. “I’m sorry,” he says, the words a raw, broken sound I’ve never heard from him. “Clara, I’m so fucking sorry. For disappearing. I was a coward.”
I stare at him, stunned into silence by the raw apology.
“This… us…” he struggles, his gaze dropping for a second before finding mine again.
“It scares the shit out of me. I don’t know how to do this.
I don’t know how to be the person you need.
” He takes a ragged breath, the confession a cloud of steam.
“But it was never that I don’t want you.
Fuck, Clara, I want you so much it’s going to tear me apart. That’s the problem. That’s why I ran.”
It isn’t sweet. It isn’t safe. But it’s the most real, honest thing anyone has ever said to me.
And it’s ours. I look up at him. Really look.
His mouth is swollen from the kiss, his hair wet and curling at the edges of his hood, his jaw tight like it’s the only thing holding him together. And I make a choice.
“I’m not walking away,” I say, my voice steady now. Then, softer, “But I’m done waiting for you to decide if I’m worth it.”
A flicker of something fierce and determined crosses his face, chasing away the fear. He leans in, his lips brushing mine. “I choose you, Clara,” he says, his voice thick with a vow. “I’m choosing you. Every fucking time.”
I take his hand—cold, calloused, perfect—and press it under my coat, flat against my stomach. “Come with me.”
We barely make it to my dorm, a trail of melted snow in our wake. His soaked hoodie hits the floor the second the door closes. And then I’m on him, pushing him back, kissing him like I’ve been starving. But this time, it’s mine. I push him onto the edge of my bed and straddle his lap.
“Clara…” His voice is wrecked.
“No more pulling away,” I whisper, dragging my lips down the cold, damp skin of his throat. “You don’t get to hold all the power.”
His fingers dig into my hips, a possessive, grounding touch. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
“Then show me,” I whisper, unbuttoning his jeans, my cold fingers clumsy against the hot skin of his stomach. “Let me drive you crazy too.”
He groans and flips us before I can blink—me on my back now, his body a heavy, welcome weight.
But this isn’t about him taking control; it’s a surrender.
He slows down. His mouth finds every part of me like it’s a prayer.
His fingers trace my ribs, my thighs, his tongue dragging over my nipple until I arch up and gasp.
This is a give-and-take, a slow, desperate rediscovery.
I take him in. Every inch. Every sound. Every look.
I roll us again, climbing on top, needing to be the one in charge. My body is aching, my need so sharp I could cry. He watches me like I’m sacred and ruined and his.
“Clara,” he says again, like it’s the only word he knows.
I sink down onto him in one slow, aching slide. “I want you to feel how much I want this,” I whisper. “How much I want you.”
His eyes roll back, his hands gripping my hips. But I don’t let him take over. I move—a slow, torturous grinding, a rhythm that is all mine.
“Fuck,” he growls, his voice strained. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Then die knowing I chose this,” I whisper back, leaning down to kiss him, swallowing his groan.
He comes undone before I do, his hands grabbing my hips, his head falling back, his whole body trembling beneath me.
And I keep moving until I fall apart too, moaning into his mouth, our orgasms cresting and crashing together.
We don’t speak for a long time after. He just holds me, his hand tracing lazy circles along my thigh.
Eventually, I shift to one side and pull the blanket up.
My heart hasn’t calmed. Neither has his.
“You’re dangerous,” he murmurs into the dark.
I kiss his shoulder. “So are you.”
He doesn’t leave.
And for the first time in days, I sleep.