9. Clark #2
“Just blow up the train?” she asked, in all seriousness.
“Sorry, it’s from an old Western I had to watch at my first foster home.
Train robbery gone wrong. Anyway, I pulled the trigger because I couldn’t stand all the extra secrecy that has come into my life since you have.
I care for you so much, so fast, that I feel like I have emotional whiplash, and now I might have destroyed my own career because I couldn’t be patient about all this?
Goddess, I hope they don’t fire me. No one else will hire me if I was the creeper boss who had a thing for her subordinate. ”
It was my turn to take a huge breath of air.
She was prepared to throw her whole career away over a possible us?
No, that wasn’t exactly it. She was prepared for a horrible consequence of telling anyone the truth.
I had to do something, but I wasn’t sure what.
I guess I could be the person who supports her through whatever shitstorm was about to arrive Monday.
All thanks to me, I might add. Fucking hell.
I was about to launch into a speech when she beat me to it.
“I know things about people,” she began.
“Things I’d often rather I didn't know. That's what makes this so difficult because I can tell that you are honest practically to a fault, Clark.
Well, I've had to do a lot in my life to protect myself both mentally and physically.
Sometimes I've had to lie and steal to keep food in my belly or a roof over my head. You've probably heard the bits of my tragic past that have been passed around as office gossip by now.” I felt my head tilt to the side, a dead giveaway that I knew what she was referring to yet wished I didn’t.
“Oh, don't give me that look. It’s fine. People are fascinated with other people's tragedies. Why should mine be any different?” She dropped my hand to get a tissue, and wiped her eyes, then blew her nose. “Sorry, just, this isn’t easy for me to talk about. So it’s Christmas Eve, and I’m eight.
It was snowing, you know, that kind of big-flake snow that comes down slow?
My parents, older brother, Thomas, and I were going out to look at the lights.
That’s what we were told, anyway. I remember that much.
We were really going into hiding, I think.
My parents screwed up. They got us involved with a group of zealots that they never should have, and it took them almost a decade to figure out that a cult was paying them off in exchange for access to their children, which was fundamentally wrong.
I don’t think my biological parents were the brightest bulbs.
I also think they liked money too much.” A cold sensation came over me, not because of the definite sudden drop of temperature in the apartment, but because of what she was saying.
Her family was involved with a “group of zealots.” How in the fucking hell could we both have histories that linked us to cults?
I did my best to get out of my own head and listen, because she was on a bit of a roll, it seemed.
“To cut a long story very short, a drunk driver hit us.
I had been sitting in the front seat on my father's lap, and he had the seat belt around both of us.
It didn't stop me from getting thrown from the car, but that turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise because I escaped the fire—at least that's what the news called it.
Some blessing, right? I spent time in the hospital, and my parents and Thomas died in either the impact or the fire.
There's information for me if I wanted to dig it up.
How long each of them lived after the impact or were their deaths instant, things like that.
Horrible things like that. I've prohibited Thomas from telling me.” That unexpected cold snap? Just got way worse.
Her whole face paled at that moment, and she lifted one tremulous hand to cover her mouth.
Then the last thing she said registered in my mind.
Her brother died in the car crash twenty-one years ago, yet she had forbidden him from telling her the circumstances of his own death.
Was this what she meant when she had rather cryptically said she knew things about people she didn't want to know?
Did she really think she was communicating somehow with her dead brother?
I was quickly accumulating more questions than answers.
Olly looked like she was about to hurl as tears again filled her eyes.
She moved her free hand from her mouth to wipe the tears away before they spilled over and cleared her throat.
Sure, I wanted answers, but more than that, I wanted Olly to be alright.
“I think that's enough for one night,” I murmured to reassure her that I was interested in her well-being and not just gossip about the near unspeakable tragedy that had befallen her family. She sat firm, her eyes locked on me, and once again, surprised me with her courage and determination. I stared back into her eyes as long as I could but had to stop because I couldn’t help but notice around her, and me, something white was falling from the ceiling.
Dust? Nope, way too cold. It was snow. Real fucking snow, at least by the way it looked, and how the flakes melted as soon as they touched our skin.
“It's nowhere near enough, Clark. There's so much more, so much left that I haven't told anyone.
Of course, you might think that I'm crazypants, but I don't think you're like that. If anything, I can see you interfering, thinking it was for my own good, like fighting my inner kraken or something...fuck, you can tell that it’s snowing in here?” It was pretty obvious that I could, as I had gotten cold to the point that I had crossed my free arm around my chest for warmth.