The Timeline

22.

AN: heavy mentions of emotional and physical abuse. Read at your own discretion.

February 7th, 2015:

"I think we should become a couple." - Robert had said, the moment they had touched back down in England from their plane, the previous Monday.

Since she was already acting like she was his girlfriend and he expected her to act as such - had called her 'my girl', after all - Claire had nodded her head. It was done: she was now Robert's girlfriend.

If she stopped to think about her relationships, Claire would've noticed a pattern, which was funny for the observer: all of her relationships had begun in February, or close to the month. Must've been something in the February air that made her eligible for being someone's girlfriend: first Fannie, then Josh and now Robert. Each one the exact opposite of the other.

Had Claire stopped to think about it, to consider the whole thing, she might've found it hilarious. She didn't stop. She hadn't thought about much lately. It had been a weird couple of days, ever since getting back from LA, and Claire knew it wasn't the cocaine. No, she had worked it out of her system pretty early on in the night: puked it all out on the way to the airport, actually, on the side of the road. Both the taxi driver and Robert had been pissed: the taxi driver because she had almost got his seats dirty; Robert because she had delayed them, making him spend more money than he had planned to. Had he bothered to ask Claire about it, she would've told him she could afford the ride from the taxi to the airport, since she had gotten paid recently. He hadn't. Claire hadn't dared contradict him.

She hadn't dared do anything to contradict him ever since getting back, actually: he wanted her to be his girlfriend, she had agreed; he wanted to come by earlier than the usual weekend since he had wrapped things up at work, she agreed; he wanted her to stay with him at the hotel instead of staying at her house for that week, she agreed.

She went along with him, not finding it in herself to start a fight. She knew she wouldn't have won: when she was at the height of her strength, it was hard to stand up to Robert, older and wiser and always ready to make her feel like she was dumb; now that she felt so weak and sad and deflated, she knew she didn't stand a chance. So she just let him be.

Her friends didn't understand the reason she had accepted being his girlfriend. They kept on reminding her that she had said they were casual, just hooking up (which was still gross, according to all of them, since Robert was 34), that neither of them wanted anything serious, that they weren't exclusive blah blah blah...

Claire hadn't bothered telling them that she had stopped being casual with him ever since he had thrown a tantrum over her mentioning one of her uni mates, a guy she saw 3 times a week, at best! There was no point in pretending she was casual with Robert, because he might've said so, but he didn't want her to. He was, for lack of a better word, possessive; jealous. So there was no point pretending that she was casual with him. He might've been casual with her, but she was not allowed to be casual with him. She had to expect it, literally every man was like that.

But, for some reason, she couldn't find it in herself to care about it. It was... so pointless.

So, when Robert had finally dropped all types of pretenses of the two of them being casual, Claire had felt grateful. Relieved, even. Finally there was one thing in her life that was now clear, black and white, no more gray area. There were already enough gray areas in her brain. More than she would've liked. More than she could afford to think about.

Claire felt so tired and demotivated, lately.

She went on with her life on autopilot: she woke up, ate breakfast that didn't taste like anything, went to university and attended classes about things she knew she loved but couldn't find it in herself to be excited about, ate lunch that didn't taste like much and got stuck in her throat as she tried to swallow, attended more lectures and some seminars, went back home and ate dinner with her friends who looked at her like she was some type of wounded animal who needed saving.