"Claire!" I call. She turns, waits until I have caught up with her before she begins walking again.
"All recovered?" she asks with just the right amount of worry in her voice.
Is she just acting it?
I look over but there's nothing. No tells, just her face and the beginning of a frown.
"We need to talk," I say in a low voice. "Now."
The frown deepens. "What happened?"
"Just- Do you have a place where we can talk privately?"
She nods. "Yeah, sure."
She leads me down the hallway into the less frequently used part of the building, pulls open a door to the left and lets me in.
A classroom, empty. I haven't been in this one before, I don't think.
"The classrooms here are usually empty during breaks and nobody ever bothers locking them," she says, leaning against one of the tables.
"So, what's bothering you?"
I breath in and my stomach flutters. The truth is about to come out.
"Alex told me how you two got to know each other," I say, closely paying attention to her face.
There's a moment's hesitation, then she smiles relieved.
"So the two of you sorted things out? That's wonderful."
Is she diverting the subject or actually happy for me? I can't tell.
I close my eyes for just a moment.
"No," I say then. "Well, kind of, but not really. That's actually why I'm talking to you. I want to hear your version of the story."
The smile retreats and there's just the hint of a frown.
"Okay." She says it like it's more of a question than a statement.
"Alright, so."
How do I start this? Awkwardly, I shift my weight, scratch at my elbow, look out the window. No getting around this now.
"Alex said you two used to date."
Look at her expectantly. A nod. But no words.
"He said that you're a very toxic person and that you used to say all sorts of cruel things about me and about my relationship with him." My throat is tight but she doesn't interrupt me. "He said he wanted to break up with you but you wouldn't let him and threatened him to accuse him of raping him and-" I break off. There's a sad, faraway look on her face as she glances out the window.
"Claire." I breathe in, trying to get rid of the shiver in my voice. "Are you trying to get back at him through me? Are you trying to... hurt me or him? Because if you are-" I trail off, don't know what I should even threaten her with. Then I'm never gonna talk to you again. Yeah right.
She's frowning now.
"Wow," she says then and a little laugh – a hitch in her breath, more like – escapes her. "So... that's a lot to take in." Her voice is bitter.
The reaction is so inappropriate that it completely throws me off the track. Does the laughter make it more believable?
"So you're saying you didn't do any of that?"
She looks up, surprised. "Wha-" Like even the notion is ridiculous to her. "Of course I didn't. I mean-" She shakes her head in disbelief. "I get that we didn't part on the best of terms but... I never thought that-"
YOU ARE READING
Moonlit Waters
Romance"I'm just scared somehow that you're not even real." "And what if I wasn't? What if I wasn't, but wanted to be?" When Timothy Crow gets the ability to turn into a girl whenever he goes swimming, his first reaction is to panic, resulting in his near...
