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The next morning Claire woke up to find JJ was gone. She did find a full glass of water and small note on her bedside table though that he'd written on explaining he'd left to let her rest alone. Claire would be lying if she said she wasn't a little disappointed, but she appreciated that he stayed the night. At the thought of him, she looked down at the shirt she wore to bed and smiled to herself, remembering clearly the night he left it here. She'd just forgotten about it until now.
When Claire stood up, her entire body ached. She felt her neck and it was still swollen, worse than last night, and she new there was no way she could leave her room without having to explain. She took a sip of water from the glass and winced as it hurt to swallow. She placed the glass back on the table and decided that today, she wouldn't do a single thing. After the last however many days of non-stop moving and running from danger, Claire's exhaustion seemed to have finally caught up with her and, with the added pain of her neck, she simply crawled back into bed and went to sleep.
After a couple of hours, Claire woke up and felt so much more refreshed than she had before. She was still tired and her body still ached, but a few extra hours of sleep was just what she needed. She got changed and grabbed her makeup kit before sneaking out of her room and into the bathroom so that her mother wouldn't hear her. She quietly pulled out her foundation and brushes and started to apply the product as best she could to cover up the bruises. It only took her a few minutes, and there were only faint traces left in different spots. Claire concluded that if her mother did notice and ask, she'd blame it on hickies.
Luckily, Jackie was nowhere to be found.
Claire assumed she was probably out with the real estate woman and avoiding Claire after their argument yesterday. The brunette didn't mind of course, because for the first time in forever she had the place to herself.
As she wandered the house, tidying up things along the way, she came across her mother's bedroom. Jackie always had the door locked shut when she wasn't in there, to keep everyone out–Claire included. She never understood why, but she figured it was because of her father and that most likely all of his stuff was still in there, packed away in the back of the closet. But this time the door was unlocked and ajar. Claire walked into the room and wasn't surprised to see what it looked like now. Compared to hers, Jackie's was bland and sad. There weren't any picture frames of any kind on the walls, the bed covers were an ugly shade of grey and the closet was only half full, with a few suitcases lying on the ground beside the bed, actually filled with stuff.
Claire scoffed. "Of course she's started packing already." She muttered to herself.
The sight of the room made the brunette wonder what happened to the woman she used to once know as her fun-loving, carefree, happy mother. Instead, what she saw in front of her was a room that belonged to a stranger. Someone who had shut herself off from the world and spread every bit of sadness inside of her with the whole room. Claire understood that her mother was still hurting, but she also knew that running away from your problems never solved anything and that's exactly what Jackie Hastings was doing. She was running.
