Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires)

by Jessica Blake

  “Have you been seeing anyone?”

  I realized how that question could be construed into something I didn’t mean. A flush coming over my cheeks, I quickly spoke again. “I mean, have you been seeing a therapist or someone else to talk to?”

  Claire was silent for a few seconds. “No. I’ve thought about it…”

  “It can be scary,” I offered.

  She looked at me. “Yeah.” She laughed. “I don’t know why.”

  “Opening up is hard. Even to someone who’s there just for that.”

  “Hm… you’re kind of wise, you know.”

  I chuckled. “Wow. I don’t hear that very often.”

  “Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “Hm. Same age as me.”

  “We weren’t born on the same day, were we?”

  “Maybe. Maybe we’re twins separated at birth.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  The words slipped out before I could get to them, and I bit my tongue. Claire smiled though, looking down while she walked.

  “My birthday is December eighth,” she offered.

  “Mine’s November second.”

  She nodded but kept looking at the ground. “Five weeks apart.”

  “How’s New York?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “That’s a hard one to answer.”

  Just like that, her demeanor changed. Something had brought on an extreme bout of sadness. I could see it in the way her whole posture sagged, like a heavy ball and chain had just been wrapped tightly around her back. I started to apologize for bringing the city up, but she went on.

  “It’s good and it’s bad. Mostly it’s bad.”

  She looked up and over at the river. The trail curved, exposing the glimmering water through all the bushes and trees. A little dirt path strayed from the main one, heading for the water, and Claire took it. I followed her to a bench there.

  Instead of taking a seat, she stood at the edge of the bank, her arms crossed and her eyes trained on something on the other side. I shaded my eyes to try and find what she was looking at but then realized she probably wasn’t seeing anything at all.

  “Mostly it’s bad,” she repeated, the summary of the conclusion she’d already come to.

  “That makes sense.”

  She looked back at me, her face dead.

  “I’m sorry,” I admitted. “That was a stupid thing to say. I only said it because I didn’t know what else to say.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted the tiniest bit. “It’s all right. You didn’t have to say anything at all.”

  “What about being here? Is it better for you?”

  She looked down at her feet. “I don’t know.”

  I swallowed a sigh. Her pain, and something else, was so palpable I almost felt it myself. And there was nothing to be done about it.

  “Sometimes I think it’s better here,” she said. “But then I realize it doesn’t matter where I go. The things that hurt the most… they’re inside of me… in my head.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “I know.” She looked at me and smiled sadly. It felt as if she were the one comforting me, instead of it being the other way around. “Thank you.”

  “How’s Gwen doing? With the wedding stuff?”

  “She’s stressed. I mean, she always takes on too much anyway. But now, between Freddy’s and the wedding…” She shook her head. “She’s going to drop dead if she’s not careful.”

  Claire bit her lip and looked pained. “That was a stupid thing for me to say.”

  “Claire,” I softly said.

  Her shiny eyes fell on mine, questioning.

  “If you need anything, I’m here.”

  She swallowed hard, and I could tell it was to stop herself from crying. “Thank you. I had a nice time at the Met Gala.”

  It was the last thing I expected her to mention, but I couldn’t help but smile as memories of the night floated back. “Me too.”

  “You haven’t been in New York since then?”

  “No.”

  “It would have been nice to see you,” she whispered.

  Heat rushed into every inch of my body. “We can hang out while you’re here.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “That’s right. I forgot.”

  I hadn’t really. There was nothing about Claire that I simply forgot. “When are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered in a small voice. She’d gone back to staring at some undetermined point across the river. “You know, I can’t quite figure you out.”

  I studied her perfect profile. “I think you’ve said that before.” I sucked in a breath. “What do you want to know?”

  Her gaze locked back on mine. “You sound nervous.”

  I licked my lips and tried my hardest to not look away. “Ah, well, I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s see… um, because I…” I trailed off.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “No,” I quickly answered. “I do.”

  Claire blinked and stared at me. Like was so often the case with her, her expression was hard to read, but I got the sense she was genuinely curious.

  I selected my words carefully, doing my best to ignore the shakiness coming over me. “I don’t usually tell people a lot about myself because I’m ashamed… I’m ashamed of not having a job or a career to speak of.”

  Claire’s ear dropped to her shoulder. “Didn’t we already talk about that? You told me you read a lot, and I said that I think that’s a hell of a lot more useful to the world than selling shoes or whatever. Plus, your charities are important. They help people directly.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. Try as hard as I could, it was difficult to look at her. “Yeah, we did talk about it. Thank you for saying that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Then, really… thank you.”

  “But the whole issue still upsets you.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose it does.”

  “So get a career. Get a job.”

  “I think about it. All the time.”

  “So you just haven’t had enough time yet. Think about it some more.”

  I shook my head. “I’m almost thirty.”

  “Join the club. You don’t have to tell me what that feels like.”

  I laughed. “Am I being ridiculous?”

  Claire’s lips twisted. “I don’t know… you want to do something meaningful, I think. My impression is that you already do. You volunteer. You better yourself through reading.”

  “I still feel like something’s missing.”

  Claire stared at me. “What?”

  I ran my hands through my hair. Maybe I’d said too much.

  “I don’t know.”

  Maybe someone, I wanted to say.

  “Once again… join the club.”

  “You feel the same way?”

  Her eyes drifted away, back to the water. “I feel empty a lot, yes, but I think I know why… it’s not exactly a mystery.”

  Because of him.

  “What was he like?”

  Claire didn’t answer. She just looked at the river. I remained motionless, afraid to even breathe. I’d offended her. That or helped bring up a memory too painful to bear. I should have just kept my mouth shut.

  But then her words broke the space between us. “He was kind. He never said anything bad about anyone, and he always had empathy for others. He was calm. Nothing shook Peter. Nothing.”

  Claire stared at the river, and I stared at her. My throat burned, and my eyes grew hot. The person she described sounded amazing. It occurred to me that if she had been talking about any other past boyfriend, I would have been intensely jealous, but because the man she spoke of was dead, everything was different. I grieved along with her, not because I had known Peter, but because I knew what goodness in the world looked like, and I knew how i
t felt to see it disappear.

  And what could I say to all that? What was there that could possibly comfort her? The water below us gurgled on, moving downstream. The birds sang, and traffic honked from not far away. The most amazing soul who had ever walked the face of the earth could have just died, but still everything would go on.

  “You were lucky,” I said.

  It wasn’t what you were supposed to say in such a moment, I know, but Claire’s eyes fell back on mine. I’d expected to see tears there, but they were dry.

  “Yeah,” she murmured. The tiniest and saddest smile formed at one corner of her mouth. “I was lucky, wasn’t I? I never thought of it that way.”

  She laughed, but halfway through, it changed into a sob, and then suddenly she was chortling and crying at the same time.

  “God,” she gasped. “It’s…”

  “The worst and the best all at the same time?”

  She laughed even harder, tears falling from her red eyes and hitting her cheeks. “Yeah!”

  Tentatively, I lifted my hand in her direction. She saw the motion and stepped forward, allowing me to wrap my arms around her. Vanilla washed over me as her soft hair pressed against my face. She fit perfectly against my chest and in my arms. It was like our bodies had been made just to fold into each other.

  I tried not to count the seconds she was there, and I tried not to dread the moment when she would pull away. Our embrace wasn’t for me after all. It was for her.

  After a minute or so she cleared her throat and stepped back.

  “I’m sorry,” she rasped, quickly wiping her face.

  “No, don’t be. It’s all right. It’s fine to be feeling whatever you are.”

  She nodded. “I know. It’s just… embarrassing.”

  “I’m not judging you for anything.”

  “God, you’re nice.”

  “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

  That made her laugh. “The first one… I should get going.”

  “I can walk you the rest of the way.”

  She bit her lip, thinking about it. “No,” she answered. “That’s all right, but thank you.”

  My heart sank into my stomach. I tried to keep my voice even. “Oh. All right. You’re welcome.”

  She took a step backwards. “But hey… Owen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me know the next time you’re in New York, all right?”

  She gazed up at me with her brown eyes, still full of pain, but also brimming with so many other things. Secrets, jokes, memories… all things I wanted to pry out of her.

  “I will,” I promised.

  “Okay.” She smiled the slightest bit. “Bye.”

  I watched her turn. I watched her walk back to the paved trail and around the bend, and even after she was gone from sight, the vision of her still played in my mind’s eye, a broken hologram on repeat.

  There’s no such thing as love at first sight, I reminded myself. There’s no such thing.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Claire

  I dropped the office phone in its cradle, staring at it as if the cord had turned into a snake. It’s so strange how a moment in time can flash you back to another moment. To a memory. It was happening now. Jason in Crystal Brook, heading to my parents’ for lasagna. I told him to give everyone a hug for me.

  Just like I did back in March. Just before…

  I closed my eyes as every detail of that terrible day came back to me…

  I’d hung up the phone after speaking to Jason on that day too. But back then, I’d immediately picked up my cell phone, nervously checking the time. Four thirty-two. Peter and I had arranged to meet at my apartment in less than two hours. A novelist friend of his was doing a reading at a bookstore in the lower east side, and we were going to grab some dinner before heading there.

  “Tell everyone I said hi,” I told Jason.

  “Will do. Have a good weekend.”

  “You too. Bye.”

  We hung up, and I sat back down, taking a moment to slip one of my feet from my heels and stretch the arch. A huge gust of wind shook the building. The day had been gray and preposterously chilly. Another year I might have called it a gloomy March, but that year it was anything but. Instead, it was one of the best months of my life. The weeks had been great and the weekends even better.

  I smiled as I thought of Peter and the beautiful, blissful weekend stretched out in front of us.

  Thinking of the next two days made me remember that I’d texted him a few hours ago to ask if he wanted me to make reservations at the new Cuban place a few blocks from my apartment. We’d been talking about going there all week and that night seemed as good as any.

  My phone’s screen was empty, which was slightly odd. Peter worked from home, cranking out his freelance marketing writing assignments alongside snippets of poetry. His cell phone was typically nearby, and not more than an hour ever went by without him responding to a message.

  I pulled up my text messages just to make sure the one I’d sent delivered. There it was, the time that it had gone through displayed next to the message. I twisted my lips and hit the email icon to pull up my personal account.

  Other than the typical advertisements and newsletters, the inbox was empty. I typed a quick text out to him, to see if he’d gotten my text message, and then dropped the phone on the desk. There was still a long list of things to accomplish before leaving for the day if I wanted to get out of the office on time.

  At five-thirty, he still hadn’t responded, which was even odder. Peter worked on his computer, and he used the internet all day long to communicate with clients. Could his phone be lost and his internet out?

  “Weird,” I murmured to myself, opening the bottom drawer of my desk and grabbing my purse. After smoothing my skirt, I pulled my coat on and turned the lights in the room off.

  “Bye, Mike,” I waved. “Bye, Thea.”

  Everyone chimed in with their own goodbyes as I headed through our main office and then out into the lobby. After wishing the new front desk girl a good weekend, I jumped in the elevator and headed downstairs. As the box glided down, I couldn’t resist the urge to check my phone one more time, just in case it had gone off and I hadn’t heard it.

  There were still no messages.

  Was he ignoring me?

  My heart beat faster at the thought. No. He couldn’t be. We’d just seen each other the day before. Everything had been normal. There were no signs that he was mad or that I had done anything to upset him.

  I dropped my phone in my purse and told myself to calm down. Everything was going great between Peter and me. We’d been seeing each other for two months. Within that amount of time, we’d only spent a handful of days apart, hours during which we texted nonstop. Things were great. Just because nearly all of my relationships in the past hadn’t worked out didn’t mean this one was destined to meet the same fate.

  The elevator door opened, and I booked it across the lobby, zipping my coat up and bracing myself for the weather. The wind smacked me in the face, making me blink against it. Dodging a group of people, I hurried to the edge of the curb and teetered on it to hail a taxi. They were plentiful in the area around rush hour when most business people were getting out of work and looking for a ride home. Some days, I would take the subway or maybe even walk if there was nice weather and I had time, but on that day, I was anxious to get home. Not only did I still need to get ready for the evening, there was a sick feeling in my stomach over not having heard from Peter yet.

  A cab stopped, and I clambered into it. Maybe I needed to go to his place and find out what was up? I paused, debating.

  In the end, I gave the driver my own address. Peter and I were scheduled to meet at my place in an hour. If I went to Brooklyn, we would likely just end up missing each other.

  At home, I kicked my heels off and shimmied from the skirt. I needed to take a shower, but the anxiety was getting the best of me. I didn’t want to leave my phone, even for the f
ive minutes it would take to just rinse off. Instead, I pulled my blouse off and replaced my work clothes with a pair of high waisted black jeans and a tight fitting mauve shirt. As far as I knew, the reading would be a pretty casual one.

  I took my phone into the bathroom with me while I re-did my makeup, swiping the day’s paint from my face with a cloth before starting it all over.

  By the time I was ready to go, it was six-twenty. I went into the living room to wait.

  Settling down on the couch, I picked up the remote and flipped the television to Comedy Central. A woman I didn’t recognize was on stage doing stand-up. I couldn’t tell whether her jokes were funny or not. I picked my phone up from the coffee table. Six twenty-five.

  I kept the television on but went to brush my teeth. After that, I reapplied my lipstick and then checked my purse to make sure I had everything I needed for the night.

  I walked back into the living room and checked my phone. Six thirty-two.

  My stomach did a somersault.

  He was only two minutes late, which didn’t really count.

  But why hadn’t I heard from him all day?

  I walked to the window and looked down. The street lights had come on, and I could see the sidewalk across the road. If I pressed my face close enough to the glass, I could also see right below my building. A woman and a child walked by, wrapped up in jackets and hats.

  I took a deep breath and turned away from the window then walked to the kitchen. I walked back to the window. Realizing I was beginning to pace, I checked my phone again. Six thirty-six.

  I picked the phone up and hit Peter’s number. It rang and then rang some more before going to voice mail.

  “Damn it,” I whispered, hanging up right before the voice mail beeped.

  I held the phone in my hand and just stood there, waiting for someone to give me an answer as to what to do next. I raised my hand to my mouth and started to chew on the side of my nail but then dropped it.

  I sat down, flipped through a few channels, turned the TV off, turned it back on. I hated the chatter. Hated what was happening on each and every channel.

  I checked the phone again. Six forty-five. Something wasn’t right.

  Facebook. I’d check Facebook. Peter rarely got on, but maybe by chance he had. Perhaps his phone really had just bit the dust, and he’d put a message online to let people know.