So I turn.
“How dare you?” Her eyes are wild, hair sticking up from her head like flames. “How could you do this to me?”
I don’t pretend not to know what she’s talking about. It’s too late for that.
“I’m sorry, Claire. You didn’t deserve this. I—”
But the sentence withers in my throat as I see what’s in her hand, starlight refracting off a piece of silver. A knife.
“Claire,” I say again, this time more cautiously, as I take a step back. I’ve been this person before. I’ve been Claire. Hurt beyond what anyone should take, with no other choice than to hurt someone else, to make them feel the same.
It happens in a blink. Claire raises her hand as I cower, arms infront of my face, as if that will be any defense against the sharp blade of the knife.
And then I wait. One second, two.
When I dare to open my eyes, I could cry.
Claire stands there, her eyes glued not on me, but on the knife in her hand like it’s the first time she’s seeing it. She releases her fingers as if she’s been burned, and I watch the knife tumble down silently, the dirt around it erupting as it connects with the earth.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” Claire says, dropping to her knees.
And then it strikes me. How different she is from me. When backed into a corner, with no hope, I do one of two things. Lash out or run. But Claire is different. She confronts her problems head-on.
Within seconds, I’ve joined her on the ground. With the knife discarded several feet away, I wrap my arms around her protectively.
“You didn’t deserve this, Claire. You didn’t deserve any of this,” I murmur as she sobs. After a few minutes, she lifts her head, her eyes glazed and cloudy.
And I decide in that moment to tell her.
About my brother, what he did to me. And how that impacted how I’ve acted this entire trip.
I don’t tell hereverythingof course. I don’t tell her how I got my revenge on him. And I leave out some of my more pathetic moments. What I did in secret during our time in the Whitsundays, the life growing inside me as a result. I can’t bear her reaction to that on top of everything else. And I don’t tell her how much she hurtme by pulling away after Cairns. How she was the best friend I ever had. Until she wasn’t.
I don’t need to lay that on her on top of everything else.
“After what happened at dinner tonight, I felt so alone,” I say, emotion thick in my throat. “And Declan was just there, and he knew what I’d done, who I am…”
I stop as she pulls back in pain. “You trusted him more than me?”
“I was wrong,” I admit. And I know that’s the truth. I was hurt, so I chose to confide in the one person she was closer to than me. “It was never you. It was never your fault.”
Claire is silent for a few moments.
“So where are you going now?” she finally asks.
I take another deep breath, thinking through the best way to explain this to her.
“I’m getting out,” I say. “I’m going to try to start over again. As someone else.”
“What?” Claire asks sharply. “What are you talking about?”
“I have hair dye and this fantastic Aussie accent,” I say, impersonating the omnipresent dialect we’ve been hearing for the last few weeks. “I can basically be anyone.”
Claire doesn’t return my smile.
“But h-how?”
“I’m going to walk to a women’s center a few towns over. One of those places where people with violent partners can go to escape. They don’t ask questions.”
