Chapter 22

Claire

“Open the damn box, Claire.” His voice was stern. “I don’t feel like threatening you on my birthday.”

“You’re acknowledging that it’s your birthday now?”

“Five seconds.”

“No.”

“No?” He raised his eyebrow.

“Are you a parrot?” I tossed the box back to him. “You heard me.”

He narrowed his eyes and reached out to grab me, but I jumped up and stepped backwards. He jumped up with ease and smiled his wicked grin. “You always have to do things the hard way, don’t you?” He lunged towards me, but I slipped away.

I ran out of the room with him on my heels, dashing down the grand staircase. I rushed through the double corridors, past the parlor, and into the kitchen—hoping to hide in the two-roomed pantry. Before I could slip inside, I felt myself being lifted into the air and tossed over his shoulder.

“Next time I won’t give you a head start.” He playfully smacked my ass. He carried me outside to the pool deck and set me down on a plush lounge chair. He reached into his pocket and handed me the ring box again. “Now.”

I sighed. I flipped the box open and saw a folded sheet of paper sitting in the ring slot. “A note?”

“Read it.”

I unfolded it and cleared my throat. “Dear Ms. Gracen, on behalf of Vintage Consolidated Loan Company, we are writing to inform you that the balance on your outstanding mortgage and student loan accounts is officially zero. We are enclosing the history of payments that were recently...” I stopped reading aloud and read the rest to myself.

I felt tears forming at the corners of my eyes. “You paid off my house? And my student loans?” I felt like I needed to say it out loud to confirm it.

“I should’ve done it sooner,” he said softly. 

“I—” I was speechless. “Thank you so much...I don’t even know what to—I can’t believe you—”

“Now you don’t need to work overtime and you can spend all your extra time with me. This was more so a gift for me than you.” He smiled. “Wasn’t that way better than a proposal?”

I laughed and let a few tears fall. “Thank you so much...”

“You’re more than welcome, but the next time I give you a gift and you even think about not opening it when I tell you to—”

I pressed my lips against his and bit down on his tongue. “If you’ve fulfilled your ‘I-must-make-Claire-do-whatever-I-say’ quota for the day, I would like to end your birthday properly. And by properly, I mean fucking you against this chair until you can’t walk...”

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I slid a pair of shades over my eyes and lay back on a fluffy yellow blanket. I held my e-reader in front of my face and continued to read through one of my favorite books—Fahrenheit 451.

When I’d woken up this morning—exhausted from everything Jonathan and I had done last night, he’d suggested that we have a breakfast picnic at the park. I thought we were going to cook the food ourselves and bring it along, but we drove to the park.

Shortly after we arrived, trays of Belgian waffles, organic strawberries, bacon, eggs, and toast were delivered from an exclusive restaurant.

“Are you planning on reading all day?” He kissed my cheek.

“Will that be a problem?”

“Not until tonight.” He lay down next to me and took the e-reader from my hands. “You haven’t said much to me all morning. Are you okay?”

Why is he so good at noticing stuff like that? “I’m fine.”

He rolled on top of me and looked into my eyes. “The truth...”

I wish I could tell you...“Nothing’s wrong...I’ve just been thinking lately and I—Okay...I honestly like you a lot, and I know you said that I shouldn’t worry about...” I sighed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Why did you want to go on a date with me so badly after we’d already had sex?”

He arched his brow. “What do you mean?”

“You kept asking me to go out every day and I kept turning you down...I would think that a man would rather accept ‘no-strings-attached’ sex rather than trying to pursue—”

“I liked you the first day I saw you. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen...And there was—and still is, something about you that I couldn’t get over. When you turned me down at the grocery store and at work—not to mention standing me up after I thought you’d said yes, I decided I wouldn’t take no for an answer. The sex was exceptional, but I wanted to get to know you better.”

“But you could’ve gotten anyone.”

“I wanted you.” He kissed my lips.

“Why? You barely knew me back then. You—”

“Do you slip into these insecure ruts often?”

Is once or twice a week often? “Why?”

“Because if you do, I’m clearly not doing my job, and I need to do more to make you understand how much I care about you, how I’m willing to do anything to make you happy.”

My heart fluttered. “No, it’s not—I’m not doubting that you care. I just want to be fully prepared for when you finally wake up and realize that you and I aren’t—”

“Stop it.” He cupped my face in his hands. He pressed his forehead against mine and whispered. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever. As a matter of fact, you’ll leave me before I leave you.”

“Jona—”

“I’m sorry that you’ve been feeling this way so often. I’ll do better.” He kissed me and ran his fingers through my hair. “Did you have any plans for today?”

“No...I cleared my whole weekend for your birthday.”

He smiled. “In that case, I want to take you somewhere.” He rolled off of me and pulled me to my feet. “Come on.”

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I was sitting in the backseat of the town car wearing a black blindfold over my eyes. I couldn’t see anything but darkness, and every time I attempted to take a peek, Jonathan playfully tapped my hand.

We’d been riding along for at least an hour and I was getting anxious, excited. I knew wherever he was taking me was going to be amazing.

“Mr. Statham, is this close enough?” Greg asked as the car slowed down.

“This is perfect. Thank you.” He made sure the blindfold was still tight and helped me out of the car. He grabbed my hand and we took several steps into the harsh blowing winds.

“We’re here...” he said. “Well, almost. We still have another two hours to go before we get there.”

“Another two hours? Why did we get out of the car?”

He laughed and lifted me up onto what felt like a short stack of steps. Then I felt him holding both of my hands.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

I nodded excitedly and he slowly moved the blindfold away from my eyes.

My heart dropped as soon as I saw what the “surprise” was. I tried to keep myself calm but it was no use.

His large private plane was standing a couple hundred feet away: It was a white Citation Sovereign jet—seating capacity for nine, three thousand miles of nonstop mileage, and easily worth eighteen million.

I knew that because my girls had built that particular model over and over, because they’d gushed about how it was the top of the line in executive flight travel.

I saw the pilot descending from the cabin—waving at us, and I suddenly lost the ability to breathe. I clutched the flag charms on my necklace and my knees buckled underneath me.

“Claire?” Jonathan helped me back up. “Claire, what’s wrong? Why are you shaking?” He squeezed my hand, but I snatched it away and shut my eyes.

I tried to think about something happy, something positive, but pictures started to flash through my mind, making me remember all the things I wish I could forget: The newspaper stories, the endless media coverage, the crash site photos. My twin sister’s face.

My heart was pounding fast and loud that I could hear it over Jonathan asking what the hell was going on and calling out for help.

I tried to convince myself that this was just another nightmare, another dream that I would wake up from in any second. But as I gasped for air, as I tried to head back down the steps and back into the town car, I felt my body hitting the concrete and everything went black.

––––––––

I blinked my eyes open and realized I was lying in bed at home. The clock on my wall read two o’ clock and my windows were unlatched and open, letting in a warm spring breeze.

I turned my head to the right and saw Jonathan eyeing me curiously, holding an ice pack against my shoulder. I tried to give him an assured smile, but every muscle in my body felt weak.

“What happened?” I croaked.

“You had a panic attack.” He set the ice pack down and caressed my cheek. “You fainted and fell off the platform.”

“Oh...”I tried to roll over so I wouldn’t have to see the worry in his eyes, but I couldn’t feel my left foot. I looked down and saw that it was sitting on a stack of pillows, resting underneath two bags of ice.

“You sprained your ankle...You’ll need to take those every four hours.” He pointed towards the medicine on my nightstand and moved closer. “You’re scared of planes?”

I shook my head and felt tears welling in my eyes.

He slipped his hand behind my pillows and helped me to sit up. “Talk to me, Claire...”

“I’m beyond scared—I’m terrified...so terrified that I’m scared to pick up my own daughters from the airport...”

“Why?”

I sighed. I reached around my neck and felt for the two flag charms, making sure they were right where they were supposed to be.

“Have I ever told you that identical twins run in my family? It’s the strangest thing—almost every woman in my family has a set of twins... I cried the first three months after Ashley and Caroline were born because I finally knew what it felt like to be a mother, and I couldn’t fathom how my mother felt when she lost my sister.”

He held my hand and stroked my knuckles with his fingertips.

“We were only eighteen...We’d been inseparable our whole lives...Everywhere I went, she went. No questions asked, and we liked it that way...We were even going to the same college. I was going to pursue acting and she was going to pursue art. She was naturally good at drawing and designing things...”

“We were supposed to be on the same flight. Pittsburgh to North Carolina...We were going to do an early summer scope out of the school so we could check out the dorms before we sent in our living requests...”

Her face flashed before my eyes and I didn’t try to wipe my tears away. I kept telling the story, remembering every second like it was yesterday: “We were both sitting at the gate and the agent came over the intercom and said, ‘We need a few people to give up their seats and catch the later flight.’ Neither of us moved because we thought that people in coach didn’t have a choice. But the agent kept saying over and over, ‘We need a few more willing passengers. We’ll give you a free flight. We’ll give you a first class upgrade.’ So, I turned to her and I said, ‘Let’s ask if we can switch flights. We can even get them to let us use their phone and call mom to tell her we’re going to be arriving later.’ She said, ‘No. You’re always telling me what to do, Claire. I’m staying on this flight. Deal with it.’ We’d been...” I paused.

“We’d been arguing all day. I swore she’d stolen my favorite purple purse, she swore that she hadn’t. I was frustrated and annoyed, so I told her I didn’t want to sit with her, that I hoped she got lost whenever her plane landed. I got up and changed my ticket, the gate agent thanked me, and that was that... She and I shared a bag of popcorn before it was time for her to go...And then I told her goodbye...”

I cleared my throat and sniffled. “It was like an hour later when I was on my plane that they were ordering us all to get off...No one had cell phones back then, so I didn’t know what was going on. I just thought we were switching planes or that our flight had been delayed...”

“When I finally got a chance to use the payphone, I called my mom and she was screaming. She was saying ‘Thank god you’re alive! Thank god you weren’t on that plane!’ I asked her what she was talking about and she said that the plane we were scheduled to be on crashed into a small town thirty minutes into the flight...And that the emergency responders were already reporting that there were....” My voice cracked. “That there were no survivors...”

“She said, ‘I’m so happy! I thought I’d lost the two of you! Let me speak to your sister...” Heavier tears fell down my face and my throat became dry. “I had to tell her that we didn’t stick together like she’d told us too...That I didn’t make her change her flight like I should have and...”

He pulled me close and wiped my tears away with his shirt. “I’m so sorry...”

“It was six months before I could walk into our bedroom...” I tugged at my necklace again. “I went through all of her stuff, hugging everything she owned...And then I found this pretty white box under her bed with my name and the words ‘You pick first’ on it. Inside were two charm bracelets she’d made with one flag charm each. One was red and one was white...And they um...When you put them together they read ‘Always Together, Sisters Forever’ on the back...I thought ten or twenty years would be enough time but there are still triggers here or there and...I’ll never get over it...”

He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead. He held me until I stopped trembling, until I was able to say sentences without sobs breaking them up.

“Do you know what the airline gives you when your family member dies in a plane crash?” I felt him wiping more of my tears away.

He shook his head.

“Nothing...”

“There wasn’t a lawsuit?”

“There was...” I sighed. “But it didn’t bring her back so it doesn’t matter...Does it make me a bad mother when I say I hate that my daughters want to be pilots? I absolutely hate it.”

“No...” He smoothed my hair. “Do they know about your sister?”

“They know she died in a plane crash...They don’t know it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know it was going to crash.”

“Says the man who saved his sister from a burning trailer...It was definitely my fault and I—”

“It wasn’t your fault, Claire.” He pulled me close to his chest. “You can’t blame yourself for everything that goes wrong in life...What was your sister’s name?”

“Caroline...Caroline Ashley Gracen.”

“That’s a really pretty name...” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and kissed my cheek.

I wanted to say more, to tell him how Caroline actually hated her name, but I shut my eyes and gave in to the much needed sleep.