Chapter Twenty-five
Rogue
We sat there for a long time after Hannah had left, and Claire didn’t look like she wanted to move. She didn’t even try her drink, just holding it between her palms, warming it up. After a long moment, when I couldn’t stand seeing the lost look on her face anymore, I sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“Did something happen between you two that I should know about?” I asked. “What were you two talking about before I came back here? Is something wrong that I should know about?”
Claire sighed and looked at me, a tiredness in her eyes that hadn't been there before.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about? Of course it matters! Does it have something to do with Dad?”
She bit her lip, looking unsure. My heart suddenly felt cold, thinking it might actually have something to do with Dad.
He had been getting better recently. He was awake more often, he looked more alert. His face looked fuller, though his color only looked a little better. I wasn’t naïve enough to think he was completely out of the woods just because of that. Actually, I was really wary of the sudden good luck, because the doctor and nurses still showed up pretty often to check his condition, I figured they were worried about a relapse.
Was is happening already?
“Claire?” I asked, my voice a little sharper.
She looked at me. “You don’t have to worry so much, Rogue. She didn’t say a thing about your dad. She’s…actually worried about you and me.”
That surprised me enough to make me forget to worry. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me. She…might have figured out what’s going on between us. And she’s of course not happy about it…”
“Oh,” I murmured, slumping back into my seat. Shit.
Her mom had figured out what was going on between the two of us? We weren’t even sure what was going on between the two of us. Claire had wanted to talk, and it wasn’t like I was putting it off or anything, but I wasn’t going to be the one to start that conversation, because I was still worried about how it would go.
Especially if she decided to start it after this talk with her mom. She would definitely say we have to stop again, and I wasn’t ready.
“Well, since we don’t have anything else to do here, would you like to leave?” I asked to distract her.
She met my gaze again, slightly frowning. “Should we really leave just like that? We don’t have to go inside, but we could at least check on how he’s doing, right? Or find a nurse or doctor and they could tell us what happened after we left the room this morning.”
“If it’s all right with you, I would rather not,” I said honestly.
Claire’s gaze on me turned sad, and it was too much for me for a moment, so I looked away. But I looked back, because I needed a distraction for her, to cheer her up.
“If anything really important happens, your mom wouldn’t just keep it from us, right? We both at least trust that much, right?”
She was reluctant, but she nodded.
“Then we can leave for now. We can come back tomorrow or some other time. If you’re not up for it, you could let me drive?”
“Okay,” she murmured, pulling the keys out of her purse and handing them over to me.
We left the cafeteria and worked our way through the hospital corridors to get to the elevator. Claire was silent the whole time, and I kept glancing at her. I wasn’t usually against the silences between us, but when she had such a droopy expression on her face, it worried me what could be going through her head.
She had been trying to look for work through the internet, and as far as I knew, she hadn't had much luck yet. I thought it was still too soon for her to be getting depressed over that, but I tried not to let her think too much on it, just in case. I already knew Claire was a strong woman, mentally, but a lot of worry could get to anybody, and Claire certainly had a lot to worry about.
The elevator doors closed with us inside, alone, and she just stared at the closed doors with a dazed expression on her face.
“Things will work themselves out, Claire,” I murmured, moving closer to hug her from behind. She didn’t try to move away from me, and that relaxed me greatly. “I know everything is pretty up in the air right now, but it’s not all bad, right? Everything will be fine.”
I said the words, but immediately after, I frowned at my expression. The inside of the elevator was reflective and I could see a perfect image of myself. I looked like I was trying to convince myself of those words, more than I was trying to convince Claire. Then again, I did have quite a lot to lose if things didn’t go well.
“You don’t need to be so worried,” Claire said, looking at my reflection with a small smile. She had clearly noticed.
She didn’t look like she believed a word I’d said, though.
“Why don’t I take you out for ice cream?” I said, a brilliant idea occurring to me. I pulled my arms from her and held her by the shoulders, turning her around so she could face me. “It always made you feel better when you were younger, right?”
She had driven me to the hospital several times, and when I had nothing to do in the car, I usually looked around outside. I’d seen an ice cream parlor several times on our way. I’d actually thought of stopping by there before, so this worked out just fine for everybody.
Claire looked at me with a surprised expression, finally waking up out of her daze.
“How did you know?” she asked, sounding startled.
“Hmm,” I murmured, looking to the side with a frown. “You know, I’m not really sure where I heard it from, but I definitely heard it from somewhere. Probably one of our parents mentioned it at some point and I just remembered. Would you like to go?”
The look she gave me was inscrutable, and I frowned back at her, because why the look? Did I say something wrong without realizing? But then she was suddenly smiling at me, and I was left stumped as to why.
She pulled my hands from my shoulders, keeping one of them held in her own, as she turned us to face the elevator doors.
“Sure,” she said. “I’d like to go for ice cream. Only if you’re buying, though.”
My jaw dropped in disbelief. “No way, Claire. You know I’m not earning a salary, I didn’t even check how much I still had on my damn card. I know how much you love ice cream so I don’t know if my funds can take it.”
She snorted, squeezing my hand. “Don’t talk as if I’m going to gorge myself on the stuff. Besides, you’ve actually been behaving with your money, so you should have enough left over. Besides, more should be going into your account soon.”
Right. I remembered she told me the account would get topped up at the end of each month.
I had spent a month out of prison.
Somehow, in that time, I hadn’t done anything to get me thrown back in.
It felt like a fucking miracle.
“You know what, you’re right,” I said, suddenly full of confidence. “I’ve actually been behaving myself, so we can both relax for a bit. Let’s get lots of ice cream to take home with us.”
Claire chuckled. “Don’t get so ahead of yourself, mister. Wasting all your funds on ice cream would be pretty shameful compared to anything else you could have wasted it on.”
I smiled, not minding the jab because at least she had laughed, even if it was something small. Now that I thought about it, Claire smiled plenty, but when was the last time she actually laughed? We were all trying to put on strong fronts, but it was clearly only that, a front. No matter how happy we all were with things going well with Dad’s treatments, we all still held worried of the future ahead.
Please don’t let anything bad happen, I pleaded in my mind.
If things could just keep progressing the way they were, we would all be a bit less shy about really feeling happy. About believing that things really were okay, because at the moment, we were all pretty cautious.
Even if I was essentially lying to myself, I wasn’t going to go looking for answers if no one was going to just come out and tell me. I didn’t think they would keep it hidden if anything was really wrong, but I wanted to feel for just a bit longer that Dad was going to be okay.
Claire and I left the hospital and headed for her car. I pulled my arm from her hand to wrap it around her shoulder, holding onto her tightly. She wrapped her own arm around my waist, holding me just as tightly, and we went to have our ice cream.
Who knew what the future would bring, but for once in my fucking life it wasn`t so fucking dark. It started to become clearer and that made me feel as if everything was going to be alright.