Leo Maddox (11 page)

“She’s gone. She’s a selfish bitch and this is for the best anyway. She couldn’t handle losing Mrs. Ryder so suddenly and now she needs to go back to the people she thinks ‘love’ her the most. Whatever. It doesn’t matter because you and I are stronger without her.”

That was how my father explained the situation to me.

I was shocked. I thought my mom loved me. If she was going to run away, why wouldn’t she take me too? It made no sense. It would never make sense to me. But that didn’t mean it was any easier for me.

All day I stayed in my room crying. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t become emotionless like Clara. I couldn’t figure out how she’d detached herself like that. I just couldn’t. I wished I knew how to do it, but I felt too much. I wanted to go back in time to when everything was simpler and made sense. Nothing made sense anymore.

My father kept scolding me for crying. Again, bringing up Clara and her ability to hold her emotions in. “If she can do it, then you can. I can’t have you moping around like this. It’s depressing.”

I tried to be strong. I tried and I tried. I was upsetting my father. So when I couldn’t stop the sadness, I hid it.

Ten days after Mrs. Ryder died, six days after the funeral, and three days after my mom disappeared—I was sitting in the dark corner of the library, clutching my knees to my chest, silently crying, and hiding from the rest of the world. Suddenly Clara was there in that room with me. The moonlight leaking in through the window revealed her face. I knew it was Clara and not Maggie. I just knew. I always could tell them apart. They looked the same—but then again, they also looked so different.

“I brought you something,” she whispered, kneeling down beside me. I was embarrassed that she’d found me like this. I quickly brushed my cheeks with the palms of my hands. But if Clara had noticed my tears, she didn’t say anything about them.

She held up that stupid little shamrock by its stem. Had she seriously snuck all the way over to my house, in the middle of the night, because of this plant? “It's the clover we found,” she explained as if I couldn’t see it for myself. “You can have it now.”

“I don't want that,” I mumbled. “We decided you were going to keep it safe, remember?”

“I know, but my Mommy's already gone. If you have the clover, then you will be lucky. Then your Mommy will come back.”

“My Mom's not coming back,” I argued. And she was completely clueless if she believed a clover could bring her back.

Wetness filled her eyes. “Don't say that,” she whispered, her voice shaky and broken. She hadn’t cried a single tear in the last several days and now she was crying…not for herself, not for her mother…but for me.

That hit my heart like a speeding train.

“Do you wish I would disappear too?” I’m not sure why I asked her this, but I did. I needed to know.

“No,” she answered quickly, sounding very shocked and possibly hurt by my words. “Why would I wish that?”

I looked at Clara. I mean really looked at her. And I fell in love with her. It was her kindness I fell in love with. This one small act of kindness.

“I think I do want to keep it,” I told her, meaning the clover. “I might need it one day. But we have to hide it because my dad would throw it away if he found it. Have you been keeping it in a book like I told you?”

She nodded.

“Pick a new one in here to hide it in.” I pointed to the shelves and shelves of books lining the walls of my dad’s library.

Clara sniffled and then stood to her feet. I watched as she wandered around the room, her eyes scanning the books. I watched her in awe, in a new light. She was so different from Maggie—from anyone I’d ever met, actually. I used to think that made her strange, but now I knew otherwise. It made her special.

“Is this one good?” she asked, finally picking a book from the many. I opened the book and tucked the little clover safely between the pages.

“Do you think your dad will read it and find our clover?” she asked.

I put the book back in its place on the shelf. “No. My dad never reads these books.”

“Why does he have a giant library if he never reads?”

“The same reason he has eighteen cars.”

“Why does he have eighteen cars?”

“You ask too many questions,” I muttered to her, not wanting to talk about my dad.

“Can I ask one more?”

“Okay.”

“What will you use the clover for?”

That same train-wrecking feeling hit my heart again. “Because,” I whispered. “I'm going to ask you to marry me one day, Clara. And I'm going to need all the luck in the world.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Don't you want to marry Maggie?”

I couldn’t answer her because the library light flipped on and a cold voice reverberated throughout the room, “Leonardo. What are you doing in here?” my father demanded.

“Great Expectations,” Clara said aloud, breaking my thoughts and bringing me back to the present.

It took me a second to realize it but we were both thinking of the exact same memory, at exactly the same moment
. Great Expectations
. The book she’d hid the clover in. Many times over the years I’d tried to remember the title to that damn book. I needed to remember so that I could find our clover. I’d searched and searched my father’s library—now, since I’d bought the house,
my
library—but I’d never been able to find that book.

“What does that mean?” I asked, but I knew exactly what it meant and, apparently, so did Clara.

“Nothing,” she muttered, her face going sheet white. She was remembering how I’d told her I would ask her to marry me one day. I just knew she was. Because I’d never wavered from that wish. And now Clara knew not only that I liked her, but that I always had.

And that scared the hell out of her. The fear on her face was tangible and crippling.

“Don't, Clara,” I pleaded. “Stop overthinking this.”

“I have to go.”

The train stopped at some random destination along our route, the doors slid open, and as people started to move off the train, her arms dropped away from me.

“I'm going back to Steph's. Let me go.”

With her eyes lingering on mine, she stepped off that train before I even realized what she was doing. The doors slid closed and suddenly she was gone. One moment we were holding each other and the next moment she was gone. The train moved forward, taking me away from her.

Seriously. What. The. Fuck.

She was gone.

Was this over? Because of one little moment, one little memory…this was over?

CHAPTER 10:

R
ip my heart out with a spoon. That would have hurt less. The worst part was I kind of felt like this was coming—like no matter what, in the end, one way or another, I was always going to get my heart ripped out by Clara. She stepped off that train, leaving me high and dry, and it felt like all the progress I’d made with her was lost.

That was almost an hour ago.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to find a text from Stephany. It said Clara had made it back to her apartment. I was happy she was safe. But I was still feeling absolutely fucking wretched inside.

Not knowing what else to do, since continuing to ride the subway aimlessly didn’t seem like an option anymore, I called Paul.

“Hey,” I barked as he answered. “It’s been a rough day. I feel like shit. I need to get messed up. Where are you at?”

He sighed heavily on the other end. “Charlie said she showed up at the game. He said she was totally into you and seeing you two flirt while he was trying to watch the game was almost nauseating. So, what the hell happened?”

“Nothing a couple of drinks won’t fix. Do you want to hit up a bar with me or not?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

I heard it in his voice…worry. Since we’d met on my birthday I’d been a fucking boy scout. I hadn’t had more than one drink in a single day. That made me long overdue. My gut was churning and boiling and killing me from the inside out—I needed to do something right the fuck now. Before I truly snapped.

Part of me wanted to call Clara or go to her and say something I know I’d forever regret. I wanted to yell and scream.
Why was loving me so goddamn repulsive?
My mom couldn’t be bothered to stick around for me. My dad only tolerated me because I was his prodigy. But Clara…her rejection hurt more than anyone else’s.

“Seriously, I urged. “I’m not in good place. I’m going to drink no matter what. So I’d really like some company doing it. I’ll pay for your drinks too. Bring your brothers.”

“I already agreed, man,” Paul told me. “I’ll come meet you somewhere. It’s no big deal. But is there nothing you can do to fix whatever just happened?”

“Not right this moment. Just meet me.”

We agreed on a place, we met thirty minutes later, and I started drinking.

If I was good at one thing in life, it was drinking.

* * *

F
our hours later and I forgot why I’d been so upset earlier. Seriously, it was like Clara fucking who?

Well…not really.

But if I kept telling myself that little lie then maybe I would start to believe it. Soon, hopefully. I palmed my bottle of Bud Lite. I typically wasn’t into the cheap stuff, but when your goal was to make it so your face went numb and your problems disappeared—you drank whatever went down and sat easiest in your stomach. But as hard as I tried, drink after drink, my mind wouldn’t leave Clara. It was mellowing me out. Typically I turned into more a fighter when I drank, not a lover like I was kind of feeling tonight.

“So have you had enough to tell me what happened yet?” Paul urged. Charlie, the only one of Paul’s brothers that came along with me today, sat in a booth across the bar. He was talking to a couple of girls, not interested in my moodiness.

“Not drunk enough yet,” I told Paul. Unfortunately, I was still fairly level-headed. I had a high tolerance. It would take a few more.

Paul nodded. That worry wasn’t as hard on his face anymore. I was managing to keep it together better than I might have expected a few hours ago. Just being around other people kind of helped. Funny how that worked.

“You know,” he mused. “I’ve met Maggie three times now…I think. Yeah, three times. And in all her visits you never mentioned that she had an identical twin. A twin you loved. That’s kind of important shit to mention.”

I nodded, sighing. “Clara’s different though. It’s like…I always have this need to protect her. So I don’t talk about her much.”

At that very moment, my cell phone rang. I fought with my pocket, needing to see who was calling. Shit. As I struggled to get the damn thing out of my pocket, I realized that maybe I was drunker than I thought. I fumbled and squirmed—then dropped my phone on the floor. Finally, speaking of the twins, I got my shit together and saw it was only Maggie calling. Still...I was actually very happy to hear from her.

“Maggie!” I answered with enthusiasm. “What's up, baby doll?”

“Hey, Leo,” her familiar voice said. “Where are you?”

“Some bar. Anyway, want to come meet me?”

“I can't. I'm in Blue Creek.”

Right. We were states apart. I knew that. “Fuck Blue Creek,” I mumbled.

She giggled. “So what are you doing at
some bar
?”

“I'm out with Paul and his brothers,” I shouted over the noise around me. Paul eyeing me as he sipped his drink. “We're getting drunk and I wish you were here. What are you doing?”

“I'm hiding in a closet, talking to you. Robby is having dinner with us. He has a daughter. They're both out on the back deck right now and I'm in the closet.”

That Rat Bastard! What the hell! A daughter? And the asshole still had time to try to hit on Maggie?
And there went the lover in me. Just hearing Robby’s named turned me back into the fighter. I tried to jump to my feet but proceeded to fall straight on my ass. Not good. I was cutting myself off after this. Paul laughed and helped me to my feet.

“Mags!” I shouted into my phone. “I told you to wait for me. I told you I would take care of him. What the hell is he doing at your house?”

“Good question. It's been a crazy day.”

“I'll say. Well, get out of the closet and tell that fucker to go home. Don't say ‘fucker.’ Not with his daughter there and all, but go tell him to get his ass off your back deck—I mean it. He has no right to be there. He lost that right a long time ago.”

“Where's Clara?” she asked. “Are you with her?” Her change of subject was obviously meant to distract me away from Robby…and it worked.

“Brooklyn,” I muttered.

“That's a vague answer, Leo. Elaborate, please.”

I covered the phone with my hand, rolling my eyes at Paul. “I’ve got go talk to Maggie outside for a moment. I need air.”

He simply nodded.

I walked across the bar, stepping through the door and outside onto the busy sidewalk. The sun was sinking and everything had an orange tint to it. People passed me in a rush, going about their random lives, and I ignored it all and talked to my friend.