Chapter 70
Saturday,
two days after Thanksgiving, was the first day Nick and Claire had really had
to themselves all week. After they’d
driven her grandparents to the airport and seen them off early in the morning,
they came back to find they had Nick’s house to themselves again, and it
mattered to no one how much of a mess they left it. They ate a lunch of cold turkey sandwiches
down on the beach, and after playing by the water, they tracked sand through
the house without a care.
Claire felt
better, happier, than she had all week, much to her own relief. She knew how moody she had been acting, and
the crying episode on Thanksgiving, when she’d broken down into tears over
something as silly as burnt food (well, maybe that was an understatement),
still bothered her. She was not prone to
crying, especially not over something that insignificant, in the grand scheme
of things. Her own reaction had both
surprised and, in a way, frightened her, for it had come out of nowhere, and
she’d had no control over it.
She
wondered if it could be attributed to hormones.
She’d wondered it that morning, as she’d swallowed her usual handful of
pills. Among the various medications was
a small, round, white pill containing a drug called ethinyl estradiol. Common name, birth control. She’d been taking the pills ever since her
bone marrow transplant, not for their intended purpose (for the medical
profession was certain she would never get pregnant on her own), but to balance
her hormones, which had been thrown out of whack by the chemo and radiation
she’d had during the transplant process.
They’d always seemed to work well for her, but now she wondered if she
needed a change of dose or a different kind of pill altogether. She made a mental note to call her OB/gyn
next week.
But first
she had other phone calls to make. Her
father and her boss, Dr. Somers, had both left her voicemails while she’d been
outside with Nick, and she sat down to call them back while Nick wandered into
the living room to turn on the Bucs game.
She had just said goodbye to Dr. Somers when her phone rang in her hand,
startling her. She glanced down at the
caller ID to find Jamie’s name on it.
Glad that Nick was not in the room, for she could imagine the look he
would have given her, she punched a button and answered, “Hello?”
Jamie was
his usual low-key self on the phone. He
asked how her dad was doing and how her Thanksgiving had been; she asked the
same, and any trace of happiness in his voice temporarily faded as he answered
that it had been okay – “as good as it could be, I guess, given… you know…”
Claire
knew. It was his first Thanksgiving
without his father, and she couldn’t imagine how hard it had to have been for
him and his family. As her family had
said their blessings before dinner, she’d glanced towards the head of the table
at her father and seen exactly what she was thankful for that year. Jamie had not been so fortunate.
“Yeah,
definitely not your best Thanksgiving, huh?” she replied quietly, her heart
aching for him. “This will probably be
the hardest one… that’s what I’ve heard, at least.”
“Yeah,
probably. I guess it’ll get easier from
here. Once Christmas is over, at
least. It’s just, getting through this
month will be hard… you know, cause of the holidays and the… the anniversary
of… yeah. But I’ll be okay. Truth be told, I’m more worried about my mom
than anything. She just hasn’t been the
same since it happened. I thought she
was starting to come around, but the holidays have hit her pretty hard so
far. Brad came back up for Thanksgiving,
and he’ll be back for Christmas, so that will help, but still…”
Again, her
heart burned with sympathy. His dad had
died just weeks before Christmas last year; the anniversary of his death was
lodged right between the two holidays.
“I’m so sorry, Jamie,” she said softly, wishing she could think of
something less generic to tell him. “I
know that’s going to be rough. If
there’s anything I can do… or my family, too – you know you’ve always been like
another son to my dad…”
“Thanks,
Clairie,” Jamie replied quietly. “We’ll
be okay though. My mom and my brother
and I have still got each other, and I guess that’s what matters.”
“True,” she
agreed in almost a whisper, taken by how freely he was talking about this. Like many guys, Jamie had never been very
open about his emotions, not even around her.
Nick was the same way, but she could crack the walls he built around
himself if she really wanted to. Jamie
was a different story. She knew him
intimately, but when he closed himself off from her, there was no getting
in. He only opened up when he wanted
to. But when he did, it was like opening
the floodgates; the words, the emotions, poured from him. She supposed maybe this was one of those
times; maybe he’d needed to talk about this for awhile now, and she was the
only one he felt like talking to.
But just
when he’d started, he stopped again, abruptly closing himself back up. “Hey, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to get you all
depressed talking about my dad. That’s
not why I called.”
“Oh, Jamie,
it’s no problem!” she replied quickly.
“You know I-“
“No really,
I called for a different reason. I’ve
got some news,” he said.
Claire fell
silent, mystified. “What kind of news?”
she asked curiously. “Good news or bad
news?” She tried to figure it out from
his voice, but she couldn’t interpret it in his neutral tone. She waited for him to answer.
“Good – I
think.” He paused for suspense, then
burst, “I got the job!”
What job? was Claire’s initial reaction, and
then she remembered. “The job!” she
exclaimed after missing just a beat.
“The one in Tampa??”
“That’s the
one,” Jamie replied with a note of glee in his voice. “I’m moving down right after Christmas,
assuming I can find a place to live, and I start January 2. So I’ll be there for New Year’s… we should
party.”
She
laughed, ignoring his last comment because New Year’s would mark one year
together for Nick and her, and said, “That’s great! Congratulations!”
“Thanks. It’ll be good to get back. There’s too many memories here anymore. I have memories in Tampa too, of course… but
different ones. Good ones.” The way he said it, Claire knew that if she’d
been standing in the same room as him, he would be staring right at her. She was glad he was just on the phone.
“Well,
good. It’ll be nice to have you back,”
she said automatically, and though a part of her meant it, the rest of her
couldn’t help but think how awkward it was going to be, having him back… having
to deal with his snide little comments about Nick, and Nick’s reciprocal
jealousy…
She fought
the urge to sigh, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.
The feeling got worse when she swiveled around in Nick’s desk chair and
found him standing in the doorway, his featured hardened into an ugly scowl.
She
frowned, and for just a split second, she felt guilt wash over her. But just as quickly as it had come, the guilt
receded, as she realized she had nothing to feel guilty about. She was only talking on the phone – no crime
in that. Besides, Jamie had called her,
not vice versa. Returning Nick’s cold stare,
she spoke clearly into the phone, “Hey Jamie, I’m really sorry, but I’ve gotta
get going now. Nick and I are supposed
to go visit a friend.”
It wasn’t a
lie; they had planned to go to the hospital to see Casey, for Claire hadn’t
been to visit him all week, and Nick hadn’t visited since he’d gone to LA. Somehow, though, she knew Nick wasn’t glaring
at her because he was in a hurry to leave.
“Oh,
gotcha,” said Jamie. “I’ll talk to you later then, alright?”
“Okay. Thanks for calling; I’ll talk to you
later.” Once she had hung up, Claire
tossed her cell phone down onto Nick’s desk and stood up, her fists instantly
going to her hips. “Are you trying to
creep me out? What are you doing just
standing there? And what’s with the
look?” she demanded of Nick, as if she didn’t already know the answer.
“I thought
you were calling your dad and your boss,” he replied, sounding very accusatory.
“I
did. Jamie called right after I got off
the phone with Dr. Somers.”
Nick opened
his mouth to retort, but nothing came out.
She could tell he couldn’t think of anything sensible to come back with,
yet he clearly didn’t believe her either.
Annoyed, she filled in the gap by continuing, “What, did you think I
lied to you and then snuck in here to call him behind your back?” Before he could answer, she went on, her
blood beginning to boil, “Well of course that’s what you think! Cause in your mind, Jamie and I have been
having some torrid affair for months now!
I could show you my list of recent calls to prove that I did call who I
said I was going to, but why bother?
You’ll still think I was in here having phone sex with him or
something.”
Nick
cringed visibly, making a face. “Don’t
put words in my mouth; I didn’t say that,” he spat darkly.
“No, but
you were probably thinking it. This
whole jealous/suspicious thing you’ve got going on, Nick, it’s pissing me
off! I can’t take it anymore! You turn into a possessive asshole at the
mere mention of anything having to do with Jamie, and I’m sick of it!!” Again, his jaw dropped as he started to
sputter a comeback, but she was on a roll now.
“You know, you never had a problem with me having male friends when I
was dating Tim last year – and come to think of it, neither did he. I was friends with you and Jamie when
I was with him, and he never acted like a jealous bastard.”
“Maybe
that’s cause Tim’s an idiot!” snapped Nick, finally getting a word in. “Maybe he would have been jealous if he’d
realized what was really going on. You
never loved him! He was just a fling for
you, some stupid fling to make me jealous! You used him to get to me! And funny, you didn’t care if I was jealous
then – you wanted me to be jealous!
Don’t deny it,” he warned, when she opened her mouth to reply.
And she
couldn’t deny it, for though it sounded harsh when he worded it like that, it
was pretty much true. She hadn’t dove
into her relationship with Tim for the sole purpose of getting to Nick, but she
had to admit, she let the fling go on much longer than it should have because
she knew it bothered him. Nick had
pushed her away, and she was hurt; she’d wanted to make him jealous; she’d
wanted him to fight for her.
“Maybe, but
that’s totally different,” she started to argue, but he cut her off.
“Yeah? How is it that much different? You dated him while you were friends with me,
and yet, we both know you and I were more than friends at that point. How do I know you’re not doing the same
fucking thing to me now? Dating me to
make Jamie jealous because you’ve decided you still love him and want him
back?”
Claire’s
mouth fell open; she couldn’t believe he was accusing her of this. “Gee, that’s pretty extreme, dating someone
for a year and getting engaged to them just to make another guy jealous!” she
cried rather shrilly. “But I guess you
think I’m just shifty enough to do that!
If you have me all figured out, Nick, what are you doing still with
me? If you think Tim was such an idiot
for dating me for so long, why don’t you leave me?!” She ended on a scream, and as her last angry
words rang about the room, they both stopped and stared at each other. Nick’s eyes were wide, and his mouth was open
as if he were about to scream something back, but he didn’t. An eerie silence fell, and it seemed neither
of them knew what to say. Claire
certainly didn’t. Her words had been
heavy with sarcasm (he knew that, didn’t he?), but she wasn’t ready to
apologize for them yet. She waited to
see what he was going to say.
When he
finally spoke, his voice was lifeless.
“Is that what you want?”
For a long
time, she didn’t answer. (Why didn’t she
answer??) She wanted to, but the words
just wouldn’t come. (Why couldn’t she
speak??) Finally, she asked, “What do
you think, Nick?”
She
expected him to realize that she was being sarcastic, that she thought this
whole situation was preposterous, that of course she loved him and wanted to be
with him (didn’t she?). “I think you
love me,” he would say, flashing that sexy Carter smirk that had always oozed
such confidence and charmed her so. He’d
whip her into her arms so fast she could not push him away and kiss her until
she was dizzy, unable to think clearly enough to keep fighting with him. Then they’d laugh over how ridiculous this
all was and make up, like they always did.
They didn’t always resolve their problems, ultimately… but they always
made up. Somehow, they always kept
going.
But that was
not what happened. When Nick finally
answered her, all he said was, “I don’t know.”
Caught
off-guard by this response, she didn’t speak.
She didn’t know what to say.
For moment,
it seemed, neither did he. But then he
continued, as if to explain himself, “I don’t know anymore, Claire. I don’t get you; I don’t know what you
want. You say you love me; you say I’m
the one you want, but then you act like you don’t want to be with me. We haven’t made love in weeks because you’re
hot and cold, all over the place!”
She opened
her mouth to protest, but he didn’t give her the chance.
“I know
this week’s been stressful for you, so we’ll forget that, but there’s been
other things too. Like why did you call
Jamie before you called me when you found out about your dad’s heart
attack? How is it he was the only one
you could think of to call the night the burglar alarm went off? And why did you lie about it?”
“We’ve
already been through that, Nick!” Claire cried desperately. “I’m sorry you don’t trust me, but I already
apologized! There’s nothing else I can
say!”
“Oh, but
you can taunt me about you and Jamie being together – you seemed to have a lot
to say there!” he roared.
“I was
kidding! You don’t really believe that,
do you??”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what to believe!” Nick
exclaimed, throwing his hands wildly into the air. “I don’t know about anything anymore – Jamie,
you… us…”
Why she
didn’t take that opportunity to reassure him of ‘them’ – that there would
always be a them, that she loved him, that Jamie meant
nothing, not like that – she did not know.
But in her silence, he let his hands fall, stood staring at her for a
few seconds, then turned and walked out the door. For nearly a minute, she could only stand and
stare after him.
***