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“Clara is just finally getting to be who she wants to be,” Candice said. “She was never allowed to do anything but school growing up. She wasn’t allowed to wear anything but horrible clothes. Please, don’t take this away from her, Merrick. She’s actually studying really hard.”
I was taken aback and grateful I hadn’t said anything.
“Of course not,” I said. “I was just confused. I want her to be happy.”
Candice leaned in, regarding me with a critical gaze.
“She’s the most happy she’s ever been since she came to live with you.”
That comment burrowed its way into my brain and came to define my entire relationship with Clara.
I’d fucked up a lot in my life and I had an endless list of regrets. My job as the Welsh Brenin was exhausting and sometimes when I got home I had to scrub literal and metaphorical blood from under my fingernails. It was brutal and thankless work that haunted me sometimes.
But when I walked through the front door now, there was Clara.
Bright, full of energy, ready to chatter about her day or beg me to take her out to dinner.
My romantic life waned. I no longer felt comfortable bringing women home while she was living there, even when she was gone at college. It was hard to explain why there was a woman who wasn’t related to me living in my house.
People usually assumed I was cheating no matter what I said.
I found I didn’t mind.
Life with Clara was more interesting and exciting than filling my days with endless work and my nights with strangers.
When people asked what we were, I said I was her guardian and she was my financial ward because that was true. We were platonic friends, but the kind where I doted on her, bought her everything she wanted, and she brought a lightness to my life I’d never experienced.
It was hard to explain because it was so simple and complicated all at once.
CHAPTER THREE
CLARA
SIX YEARS LATER
My heart thumped and my head spun. Sweat dripped down my neck. Body glitter melted on my naked shoulders and down my spine, disappearing beneath my dress. The gold jewelry on my wrists and neck was slick and stung my skin.
It was Saturday night and the dance floor was packed with bodies. Moving, twisting, grinding. Caught up in a whirlwind of liquor and probably a few pills. The music was so loud it was making the speakers crackle with static.
I felt so fucking good. I was in the prime of my twenties, about to be twenty-four next Sunday. And I knew I was beautiful.
My dress barely covered me, glued to my skin to keep from flashing everyone. The music had shifted to “Poker Face” and the half dozen shots of vodka I’d just taken were hitting my brain.
Candice danced behind me, much drunker. We probably had about thirty more minutes on the dance floor before she made a dash for the bathroom to empty her stomach.
It was the end of summer and I was done with college for good and back from a summer in Europe. I was tanned, feeling amazing, and ready for the next part of my life to start.
After I got so completely drunk I forgot my own name.
I knew I would regret this in the morning and I did.
Twelve hours later, I woke abruptly with my eyes burning and my stomach roiling. Peeling myself up on my elbows, I blinked around the room. My slinky dress and heels lay on the floor beside Candice’s yellow dress. Was she still wearing her shoes?
I turned, my arm hitting on something hard. Candice’s heels. I dug under the covers and pulled out her shoes and threw them over the edge of the bed.
She slept beside me, completely covered with just a tuft of blond hair on the pillow. Candice always slept fully swathed in thick blankets, right on the verge of suffocation.
I pushed myself up with difficulty and stumbled to the bathroom just in time to throw up into the toilet. It took me a moment to recover and rinse my mouth out, but I felt a lot better when I finally got back to my feet.
