by Max Lockwood
"How have the kids been?"
The words fell awkwardly out of her mouth, sounding so much like the small talk they'd engage in right before they slept together. He didn’t answer anyway, and she wracked her brain for more words to say.
"What task did you get to do yesterday? Was it hard?"
She waited… but Dante didn’t take the bait. She glared ahead, getting a little annoyed herself. If it were anyone else she wouldn’t be pushing for this, but this was a man she'd known for years, whether or not she really knew him. If it were Cooper, any silence between them would be comfortable, because just his presence was comforting for Clara.
Dante, though, she couldn’t help feeling guilty about the whole situation. They were something that should never have happened, and though she would have liked to blame it all on him, she was as much to blame. She knew what she was doing the first time she slept with him. She stayed away from him for a while but eventually went looking for him again, and the pattern continued for too long.
She needed an outlet and he was convenient, safe. She used him, remorseful maybe, but it didn’t change the facts just because she was sorry.
"Look, Dante." She chewed on her lip and shot a glance at him again, before taking in a deep breath and saying what she wanted to, what she should have before.
"About yesterday, I'm sorry. If I seemed a little harsh cutting off our relationship, it's because I've wanted to end it for a while. It was wrong when it started, it never should have started, and it was eating me up every time I let myself think about it. Especially when I talked to Michelle, because she caught me leaving for work in the morning, knowing what I was doing behind her back. But… I hadn't realized it meant something to you, and I am so sorry."
He didn’t give a response immediately, and this time, she didn’t try to prompt him. She'd said what she wanted to, if he didn’t speak they were going to last in awkward silence until they made it to their destination. She'd just have to bear with it and hope it didn’t leave her nerves too frazzled to talk to the Mayor they were going to see.
But then after a while, she heard him sigh. She resisted the urge to glance over at him, waiting for him to speak to her. Eventually, he did.
"You don’t have to be sorry. It's not all your fault, I do know that."
She bit her lip to stop herself from snapping back at him. Couldn’t he have been this reasonable before? She'd felt bad for hurting him, even knowing it was necessary. She'd forgotten all about it, only to remember when she saw him at the station.
Not to mention she'd been feeling guilty, and now he was telling her she didn’t have to.
"You already know this—that I only married Michelle because I got her pregnant. I care for her, that's pretty much all I've ever felt for her and she probably knows that. She was the one that insisted on marriage, and I couldn’t say no, because I was the one that acted like a careless idiot."
Yeah, Clara knew. It was more than she'd ever wanted to know about her neighbors. She was pretty sure Michelle had no idea that she knew, she also wondered plenty of times if Michelle really loved her husband and family, or if it was just possessiveness. It hadn't been her business, and until the affair, she'd done her best to keep herself out of it. It had made it so much easier, though, to continue, knowing the details of their marriage. Not that it excused either of them for what they did.
Dante wasn’t finished, though.
"I know I can't break up my family and leave my kids without a father figure. I'm the one that's spent the most time with them. Abigail hates being left alone with her mother. The bonding time is good for them, but if I left, that little girl would never forgive either of us, and I don’t want to be responsible for ruining her future. I don’t love Michelle."
Even if he hadn't confessed, she would have guessed by this point. His next words did surprise her, though.
"I don’t love you either, Clara."
She didn’t fall, and she was pretty sure it was only because of her experience on bikes, though she hadn't used one in a long time, besides her short trip to Cooper's place. She wanted to screech at him, ask what the hell the drama had been yesterday if he knew he didn’t actually feel anything for her. But she bit her lip and waited for him to continue. She'd had her time to speak already. Instead of arguing, it would be better if they both just closed that chapter of their lives.
"I don’t love you either, but you were my only respite from a loveless marriage. I thought about leaving so many times, and I knew she wouldn't make it easy for me. I couldn’t have left with Abigail, even if I'd wanted to, before the new baby was even born. You, and our whole affair, were convenient."
She glanced at him the same time he looked her way, and he smiled sadly when their eyes met.
"I'm not angry at you," he admitted. "But rather at myself for my past mistakes. I'm a grown up and I should be acting like one. So, I took up the volunteering thing to get some space away from home to think. But just so you know, I'm a little relieved you ended the affair. I was always worried about what Michelle would do if she found out."
Now Clara just felt ashamed of herself, if only a little. She hadn't realized he thought so much about this, had figured it was just her because Dante had never shown any unease when they met. She really didn’t know him, not as much as she'd convinced herself she did, painting him as the bad guy in the whole story.
He didn’t say anything else, and she left him to his thoughts as they rode. The atmosphere between them had calmed down enough she didn’t think she would suffer in the silence. Besides, she had her own thoughts to occupy her.
Clara wondered if she and Dante were in the same boat. In a way, she supposed they were. He was escaping his family, but he hadn't said anything about leaving them, and she didn’t think he would. She was doing more or less the same.
The thought of going back home to her grandmother's illness and Tessa's madness wasn’t a happy one. It made her a horrible person, but being out of the house was another way to get away from it. She'd been doing it for so long, taking long hours at school, only being at home early morning or late evening and partly for the weekend. Even staying busy throughout the school breaks. The thought of staying at home, twenty-four seven kind of scared her. She was used to working to keep her distracted from what went on at home.
She wondered if volunteering was a good way to escape it all.
Chapter Eighteen
Clara and Dante arrived at their neighboring town, where the center was bustling with people. They had to slow down to move easier through the crowd. Clara wondered what was going on, why there were so many people walking around. In her own town, it was rare to see anyone outside. They parted easily for Clara and Dante to ride through, until they saw something else that gave them pause.
There was a road block separating the road from the town center, where most of the crowd was concentrated.
Clara wondered what was happening, and looked to Dante, imagining he was thinking along the same lines. They cycled closer to the barricade, and a tired looking man walked in front of them, before they could get too close.
"You two need to stop." He sounded as tired as he looked.
Clara wondered how long he'd been out here blocking people from getting through that barricade. There didn’t seem to be any other people around helping him out. She stood with one foot on the ground, the other on a pedal. She glanced over the man's shoulder, and didn’t see anyone on the other side of the block.
"We've come from a neighboring town—" she began to explain, only to be interrupted by the man.
He was frowning a little, but only managed to look even more tired. "We've already taken in enough refugees. We're at max capacity already, so I suggest you two go back to where you came from and tell others not to follow you here."
"But we're not refugees."
That only made the man frown harder. "If you're not, then why are you here?"
"We just wanted to check on the people of the town. Our
own isn’t doing so well and we were wondering how other areas were affected."
The man scoffed. "We're doing just fine," he muttered, sarcastic. "Now would you both just leave before—"
"We are not leaving," Clara insisted. "We didn’t come all this way just to turn back, we want to speak to the Mayor."
The tired man gave a put upon sigh, waving them away, speaking in monotone, "The Mayor is too busy to speak with you, or anyone else. You can go back and try later, or stick around until he gets some free time. I'll make sure he gets the message that you stopped by."
She scowled at him, pretty sure he was just messing with them. There was no way they could turn back, and they weren’t going to wait around for dark. They had to be on the way back by early evening, and even then they'd have to rush just to make it in time before curfew. Clara didn’t want to get caught out in the dark again.
Then she sent the scowl over to Dante, wondering why he hadn't said anything yet. He had come to accompany her, but she was pretty sure he still needed to help. He caught the look and just shrugged, and she wanted to growl at him. They didn’t have time to be fighting, though. Instead, she looked at the barricade. It wasn’t perfect, and she could see some space for them to get through.
The man in front of them seemed to think they'd take him at his word and do whatever. He assumed they would turn back, and his momentary lapse in attention, when he turned to focus on something else, worked in their favor. She heard him start to shout something, but she dodged around the barricade and rode to the city hall. She could hear Dante following at her back. A final shout called them back, but no one tried to follow them, and she didn’t dare glance back.
Clara dropped her bike at the front entrance to the city hall and entered the building. The doors weren’t even locked, and there really didn’t seem to be anyone else around. The place was only a little different from what their own had looked like, but she walked around a bit and checked a few rooms before she found what could be the Mayor's office.
She burst into his room, to find him by himself. They both froze, him with his mouth half stuffed, hand already raised for him to take another bite. He was a large, balding man, probably in his early forties, but he was the only person she'd seen in the town so far dressed so formally in a full suit. She hadn't even seen any cops in uniform in the crowd outside.
This was the man they were here to see, the man who was supposedly too busy to see them but would take a 'message' to see them later.
The Mayor was eating doughnuts. That was what he was so busy doing.
For a moment, all she could do was gape at the man. That barricade set up, all those people milling around looking anxious, a man turning them away telling them the Mayor was busy, and what the man was so busy doing was stuffing his face with food.
Clara almost laughed. Almost. More than anything she was disgusted with the behavior. Not that she was naïve enough to think the men put in office solely served the public, but there were people going hungry all over the area, people panicking, people dying—the world was going to hell, and the man found time for his stomach.
"What is wrong with you?"
Her question, uttered low, broke him out of his stupor. He dropped the half-eaten doughnut in his hand on the plate filled with several of them and chewed slowly, picking up a napkin and wiping his hands and mouth.
"Can I help you, young lady? I don’t think I've seen you around before."
She made a strangled sound in her throat that could have been a growl. "Why the hell are you hiding here, stuffing your face while refugees are being turned away?"
His eyebrows went up, but he seemed more amused than shocked. He folded his arms on the table, pushing the doughnuts away to make some room. The condescending look chafed, only serving to make her even more annoyed.
"How the hell did you get in here?"
His tone made her want to bare her teeth, indulgent, like she was some recalcitrant brat that somehow made her way where she wasn’t wanted. She just barely held back, realizing that her anger wouldn’t do them any good. She was here to negotiate, the last thing she needed to do was alienate him before asking for help, even if she was there to offer a trade.
So she took a deep breath to calm her down. "My town is in trouble, and I was sent here to speak to you about our predicament. A… supposed EMP device hit our town. I'm assuming it hit yours, too, by the state of it. Thing is, back home, it caused a plane to crash right in the middle of town."
He snorted and waved his hand at her, and she was back to gaping at him again.
"I'm sorry, miss, but that doesn’t affect me, so it's not really my concern.”
Not only was he greedy, he was stupid, and cruel. What part of 'crashed in the middle of town' was escaping his brain? Or did he assume the plane landed on an empty field and there were no negative consequences for anyone involved? He even picked up his half-finished doughnut and took another bite out of it.
No. It wasn’t just that, he wasn’t thinking about it at all. Because in his mind, probably, since it didn’t 'affect' him and it 'wasn’t his concern,' he wasn’t going to think about it at all. How could he not realize how completely wrong that was?
"You do realize whether you like it or not this is going to be your problem," she said slowly.
Up went his eyebrows in idle curiosity. "I really don’t see how—"
"I insist it is—if you don’t want desperate civilians from my town to start turning up at your doorstep," she snapped. "Just so you know, a lot of them are not going to play nice and ask for assistance."
He was left gaping at her, and she felt a short burst of satisfaction in her chest that was almost drowned out by her anger. At least she had his attention now. Hopefully, he wasn’t a complete idiot and he would listen to her. They might need him, but he had to realize that the state of the surrounding areas affected him. He was already receiving refugees, so people from other areas besides their own would have the same thought of coming to him for supplies.
"We'll be back to discuss trading, after you've finally assessed the seriousness of the situation."
She turned to storm out of the office, part of her mind taking note that Dante had been there behind her. He followed her as she made her way out to some open space. Another part of her wanted to go back and beat that man over the head, preferably with his plate full of doughnuts, but it would be the opposite of helpful. She gave herself the time to calm down, turning to give Dante a tight smile when he walked up behind her.
"Sorry about that back there. I would say I don’t know what came over me but I can't believe that guy."
He just shrugged. "Hey, it's okay. I get what you mean, I saw it, too. Actually, I'm impressed with how you stood up to him. The way he took it, I don’t think a lot of people have done that before."
If she was honest with herself, she was impressed with herself as well, just a little bit. She didn’t stand up to people, rarely tried to before. Talking back at her sister, and trying and failing to discipline her kids didn’t count. She'd done it half-heartedly. Speaking up to those boys she caught trying to break into a store had been the first she'd attempted it, and she'd had Cooper with her then.
Well, technically, Dante had been with her this time, too. But she hadn't known he was right behind her, not until she turned to leave that office. This time, it was all her.
"It made me feel good," she admitted.
There was some slight shame in her admission, but when Dante just smiled, her own came easier, more natural than forced. Clara couldn’t remember the last time she'd felt good about herself. It was a nice feeling, one she could only hope would last.
She wondered if their new life would mean she got herself into politics. It had never been an avenue she'd thought of. Too much went into politics, and your personal life, more than just your education and effort got involved. As if having a magnifying glass pointed at you wasn’t enough, there was the part where other people tried to take your position,
with far from the best of intentions and not by fair or nice means.
They were all aspects tied to politics, and so many more, that drew her away from it. After the situation they just got themselves into, she wondered if she could really try it.
Well, I could think about the career change another time.
She sighed and moved to plop herself in one of the seats. Then she gestured Dante over to another seat.
"Why don’t you sit down? We should wait for a few hours while Mayor Charleston mulls over our meeting."
Chapter Nineteen
Clara and Dante waited to be invited back to the Mayor's office.
It should be a quick decision to make, but the bastard was actually going to take hours. He probably finished his doughnuts before he even decided to think of it, and that thought made her a little pissed.
She kept glancing out the window, hoping the light outside, the position of the sun, would guide her to how much time was passing. It felt like too long, and she'd long since stood up and paced all over the room in anxiety as they waited to hear back.
There was a high chance the response might not be positive. She chewed on her nails, eyes flitting the way they'd come from the office, and back to the window. Occasionally, she'd glance at Dante. He didn’t seem to have the same problem she was, sitting down, fidgeting occasionally to settle himself more comfortably, but he didn’t look worried.
An hour or so might have passed when Clara gave in and uttered a vehement curse. Dante looked up at her, and she stopped herself from apologizing. She had every right to be anxious, in fact, in her opinion, he wasn’t anxious enough.
"Clara?"
She released her breath in a gust and threw up her hands. How did he not feel the pressure on them? It was practically squeezing the breath out of her. A lot of people depended on this, and they were here ready to make a deal with a greedy pig. Clara could even add dictatorial, and wondered why the people of the town let him block them out just so he could have his space to eat.