by Max Lockwood
"Oh, it really is! Why don’t you stop by one time and I can tell you all about it?" Then she paused, eyes rounding, positively twinkling, and suggested, "Or you could attend my book club. We had a great discussion yesterday, but you can just as easily join us next week. If you want, I could ask everyone to chip in and get you a free copy."
Clara hid a wince, feeling the guilt spread through her. This woman was just too nice.
"Thank you, really, but I don’t have the time. All I do is work these days. And you could always just lend me the book once you're done with it, and I could make time to read it."
Michelle pouted. "Aww, but then we'd have moved on to a new book by then. Do you really have so much work?"
"Uh, yes," she admitted, hoping she seemed apologetic. "But I will think about it."
She wouldn’t, though. There wasn’t anything to think about. Michelle spent all day at work and all night at home, save the evening she had book club. Tuesdays were Clara's only nights to meet with Dante. Even though she was looking for excuses to stop, though not with any real enthusiasm, she knew instinctively that spending more time around the man's wife was not the way to go about it.
Clara didn’t know what arrangement the married couple had, why Dante was so quick to start a risky affair, and she didn’t want to know. But she knew Michelle was possessive of her husband, if not in love with him, she had to work all day when all he did was stay at home and take care of their two children.
Michelle was pretty. Even at thirty two, she was on the short side, with bright blonde ringlets and piercing blue eyes that made her clear face practically glow in natural light. She was a little plump and still carrying baby fat, but considering she lived for style, after a few months for her to regain her figure, she would return to her usual self, a curvaceous knock-out that tended to turn heads. If their ages were closer together, Clara could imagine she was a bombshell and wondered how she ended up with Dante in the first place.
Not that it was hard to imagine. He was several years younger than her at twenty six, a handsome blonde, tall and tanned. He was toned and Clara could tell he worked out. He had the looks a lot of women went for, even if Clara was a little skeptical of his personality and morals—like she was one to talk.
Still, looking down at her as her face glowed with twinkling eyes and a wide, friendly smile, Clara had to swallow her guilt as Cooper, finally, pulled up in front of her house.
She glanced up, feeling so relieved he was there, and gave Michelle one last smile and a wave goodbye as she went to get in the car, trying to make it look like she wasn’t running.
Cooper, polite guy that he was, did the same from inside the car and before they drove off, Clara looked to see Michelle waving back at them cheerfully.
There was a moment of silence.
"You really need to end it with Dante."
Cooper knew about the affair, and he didn’t approve of it. He didn’t shower her with insults and reminders of her morals, the right thing to do. His disappointment was worse than if he would have shouted at her most days. But she knew he was mostly just worried about her, thinking of the consequences of her actions for her since she refused to do it—or thought of them anyway, but ignored them.
Some days, Clara wasn’t sure what she was doing.
Clara just rolled her eyes, feeling tired again as she melted into the seat with a sigh.
"Honestly, I haven't wanted to up until now, but I'm considering it."
Besides, with the way she was already feeling about everything else, adding crushing guilt would be the opposite of helpful for her peace of mind.
"You should have done it a long time ago, Clara. I can feel you're not happy about it. Is it really so difficult to let go?"
"It isn’t that it's difficult."
She didn’t want to tell him she needed it, like she needed a drug. It was less expensive and had less of an effect on her family as long as the secrecy held and she could keep some composure at home. She could have stopped it before it even started, but the alternative was breaking down at home and distressing her sister and grandmother, both who weren’t in the best mental state without seeing her lose it as well. Or finding something that would end up being so much more dangerous in the long run.
"So why now?"
She shrugged. "I just realized a few things, I guess. Like…" she frowned, leaning her head on the glass so she could turn and look at him. "I always wanted to settle down, even when I was young, back before my parents… I want to have a normal life, and what I have currently doesn’t fit my mold for that." She grimaced, folding her arms as she diverted her eyes to look outside her window. "I know it's difficult to lead a normal life when I have to care for Viola and Tessa, but it's what I want."
After everything went to hell, she'd considered them all fanciful dreams. Even if she could find someone to date, who would put up with the mess her life was in?
"Hey."
Cooper's voice had gone soft again, and for a moment Clara was fighting tears. She knew what would come out of his mouth before he even said it, knew because Cooper Hewett was like her number one fan besides being her best friend. She didn’t see what he did, but she appreciated him just the same.
"The right man would stick around, Clara. No matter the difficult situation. Because you are most definitely worth it, and you deserve it more than anyone I know."
She shut her eyes and sniffled, willing the tears away. She wasn’t going to let them fall again, and definitely not in front of Cooper.
"Thanks," she murmured, low and shy, but she knew he heard her. She turned to him with a small smile. "So, all we ever do is talk about me and my problems. What did you do?"
She was curious about him, but he rarely talked about himself. He surprised her when he turned to her with a grin, and she wondered if something good happened.
"I didn’t do much, just stayed home, as usual."
"Then why do you look so happy," she said, disbelieving.
"Well, there was a game on. I haven't seen a game so good in a long time. And of course, my team won," he crowed.
Clara snorted at how self-satisfied he looked, like he'd been on the field himself. She would never understand his obsession with British football—or soccer, as it was known in the US. Most men she'd known were into American football or baseball, but it was just one thing that made him unique.
"And your team was…"
"Arsenal," he said reverently, making her laugh.
She knew, of course, he talked about the subject enough that it had made her curious.
As they were driving through the center of town, they got stuck in traffic. They were lucky, it was still early so they might even make it, but it didn’t look like it would let up any time soon. As far as she could see ahead, cars were standing still
"Dammit. We'll be late for school," Cooper complained.
Somehow, she didn’t find it the big problem Cooper seemed to. Actually, if they never made it, it would be the best thing that could possibly happen to Clara just then.
"We could always take the day off and go on a day trip together," she fantasized out loud. "Just you, me, the open road and no responsibility for one day."
There was a shocked silence for about five seconds before he was laughing, and loudly at that. "Nice as that would be, wishful thinking doesn’t suit you. We'd have to get out of this first, anyway, and right now we're boxed in."
They both glanced through the rearview mirror, and Clara groaned, ignoring the grin Cooper threw at her, when she realized the line was already stretching out behind them. They sat silently as they waited, and Clara, quickly growing bored, rolled down her window. At least the silence was comfortable, since Cooper was probably the only human being she could sit with without feeling like she had to say something to fill the silence.
After a while, though, she was feeling a little irritated. Cooper might have been the perfect person to be stuck in traffic with, but she didn’t want to live there. Besid
es, it was hot and there wasn’t enough of a breeze blowing in.
Clara leaned out of the window to get some fresh air, taking a deep breath and pretending she couldn't feel people staring at her, since she was out to her shoulders, sitting with her knee on the seat. It was childish, but she hardly cared. She would have been tempted to do it even with the car moving.
She closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked up. She watched a plane fly overhead and marveled at it, fascinated by how it managed to stay airborne. She'd never been on a plane before, but she'd always wondered what it would be like to soar so far above the clouds, to look down at the ground and it would be so far she wouldn’t be able to differentiate people or buildings, just a large mass of land or sea, depending on how high up they were.
Traveling had been one of her dreams. She'd always loved stories, and for as long as she could remember, she imagined going all over the globe, and every new place she'd land in would have a story to tell.
Suddenly, Cooper's engine cut off. Clara heard him curse and glanced behind her without pulling back inside to see him trying to restart the car.
"Damn this old model piece of shit. I can't believe it cut off right in the middle of traffic."
Clara could have told him they wouldn’t be moving soon, anyway, but she left him to mutter to himself as he kept trying to get a response. She thought nothing of it, Cooper's car was old, and it wasn’t the first time it had some issues. But then she looked around outside and frowned. She noticed the traffic lights had cut out, as well. And thinking about it… she looked around, surprised at how silent it was outside once Cooper was muttering low enough.
They were surrounded by cars and yet, she couldn’t hear a single engine rumbling, even the one right in front of her. They couldn’t all be so quiet suddenly, the silence suddenly unnerving. Her heartbeat spiked in sudden anxiety, even though she tried to tell herself it was nothing, ignore it like everything else.
It's just paranoia, she told herself. Nothing is wrong.
Her heart wouldn’t slow down, beating at a frantic pace in her chest, some instinct telling her that something was very wrong. She looked around at some of the other cars to see the drivers looking baffled and in a state similar to Cooper, at least those that she could see. It was impossible, right? That every car in the vicinity would stop working at the same time? But Clara could not convince herself she was imagining it all.
Clara looked up to where she'd seen the plane and felt her eyes open wide. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her, but she realized that the plane had descended in height. It also wasn’t flying straight as she'd seen before, the nose of the plane tilted downwards as it continued to glide in the upper atmosphere.
She waited, for what, she wasn’t even sure. But she could see it, was pretty positive she wasn’t just imagining it. It was definitely coming down, and fast, growing bigger as it drew closer, from something like a big speck to maybe the size of a small tennis ball. It was moving too quickly.
And then, Clara screamed, because she knew, realized it was going to crash. It was heading down and aiming right for them.
"Clara!" she heard Cooper shout behind her as she struggled back inside the car, ignoring it when she hit herself. "Clara, what is it, what's wrong?"
There was no time. It was coming too fast.
"Cooper, get out of the car and run!" She infused as much urgency in her voice as she could manage, but all she could see in his face was confusion.
"What?" he muttered, half amused, probably thinking she was joking.
There wasn’t time to try and convince him, but she got out and started off in the direction they came from. She knew he would be left baffled for a moment, but he would ultimately run after her. When he thought she was in some form of trouble, it was what he usually did.
She realized people were watching her as she ran past. She didn’t even think about it, slamming a palm on the cars as she continued to run, calling out to them, warning them of the danger.
It was so strange, and she assumed how dissociated she felt must have been due to the adrenaline pumping through her blood, making her move the fastest she ever had, even though she hated to run. She was used to light jogging, but full out sprinting usually left her with an ache in her side. Her mind couldn’t be convinced to slow down, though. The overall sense of danger behind her made her body move on instinct, like there was some hungry carnivore chasing at her heels.
She could hear perfectly, yet her own words, whatever she was spouting, didn’t register in her mind. The words were tinged in urgency and panic, but she wasn’t thinking about what she was saying, or doing, just moving. She didn’t wait to see if anyone else ran after her, she would have loved to be a hero, stopped to convince everyone that they would all die if they didn’t move, but she was more concerned for herself. Her chest stung but it was gone in the next second, her heart beating too fast, breath wheezing as she continued running and shouting.
This is crazy! You're acting crazy!
But she couldn’t stop. It wasn’t plausible, and she chalked it up to human self-preservation, but she knew she had to get away as fast as she could. Most of the people in the cars didn’t listen to her, just watched her like she was crazy, a few of them alarmed, some even shouted back curses as she ran past. She didn’t pause to look back, but she heard a few car doors open and slam behind her, too few.
"Clara!"
That voice cut through whatever noise she could hear, and the relief flowing through her made her stumble and almost fall as she came to an abrupt halt. He didn’t sound too far away, his voice still confused but mostly sounding alarmed now. And Clara turned just in time to see the plane collide with the town hall and the stream of traffic.
CHAPTER FIVE
Clara knew she was falling before she felt it, covering her head. There was just a rush of air, and she was sure she screamed, but there was a ringing in her ears that made her hear nothing at all. The fall felt like it lasted an eternity, and then she was colliding with the ground, painfully.
Suddenly, it was like she could hear again, only it was all so much louder. She could hear explosions and screams, and the sound of feet thundering around her. She had enough presence of mind to scoot aside, in between the two cars she'd fallen close to so she wouldn’t get trampled. Everyone else must have finally seen what she had and they weren’t taking their time anymore.
It all sounded like some tragic movie scene, and all she could do was lie there and shake, too afraid to try and move, feeling the ache in her body from her slam into the ground, but she couldn’t tell if she was hurt. She could hardly think at all.
Then she felt hands on her back, and she knew instinctively it was Cooper. She realized he was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him, not around all the noise in the atmosphere, in her own mind.
How long had it all taken, from the time she saw the plane coming down, threw herself out of the car and started running? It felt like an eternity, and yet all that energy was suddenly gone. She felt she would fall if she tried to get up, and wondered if it was an after effect of the adrenaline.
When the explosions finally subsided, Clara looked up. She met Cooper's eyes as soon as she pulled her arms from around her head. She pushed so she was sitting up, ignoring Cooper's anxious expression for the moment, glancing around.
From this vantage point, all she could see were running legs all around. There was fire and smoke everywhere coming from the direction everyone was running from. Slowly, standing up with Cooper's help, she stared around at the aftermath.
The town was wild, with people running away or staring in awe at the wreckage. Clara couldn’t understand why it wasn’t horror, why people would stand to watch the carnage when it made her stomach sick. And of the ones running, some tripped, and they either tripped others or got trampled. Those that wouldn’t move were shoved off to the side, but those that fell either picked themselves up or let themselves get stepped on. It was chaos like she'd ne
ver seen, never thought she'd have to see.
She didn’t want to, but she turned around to watch the direction they were all coming from. She'd already noticed the smoke and fire, but seeing it was a different matter. She felt her heart clench, even though her mind was suddenly too silent. The feeling of morbid curiosity overcame her—was that why there were people just watching?—she stepped onto the hood of the car in front of her so she could see the extent of the damage.
How far had she run away? Because it seemed to have been a great distance, though she hadn't had much of a head start, maybe a handful of minutes, if even that. A shudder went through her body when she considered, momentarily, how it could have ended for her if she hadn't seen it coming. Then she saw it, Cooper's car, crumpled under the plane. It wasn’t completely gone, but the front was crushed, and it had pushed the back of the car up so she could see it above others still lined on the streets. The familiar paint, even though she couldn’t see much of the vehicle itself, made her sure it was the one. She just stared at it, tempted to get closer even though she was sure, and she knew that she narrowly escaped.
Cooper as well, actually. When she pulled herself out of her mind, she realized he was still right there beside her. She let herself down and stood next to him. He was messing with his phone, looking frustrated and like he wanted to throw it, probably at one of the people running around screaming like crazy even though everything else had settled.
"What is it?"
He shot a quick glance at her. "I'm fucking trying to call an ambulance, but my stupid phone isn’t working," he snarled at the innocent object in his hands.
It startled Clara for a moment, because Cooper wasn’t one to curse easily, and the few occasions it did happen still surprised her. But, she supposed she couldn’t exactly blame him with the current situation. She glanced around again, glad she'd thought to move out of the way or she likely would have been stomped on. She stood between the rear and front of two cars, and the only reason no one had bumped into either of them, was because everyone was rushing for the free path between the lines of cars.