She hits the ignore button twice, but he keeps at it.
“I’ll be right back.” She hops up from the table and rushes a few feet away.
I shouldn’t impose, but I can’t help listening in on the conversation, at least the one side of it that I can make out.
“Griffin, you have to leave me alone. Seriously. This isn’t healthy.” She stands with her back to me, her shoulders tense and her entire body rigid.
How can one person have this effect on her over the phone?
“Suicide isn’t something to joke about.” She sounds annoyed. “The next time you mention it I’m calling the cops to do a welfare check on you.”
I continue to watch her shift her weight back and forth nervously.
“Stop calling me. I’m trying to move on with my life here, you should do the same.” She doesn’t bother waiting for a response, she simply ends the call and flicks the button on the side to silence anything else that may come through.
Claire takes a steadying breath before turning toward me.
I shift my own attention to the book in my hand to avoid coming across like a total creep. “Everything okay?”
She forces a toothless smile. “Yep.”
“Was that your boyfriend?” I shouldn’t ask, but my mind and mouth seem to have a communication issue I’m struggling to deal with.
Claire’s jaw tightens. “Ex.”
I let out a puff of air I didn’t realize I was holding. Why would it matter either way? She’s out of my league regardless of her relationship status.
“Does he live around here?” I continue to probe where I obviously shouldn’t. It’s none of my business, but I’d like to know if some psycho is going to show up and cause trouble.
This guy doesn’t seem to understand boundaries.
“No.” She puts her phone face down on the table. “He’s back home.”
“Where’s that?” Why can’t I just shut up?
“East Coast.”
Oh. He’s really far away then. Which means she is, too.
“What brought you out here?” I have this strong overwhelming desire to know every single detail about her.
“Life changes.” She tilts her head to glance at me and then shifts back to the blank page in front of her. “Long story short, my dad got an unexpected new job, and I couldn’t continue to stay there…financial reasons. So now I'm here, living at my mom's, two thousand miles away from where I grew up, basically starting completely over."
“Wait, Beth is your mom?”
“By birth, yeah. I guess so.” She faces me again, but this time curiosity fills her features. “You know her?”
"Not well, but a decent amount. She's always been nice to me. Pretty sure she was already here when I moved in. And that was ten years ago. She and a few of the other residents are flight attendants. They come and go randomly, often leaving for weeks at a time."
She lets out a sort of sad laugh. “Wow, well, you officially have a better relationship with her than I do.”
“I’m sorry.” The two words slip out like everything else I can’t seem to keep contained. It’s one of the many apologies she deserves from me but the only one I’m willing to give her right now. There’s still the need to keep a wedge shoved between us to eliminate any danger I might pose.
“It’s fine.” She’s not very good at lying.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
Claire picks at the eraser on her pencil. “Eighteen years ago.”
“How old are you?” The math suddenly adds up in my head.
“Almost nineteen.” The tone of her voice sends a knife through my heart.
I'm not sure about her story, or why her mom made the choice to leave her daughter behind, but I do understand the impact losing a mother can have on a person.
I want to tell her this, to share that I can comprehend a bit of what she’s going through. But doing so would open up an injury that I’ve still never properly recovered from, and I’m not in a position to spiral out of control once I dive back down that rabbit hole.
“Anyway. Enough about me.” She taps the book. “Read.”