Page 62 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
The silence stretches so taut it just may snap.
“A tattoo,” she finally says.
I wait, but she doesn’t elaborate and keeps her torso submerged so I can’t see it.
“I guess that means you regret it?” There’s no way I’m going to drop it like I know she wants me to.
She wades around, looking everywhere but at me. “Of course not… it’s just… personal.”
“Got it.” My voice is hard even to my own ears.
I decide to ask her what I’ve been wondering since I saw her with that camera in her hand last night. She’s doing this video for the banquet, to clear the past. But what about her future?
“What’s going on with CAFA?” I ask.
She smiles a little. “Like, as an institution? They’re still up and running as far as I know.”
“Funny,” I deadpan.
“I was planning to reapply, but I don’t know.” She shrugs as if to dismiss it. “There are a lot of film festivals I could enter instead. I could upload my videos online and try to gain traction that way. Why do I even need film school?”
“Because it’s your dream,” I say plainly.
She pauses, surprised. But no matter the strain between us, it feels wrong to act like we don’t still know each other as well as we do.
“I’ve been working on a new doc all summer, but I don’t think it’s any good. Mitchell couldn’t even follow it.”
I scoff. “Mitch can’t follow a straight line without getting confused.”
A laugh bubbles out of her. I feel it everywhere.
“It’s probably better than you think.”
She shoots me one of her small smiles that I covet. “Maybe.”
The longer we sit here, the more relaxed I get. But it’s not only the healing quality of the springs. I realize it’s… nice. Being here. Being with her. Which is exactly what I was afraid of.
I open my eyes, unsure when I closed them, and she’s looking at me, her jaw set in that determined way before she starts asking questions.
“Why does it seem like no one else knows how much pain you’re in?” she asks.
I blink, and the lie comes out automatically. “I’m not in pain.”
She shoots me a leveling gaze. “Remember when Josh tripped you before state?”
The unpleasant memory forces me to frown. He was lucky all I did was rip my arm open. Hell, I was lucky that’s all that happened before the biggest race of the year. Not that it made a difference, since I came in first over his forty-seventh-place finish. By pissing me off, he all but ensured my championship win.
“There was gravel in your hand, your whole arm covered in blood, and I don’t think you evenwinced.” She shakes her head in exasperation before she keeps going. “You get… eerily calm when you’re hurt. Like you’re unwilling to acknowledge the pain. You had the same look on your face when you crossed the finish line today.”
I’m used to people watching me—but I’m not used to themseeingme. But she always did. It ignites a longing I’ve fought to subdue all year.
“Shit. This is why—” I stop myself, my voice coming out too loud. A breeze jolts through the trees again, ruffling my hair and raising goose bumps across my arms.
“Why, what?” she prods.
Injuries have a way of teaching us something we need to learn.
If that’s really true, then this injury between me and Clara proved to me that I wouldn’t survive losing her again. I’m barely making it through as it is.
