Pieces of You(44)

“Does your family have a history of congenital heart defects?” Buchik asks us and Chris immediately shakes his head. Buchik turns to me awaiting my answer. Everybody is waiting for my answer, but I don’t have one.

“I don’t know.”

Is that what this was about? Did they ask us here under the guise of allowing us to see Abigail so they could find out our family history?

“I don’t have a family history. My mother died…. She’s dead. I never knew my father.” Stop it, Claire. “He raped my mother and she killed herself when I was seven. I don’t know anything about my family history. I’m sorry.” Chris grabs my hand and squeezes. “I’m sorry.”

I take off running down toward the exit door at the far end of the corridor.

“CLAIRE!” Chris calls after me, but I keep running.

My legs fly across the floor as silent as my past. Not a single secret given up. No history to speak of. I’m a ghost. A phantom. A flicker of an actual soul.

The exit doors slide open and I rush out onto the pavement then into the parking lot. I don’t stop until Senia grabs my arm and I’m wrenched backward.

“Claire!”

I cover my face in shame. “Get me out of here.”

“I thought you wanted—”

“Just get me out of here!”

I don’t want to face the judgment. The look in their eyes when they realize I gave up Abigail because I’m no better than my mother. Lynette and Brian didn’t really care about letting us see her. They just wanted to know our family history. Well, now they know. And now they can go home and breathe a sigh of relief as they realize how much better off Abigail is without us.

Senia throws her arms around me and I lose it. “You’re a good person. You deserve to know her.”

“Please just take me home.”

I ignore Chris’s phone calls and texts on the ride home. I keep telling myself it’s over now. They will never want us around Abigail. Now I just have to focus on school. I have to study for a test. I have to write a term paper on the importance of the father in the family unit. I have to call Adam.

I need him so much right now.





Chapter Twenty





Adam




I’M WOKEN BY THE PINGING sound of a voicemail message. I glance at my phone on the bedside table and see the screen is lit up. I slide it off the table and squint at the screen as my eyes attempt to adjust to the brightness. Claire just left me a voicemail at one in the morning.

I touch the screen and it automatically plays the message in my ear: I’m sorry to call you at this time. I just need to hear your voice. Call me later.

I can hear the anguish and uncertainty in her words. She has to be upset if she’s calling me at six in the morning, her time. I should never have come here.

I call her back right away and she picks up on the first ring. “Adam?”

The way she says my name with such relief is both comforting and worrying. “What happened?”

I’ve been going over our next conversation in my head all day, thinking of how I’m going to break it to her that I think we need a break from each other, to get things straightened out in our lives. She has so much going on and I want to be there for her, but I can’t. She needs someone there. If it can’t be me—fucking hell—it should be him.

“I just wish you were here,” she whispers.

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

“I think I just needed to hear your voice.”

Fuck. How am I going to do this?

“I love hearing your voice,” I say as my stomach clenches with anticipation. “I wish I was there, too.”

“You sound tense.”

I take a deep breath and sit up in my bed. This room is a lot bigger than my bedroom in Wrightsville Beach. Most people think that they want spacious homes, but they don’t realize how the emptiness of a large room just amplifies the emptiness in a broken heart. And we’re all broken, in one way or another.

“I am tense.” She’s silent as she waits for me to elaborate. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“When am I ever truly okay? I’m a mess, as usual.”

I want to say, “You’re my mess, and that makes you a beautiful mess,” but I don’t want to get distracted. I need to get this over with before I lose my nerve.

“Claire, you know I love you, don’t you? You know I’d do anything for you?”

She pauses for a moment, probably trying to figure out where I’m going with this. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to talk to you. I’m trying to talk about what’s best for you.”

“What best for me? Are you trying to talk to me or are you trying to tell me what’s best for me?”