The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [80]
“She did dump me,” I blurt.
“Excuse me?”
“My fiancée. Iris. You asked before. She did dump me.”
“I figured,” she says. “It’s pretty obvious.”
“But it wasn’t for another guy.”
“For another girl?” Clementine asks.
“I wish. Then I would’ve at least had a good story.”
This is the part where she’s supposed to ask, What happened? But she doesn’t.
My head’s still down. My hands still clutch the wheel. As I relive the moment, she sees the pain I’m in.
“Beecher, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to say it. It really doesn’t matter.”
“She dumped me for the worst reason of all,” I say as the sirens continue to get closer. “For absolutely no reason at all.”
“Beecher…”
I clench my teeth to keep it all in. “I mean, if she fell in love with someone else, or I did something wrong, or I let her down in some unforgivable way… That, I’d understand, right? But instead, she said… it wasn’t anything. Not a single thing. It was just me. I was nice. I was kind. We just… she didn’t see the connection anymore.” I look up at Clementine, whose mouth is slightly open. “I think she just thought I was boring. And the cruelest part is, when someone says something mean about you, you know when they’re right.”
Watching me from the passenger seat, Clementine barely moves.
“Can I tell you something?” she finally offers. “Iris sounds like a real shitwad.”
I laugh, almost choking on the joy it brings.
“And can I tell you something else, Beecher? I don’t think you’re in love with the past. I think you’re scared of the future.”
I lift my head, turning toward her in the seat next to me. When we were leaving St. Elizabeths, Clementine said that the hardest part of seeing Nico was that so much of her life suddenly made sense. And I know I’m overstating it, and being melodramatic, and rebounding something fierce just because we raised the specter of Iris—but ever since Clementine returned to my life… life doesn’t make complete sense. But it definitely makes more sense than it used to.
I turn toward the passenger seat and lean in toward Clementine. She freezes. But she doesn’t pull away. I lean even closer, moving slowly, my fingers brushing her cheek and touching the wisps of her short black hair. As my lips part against hers, I’m overcome by her taste, a mix of caramel and a pinch of peach from her lip gloss.
There are great kissers in this world.
I’m not one of them.
I’m not sure Clementine is one of them. But she’s damn near close.
“You got better since Battle of the Bands,” she whispers as she takes a quick breath.
“You remember that?”
“C’mon, Beecher… how could I forget my first kiss?” she asks, the last few syllables vibrating off my lips.
Within seconds, I’m no longer leaning toward her. She’s leaning toward me.
I’m overwhelmed by her scent… by the way her short black hair skates against my cheek… by the way her hand tumbles down my chest and slides so close to everything I’m feeling in my pants.
Behind us, a flood of red lights pummels the back window. I barely heard the siren from the police car, which is now two cars behind us, trying to get us moving.
Taking a breath, I slowly pull away.
“Feeling any better?” she asks.
“Definitely better. Though also pretty terrified that we’re still on this bridge.”
She offers a quick laugh. But as she settles back in her seat, she knots her eyebrows, offering a brand-new look—a sad silent confession that I’ve never seen before. Like yet another new door has opened—I’m starting to realize she’s got dozens of them—and I finally get to see what’s inside. “We’re all terrified,” she says as we race ahead and leave the bridge behind. “That’s how you know you’re alive, Beecher. Welcome to the present.”
“Please make next… left turn,” the female GPS voice announces through my cell phone over an hour later. “Destination is… straight ahead… on the left.”
“Clemmi, we’re here,” I call out as I hit the brakes