Element 5 – The Council Of Claire
Still November 3rd, Monday
The almond smell lingered in the apartment as Claire attempted to pick up the bottle and wipe away the spilled shampoo. She had insisted on cleaning up her mess on her own no matter how much Jason offered to do it for her. She was sure he was checking in on her while she did her best to appear calm staring down a shampoo bottle she knew was objectively harmless. Her traumatized nervous system, however, cared little for what her mind knew.
This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman. She had lived alone for three years now, perfectly capable of looking after herself. But suddenly she struggled dealing with spilled shampoo?
She had beaten Mark that day. He had held her captive, hurt her, humiliated her, and raped her. But at the end of it all, he hadn’t managed to break her and ended up broken himself instead. After she had confronted him with the pathetic excuses he so desperately needed to believe to justify his actions, the mask had slipped, revealing the pathetic, lonely man underneath. She would not let some liquid almond puddle turn this into a loss for her after all.
A distraction. She needed a distraction that would allow her to clean this up like she normally did. She was overthinking this. That was the problem. She took an additional paper towel, one more than necessary, and then talked to Jason who was still sitting in the kitchen.
“How is Nora doing? I expected her to come by over the weekend.”
The first few days that she had stayed at Jason’s place, Nora hadn’t been at the forefront of her mind. But given how jealous she was of her, Claire had become more and more surprised the longer she didn’t hear anything from her. Somehow, she found it hard to believe that Nora was just cool with her staying for a week at her boyfriend’s place all of a sudden.
“Oh, uhh… She’s busy with her midterms. I don’t know why, but English majors like her have most of their midterms later than us.”
It was true that not all students had their midterms in the same week. But Claire wasn’t fully convinced.
“Sure, but I think I haven’t heard her call even once since I’ve been here, or you her for that matter. Is everything okay?”
Claire stepped back into the kitchen and threw the soaked paper towels and the shampoo bottle into the trash. Jason scratched his head.
“Yeah, actually, I just talked to her while I was out grocery shopping. She’s a little nervous before the exams, but her friend Lisa told me she always is. And then she ends up acing them anyway.”
Claire didn’t know what to make of this. Three weeks ago, Jason had called her all excited and told her he had finally lost his virginity with Nora, his first girlfriend. Claire didn’t have any experience of her own to draw upon, but wasn’t it weird that in a relationship this young they didn’t see each other for a week and barely even called because of midterms?
“Well, let her know she can come by, okay? I don’t want her… to get the wrong impression.”
Jason reached for his feet to take off his shoes as he answered.
“Mhm, yeah. I’ll tell her next time we talk.”
Then the doorbell rang. Jason looked irritated.
“Is that Emily already? Didn’t expect her for at least half an hour.”
“Oh, I probably should have told you. Emily is always early.”
Jason shrugged once, then got on his way to the intercom.
As he disappeared from sight, Claire became nervous. Was she really ready to tell Emily what happened? Probably not. On the other hand, what did that even mean? Maybe there was no being ready for this. If that were the case, she might end up waiting forever for a feeling to arrive that simply didn’t exist.
“Hi Jason! Long time no see! ... God, you look tired. Are you okay?”
She could hear Emily’s familiar voice occupy the apartment before she had even closed the door behind her. The same energy, the same unfiltered, immediate concern. Claire knew all too well that Emily must have been worried sick when she hadn’t answered her messages for two days. Her demeanor didn’t show it, though. Or more precisely: her demeanor was designed not to show her concern.
Jason’s voice, by comparison, was so quiet that Claire couldn’t make out his response. She stood up and walked from the kitchen into the hallway, ready to meet Emily halfway. They stepped into the living room at exactly the same time, both coming to a halt for a second as they saw each other. Emily’s eyes lit up. She briefly folded her hands before her face and then stormed toward Claire.
“Oh my god! You look so cute in that giant sweater!”
Before Claire could even attempt an answer, Emily hugged her. A little tighter than usual. Jason could be heard mumbling in the background.
“It’s a perfectly normal sweater. She’s just tiny…”
Claire was tearing up as she hugged Emily back.
“I missed you too.”
Emily let go of her, taking a step back. Meanwhile, Jason closed the gap to them.
“So… Is this the big the secret then?”
Emily asked, pointing back and forth between Claire and Jason.
“What do you mean…?”
Claire was confused.
“Well, you’re at Jason’s place, wearing his clothes. He’s clearly not getting enough sleep, if you catch my drift. Our boy here can’t get enough of
this.”
Emily’s hand gestured wildly through the air, painting a circle around Claire’s face. Her misunderstanding began to dawn on Claire, making her blush. Jason hid his face in his hands.
“It’s not what you…”
“Oh, what did I do?! I feel horrible now! Couldn’t you have told me this was imminent?! I never would have encouraged Eugene if I had known. Poor Eugene. And here I thought you had hit it off with him…”
Claire didn’t really know what to say. Emily looked so happy, so relieved. Somehow, the alternate reality of a secret boyfriend that Emily believed to have discovered seemed much more appealing than the truth.
Fortunately, Jason decided to intervene.
“Emily, it’s not what you think. We’re not a couple. That’s not why Claire is staying with me. Maybe we should all sit down first?”
Emily’s energy instantly evaporated the moment Jason’s words registered in her brain. She sat down on the couch first.
“I know. I guess you wouldn’t have called in sick for a week if a guy was the only thing that happened, huh?”
Claire shook her head as she sank into the comfortable armchair that had become her reading spot over the last week.
“I wish it was as simple as that.”
Jason briefly disappeared into the kitchen, fetching a glass for everyone. Then he sat down too. Emily looked at both of them, one after other, but neither of them said anything.
“So…?”
Ultimately, Emily’s eyes settled on Jason as Claire was shrinking further and further away, unable to hold her gaze.
“I think Claire needs to tell you this herself. That isn’t something I can do for her.”
Her heart was beating fast. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. She placed them in her lap, then rubbed her thighs, and finally ended up with her arms folded across her chest, her fingers digging into her elbows.
“Well, let me say first. I didn’t mean to ignore your text. I… I couldn’t get to my phone that Sunday. When I finally got it back, I didn’t know how to explain. I’m sorry…“
Emily’s eyes briefly darted to Jason who only shook his head. Then she looked back at Claire.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re okay. Why couldn’t you get your pho-?”
“I’m not okay!”
Claire was grinding her teeth, tears started to flow. She saw Emily lean back, startled and surprised by the unfamiliar anger. Just like Jason earlier.
“I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry. I… I meant to say, I’m glad that…”
Emily was visibly struggling to find a way to finish the sentence.
“… I got to see you like this today.”
Claire wiped her tears away. Jason handed her a tissue. She took a deep breath.
“I couldn’t get to my phone… because I never made it home after I left the Infinite Pint. On my way home, I… was kidnapped by a man.”
Emily’s eye went wide. Claire could see her friend resist the urge to ask the million questions running through her mind: “
What man?”, “
What did he do?”, “
Are you hurt?”, “
How did you escape?”, “
Is he still out there?”, “
Have you been to the police?”, “
Do you need anything?”, “
Is there anything I can do?”
Claire hugged her knees close to her chest as she continued, her face hidden behind her legs. She didn’t want to see Emily’s reaction to her next words.
“He told me his name was Mark. I have no idea if that’s his real name. He…”
She was shaking now.
“He kept me in the basement of a house he had rented. He let me go after 24 hours because he thinks he’s not that bad of a person if… he doesn’t kill or seriously injure his victims. And he kidnapped me because…”
She had to swallow once.
“…he’s a serial ra… rapist…”
Unbearable silence filled the room. Nobody was moving, even the everyday white noise of clothes rubbing against the fabric of the couch was absent. All Claire could hear was her own rapid but quiet breath. Her eyes were closed. A single gulp cut through the calm. She couldn’t tell from whom it came.
Somebody stood up from the couch. Soft, cautious steps closed the distance. The person approaching slowly sat down on the wide, comfy armrest to Claire’s left, making her feel the slight shift in the center of gravity of her armchair. The feminine smell entering her nose gave away that it wasn’t Jason sitting next to her.
Emily gradually slid down the armrest, gently bumping into Claire on the seat that wasn’t meant to hold two people. The familiar, yet different feeling of tender arms cradeling her followed.
Compared to Jason, Emily’s arms were delicate, her scent sweet, her fingers slender, and her chest soft against Claire’s face. Emily’s soothing embrace was more akin to a mother’s touch. Her voice was calm. A barely noticeably tremble of suppressed nervousness came through while she whispered the first words with as much reassurance as she could muster.
“You’re so brave.”
Claire let go of her knees and hugged Emily back, leaning into the protective embrace. She quietly sobbed in Emily’s arms, letting her friend shield her from the world.
“I don’t feel brave…”
Emily nodded as she kept stroking her hair.
“Mhm, I know. That’s why I’m telling you.”
What followed was a different kind of silence. Sobs growing quiet, tears drying, repetitive touch that made no sound. The mute, awkward helplessness from earlier made room for a calm peace.
Claire was about to fall asleep when she heard Emily’s gentle voice.
“Want me to sit with you as we talk? Or should I go back to Jason on the couch?”
Claire sniffed once.
“Uhh… I think you can go back. It’s getting a little cramped here in my reading spot.”
Emily sat back down next to Jason. She gave him a quick hug and whispered something into his ear that made his eyes grow wide for a moment before it left him with a tired smile on his face. Emily took a deep breath.
“So, I hope I’m not insensitive here, but… can you get me up to speed about what happened after… Claire made it out?”
Jason looked at Claire. She nodded, confirming that he could reveal what happened since.
“Well, I think Claire got home shortly after midnight on Monday. She had trouble falling asleep on her own despite being sleep-deprived. So, she sent me a text around 3 AM, asking me to come over.”
Nervously, he took a sip of his water. Emily was hanging on his every word with an intensity that made him look a little uncomfortable.
“Claire then fell asleep. I stayed for a day at her place, and then we moved here, because, well, apparently this Mark…
person… knows where she lives.”
He scratched his head.
“And that’s pretty much it. Since then Claire has been… recovering, and I… I’ve been here too.”
Once more, he sought her confirmation. Claire, again, nodded, even though she disagreed with how he was downplaying his role.
Emily looked back and forth between them with her eyes ultimately landing on Jason again.
“So, just to be clear. I’m not saying you should have done anything different. But that means no police, no doctor’s visit, and nobody else you confided in yet but me?”
Jason briefly hesitated.
“Uhh, no.”
Emily turned to Claire.
“Can I ask… why?”
Claire sighed.
“I don’t see the point. What good would any of that do?”
Emily looked visibly uncomfortable now. Her face twitched as if she were feeling the weight of her words on her tongue.
“I mean… you said he’s a serial rapist, right? That means he’ll do it again, doesn’t it?”
Claire got out of the armchair and started to walk through the small living room.
“Okay, I get what you’re saying. But I thought this through, more than once. Let’s… let’s go through this rationally, shall we?”
Emily seemed intimidated by the sudden intensity.
“So, I looked it up: In general, only 9% of all reported assaults lead to a conviction. By default, the chances are bad. In my case, there are no witnesses, and I don’t even know who to press charges against. I know that he’s a roughly 30 years old average white guy, and if I’m lucky he told me his real first name. But ‘Mark’ is so generic that this barely narrows it down even if that’s his real name. I don’t know where he lives or what his job is.”
She was far from finished, pacing up and down the room as she kept listing information.
“I know that there were twelve victims before me. At least that’s what he told me and he doesn’t like to lie. Apparently, none of these cases has got him into trouble. He rented a basement for his plan and I doubt that he even lives anywhere nearby. Even if they did find his DNA somewhere in that basement, what good would that do if it isn’t already part of some database?”
Neither Emily nor Jason said anything.
“I can go to the police and expose myself to all the questions they might have. If I’m lucky, somebody considerate would handle my case. But either way, I’d probably have to go through every word I exchanged with Mark, relive it all again. And trust me, I remember it all.”
She suddenly stood still and stared at the floor.
“I could tell them a lot. How he informed me about Eugene’s text. How he arranged the sandwiches he made for us in a little, nicely ordered, symmetrical pyramid on his plate. How he asked me whether I had any allergies because he didn’t want to trigger a reaction with the food he made for me. Or what about him mentioning the fact that I was only the third of thirteen women to spit at him? How he expected for that to happen more often before he began his ‘
career’ as a serial rapist? I can keep going if you want to. But will any of that get him caught?”
Claire looked at them both. Their faces revealed to her that they were beginning to get an idea what spending 24 hours with Mark truly meant.
“Here’s the truth: I can go to the police, tell a bunch of strangers what happened, and relive it all again in the vague hope that the… what? 1% chance he might get caught comes to fruition? To me, even that estimate feels like I’m highballing it.”
Emily forced herself to look at Claire again.
“Okay. I’ll support you whatever you choose, Claire. I only brought it up because I thought you might want to try it even if the chance is low. To get that ‘what if?’ out of your head. But you don’t owe anybody anything.”
Claire sat back down again.
“Thank you.”
The room grew silent again. Nobody said anything. Claire felt exhausted and she was sure the others were aware of that. Apparently, neither of them had any idea how to pivot back to a more normal topic after discussing an issue of such magnitude. Then Jason opened his mouth.
“So, I…”
His brief hesitation made both Claire and Emily stare at him as if he was about to reveal a life-altering secret of his own.
“I bought ice cream…”
Claire’s eyes went wide with surprise. Jason sat there with slumped shoulders, staring at the floor as if his suggestion carried with it the weight of the world. Her gaze wandered to Emily who desperately tried to hide the grin stretching across her face behind her hand while suppressed laughter shook her body. That was enough to send Claire over the edge, turning a subdued chuckle first into a cackle and then into a full-on laugh. Claire falling back into her chair, holding her stomach, was the starting signal that granted the others permission to join her.
She wiped away the first tears of laughter she had cried in over a week. Jason got up, still giggling a little, and went to fetch the Karamal Sutra ice cream he had showed Claire earlier. He also brought three bowls and spoons from the kitchen, but somehow they ended up sitting huddled together on the couch, Jason in the middle with Claire and Emily surrounding him, all of them eating directly out of the pint as they watched an episode of Breaking Bad together.
The ice cream had long vanished before the episode was over. Despite liking the show, it became harder and harder for Claire to focus on Walter’s and Jesse’s attempts to kill a fly. Her mind kept drifting back to Eugene’s text. She still needed to give him an answer. Even if her response ended up being a no coming far too late, she owed him that.
Claire grabbed the remote and paused the episode. The screen froze on the exact moment of Walter hitting the giant stainless vessel in the laboratory mid-fall. Jason and Emily turned toward Claire in surprise.
“Sorry for pausing. But I need your advice on something.”
Claire muttered as she reached for her phone and opened Eugene’s text. She handed over her phone to Jason who showed it to Emily as well.
“What do I do with this?”
Jason’s expression became thoughtful immediately while Emily’s eyes lit up in excitement. She was the first speak.
“And so the council of Claire comes together to decide the fate of Eugene!”
Claire rolled her eyes with a smile on her face. Jason snorted, the phone shaking slightly in his hand. He continued.
“Well, usually I’d say your two options are something like ‘
I’d like that. Friday? 
’ or ‘
Thanks, you’re really nice, but not my type. Sorry.’ What do you want?”
Claire sighed.
“Yeah, I got that far myself. I gave him my number and told him to text me. So, obviously I didn’t intend to suddenly say no. That would just be cruel. Eugene, he’s… adorable…”
The memory of twirling Eugene’s hair around her finger came back to her.
“Aww, you’re blushing!”
No-filter Emily was back. Claire decided to ignore her comment, then cleared her throat.
“My point is, it’s been more than a week now. From his perspective, I’m suddenly ghosting him. I can’t just reply without acknowledging that nine days have passed, can I? But what could I possibly say that isn’t either completely inadequate or just oversharing? I like him, but aside from a few questions in my section, we talked exactly once. I can’t tell him what really happened.”
Emily had switched back into serious mode. The gears were grinding as she thought of her next answer.
“Well, do you really need to tell him that much? I think I’d try being honest in the sense that I’d tell him I had a reason why I couldn’t reply that got nothing to do with him, but that I also can’t share.”
Jason nodded.
“I agree with Emily here. Seems like a decent guy. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Claire bit down on her lower lip. Their proposal felt almost too simple.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to screw this up. What if he doesn’t understand?”
Jason folded his arms across his chest and looked at the ceiling.
“Hmm, think about it like this…”
He checked in with Emily.
“You have this zombie cat in physics that only fully dies when somebody looks at it, right?”
Claire could sense part of Emily’s soul evaporate as the psychology major in the room tried to express his thoughts in a way the stem-minded women surrounding him might understand.
“Yes, Jason. Erwin Schrödinger killed a cat by looking at it…”
Jason scratched his head and turned back to Claire.
“Anyway, my point being. Isn’t this a bit like that? You just have to take your shot, sent him that text, and if he dies, I mean, really doesn’t understand… then that’s an answer too, isn’t it?”
He handed Claire back her phone. She looked at the message on display beckoning her. She began to type as she answered Jason.
“I guess you’re right. Thanks. Just remind me to stop you if you ever consider getting a cat.”
It didn’t take her long to come up with an answer for Eugene.
“Hi Eugene. I’m very sorry I didn’t reply sooner. Didn’t mean to ghost you. I suddenly had to deal with personal issues I can’t really talk about. If you still want to get that coffee, I’d like that too. My treat.
”
She barely read the text a second time before she hit ‘send’, nor did she show it to her friends for approval. The message still felt inadequate, weirdly disproportionate in light of what had happened since that conversation on the stairs, but she just sent it on its way, letting the chips fall where they may.
She breathed a sigh of relief, throwing her phone onto the now empty armchair. Then she let herself fall back against the couch, her body sinking deeper and deeper into the seat until she found herself in a superposition of sitting and lying down.
“I feel exhausted…”
Emily got up, walked past Jason, and proceeded to hug Claire in a way that the casual observer might have easily mistaken for a tackle.
“Sooo… What do you like about him?”
Emily teased, then Jason chimed in.
“I’m curious too. All you told me is that he wore a band shirt you liked and apparently is a fan of Babymetal? I had to look up what that is, but I’m not sure whether I actually found the right thing…?”
Claire chuckled.
“That question alone tells me you found the right thing.”
She still hadn’t given a real answer, though. What did she like about him? She always found it hard to describe what she appreciated about someone without that sounding like a generic list of attributes strung together. Capturing the essence of what she liked about a person with ordinary words turned out to be a surprisingly difficult task.
“Hmm… He’s smart, funny, respectful,…”
A little smile came across her face as she thought of his explanation of why he liked Babymetal.
“… unashamed just being himself no matter how nerdy that is…”
Her thoughts went back to his curls.
“… he has pretty curly hair…”
Her face softened as she kept thinking about him. For a moment, Jason and Emily disappeared for her. She still couldn’t identify what she truly liked the most about him. But then she had an idea.
“But I think most of all… I like that he’s kind without trying to be. It’s hard to put into words. His kindness feels… aimless? There is no goal, no direction, no expectation of getting anything in return. Like that’s just… who he is.”
She was satisfied with that answer, even if she wasn’t sure whether Jason and Emily truly understood what she meant.
Emily still sat close to her. She half-whispered into her ear.
“Girl, you are so done for!”
Was she? She couldn’t really tell. She didn’t fall in love easily. She honestly doubted she ever had before. But especially over the course of the last week, imagining herself as a girl in love had been inconceivable.
She didn’t know what would come after today. But she knew she wouldn’t have to face it alone. For now, that was enough for her to feel hopeful.
Emily’s phone vibrated first. Nobody really cared. Then it vibrated again, and again. Claire’s phone followed, the display lighting up on the armchair, while Emily continued to receive new messages as well. It didn’t take long for Jason’s phone to join the chorus of soft vibrations, albeit in a lower frequency.
“What the fuck is going on? Is this some bug?”
Jason sounded annoyed as he fished his phone out of his pocket. Emily reached for hers too while Claire couldn’t be bothered to walk back to her reading spot to pick up hers. She saw them both become silent as they kept scrolling through whatever conversations were exploding in length on their phones. Jason’s thumb got slower over time, while Emily’s became more frantic. Both their faces turned white the more they read. All the while, Claire’s own phone kept begging for attention.
“Okay you two. Say something. This is freaking me out. I’m getting my phone.”
Emily grabbed her by her sleeve as she was about to stand up.
“I don’t think you should read this.”
Emily’s eyes were pleading with her.
“Emily, whatever it is, I can hardly avoid it if it creates such a storm.”
Emily hung her head, then she let go. Jason stood up at the same as Claire and walked into the kitchen with his hands curled into fists. Claire grabbed her phone and sat back down in her spot. She had several conversations with alerts for new messages, but especially the internal group chat for the mathematics department she worked at as a teaching assistant kept getting flooded with new messages.
The newest message at the bottom read:
“Alex Wong: Does anybody know if Claire is ok? She’s been sick for more than a week now. Given the news, I’m kind of worried.”
Alex of all people was worried about her? She hadn’t seen that coming.
More messages kept coming in. There was no point in starting somewhere in the middle of this chaos. She decided to scroll back up to the beginning. The first message simply read.
“Eric Williams: Does anybody know what this is about?!”
Below that was a link to an announcement from the university. She clicked on it.
“Professor Anthony Robertson, Ph.D. suspended immediately”
She read the headline out loud and looked to Emily.
“What?! What do they think he did? Did somebody accuse him of plagiarism?”
To her, Professor Robertson had always seemed like a bastion of integrity. Intelligent, caring, a great teacher, and very supportive of his students. For the last two decades, he had been the main reason for the university’s math department’s success, turning it into one of the top 10 most prestigious places to study mathematics in the country.
“The university’s announcement is pretty vague. But you should see a link to a news article soon if you scroll a little further.”
Emily sounded defeated. Meanwhile, Jason could be heard pouring water into his glass in the kitchen. Claire took a quick look through the door and saw him gulp it down in one go. Then she found the link Emily had mentioned. It led to the website of a local newspaper.
“University Suspends Professor Anthony Robertson Following Rape Allegation”
This didn’t make any sense. This had to be a mistake.
“Eleanor Price, the daughter of Victoria Gardner (Founder and CEO of the fashion label White Mare), alleges to have been sexually assaulted twice by Professor Anthony Robertson, first on Friday October 24th in his office, and a second time on Tuesday October 28th in an elevator on campus.”
She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Eleanor, the kickboxer, accused Robertson, a man she could easily fold in half, of rape? She remembered how she had wished to be stronger, how she had wondered if things would have been different if she was strong and tall like Eleanor. Why Robertson of all people? She had been alone with him in his office countless times. She couldn’t remember a single inappropriate comment or look from him, let alone any touch.
She read further through the article while Jason came back into the living room, stopping next to her and putting his hand gently on her shoulder. Apparently, the journalists had extensively investigated the timeline Eleanor had given them. There was a compromising email from Robertson to Eleanor asking her to wear a specific skirt on October 28th. Nicole Green, the administrative assistant of the department, who Claire knew quite well, confirmed that she found Robertson in a suspicious position in the elevator and that Eleanor took the stairs back down instead of coming to her appointed meeting with Robertson.
Clair put her hand on Jason’s. The article kept going through further pieces of evidence that strengthened Eleanor’s credibility and painted Robertson’s behavior in a dubious light. She couldn’t take it anymore.
“Emily, this can’t be right! You know Robertson. He wouldn’t do something like this!”
Emily had a hard time holding Claire’s desperate gaze. She swallowed once.
“Uhh… read to the end…”
Anxiously, Claire looked back at her phone. She took in the last words of the article.
“We reached out to Anthony Robertson for comment prior to publication. In his response, he has confirmed the allegations to be true.”
Robertson didn’t even deny it. Her breath accelerated. Jason increased the pressure of his hand on her shoulder while his thumb gently moved back and forth.
“This can’t be…”
She closed her eyes. She wanted to calm down, she needed to calm down. What had Mark told her?
“
So if you were doomed to get raped anyway and the chance was high that it would be someone you know, don’t you think you’re lucky it’s me instead?”
It was nonsense. She knew that. She had known it the moment he said it. But he had just kept talking.
“
Think about it, if the alternative was your father, John or the Professor you’re working for taking a crack at your hole, don’t you think this here is better? You get raped a bit, sure, but you get to walk home unhurt and all your relationships with important male figures in your life are still intact. Sounds like a bargain to me.”
She remembered how mad that had made her, what she screamed at him in response.
“
Shut up! My dad, Professor Robertson or JASON! would never do such a thing!”
But she couldn’t get Mark to shut up.
“
You have such a naive view of men, it’s adorable. Do you really think your dad never looked at you and recognized how fuckable you’ve become?”
He had dragged them all into his twisted game one by one.
“
And then there’s John, sorry, I mean Jason, the childhood friend. As if a guy going through puberty never wondered what it would f…”
Was anybody safe? If she was wrong about Robertson, then who else had she misjudged?
“Claire, it’s okay. You’re with us.”
Jason leaned down to her, his other hand reaching for her as well. She jumped out of her seat.
“Don’t touch me!”
Panicking, she took two steps backward and stumbled into the coffee table behind her. She couldn’t hold her balance and fell onto the table, making the three unused bowls fall to the floor. One of them broke and shattered into pieces.
“Claire!”
Her back hurt and Emily hurried immediately to her. But neither was important in this moment. What had she done?
“Jason, I’m…!”
He stood there, his outstretched hand still frozen in mid-air, his eyes wide with shock. Then he composed himself and took one step back. The outstretched arm sank down, hanging at his side without purpose. He looked at his feet.
“It… It’s okay…”
It wasn’t.
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The longest chapter yet. And with that, the setup phase for Divergent Limit is essentially over.
