FIVE
CLARA
Beingan outsider in your childhood home was something I hadn’t expected. All week I’d been trying to make the best out of being a grown woman living at home, but everything felt off. I didn’t understand the inside jokes. I caught the looks my parents passed one another when my presence messed with their established routines. I wanted to shake them and scream, “Hey, I don’t want to be here either!”
Instead, I did what I’d been doing since I came back—I swallowed it down and tried to fold myself into a life that had kept moving without me.
I grumbled as I folded my body into a stretch.
“Relax your jaw and your forehead.” My yoga teacher instructed the class. My muscles did as they were told. My brain, however, was still scrolling through unpaid bills, my parents’ worried looks, and the diamond ring still on my finger.
“Very good. Let’s hang here and breathe. In ...”
The yoga studio in town was busy in the evenings, but midday, it was practically a ghost town. During the height of the tourist season, I was certain classes would be packed, but in the dead of winter it was just me and the geriatric crowd.
As a class, we transitioned to lying on our backs and focusing our breath. I was busy counting ceiling tiles. When my phone buzzed beside me, I sat up.
When my brother’s name flashed across the screen, I grabbed it and whispered, “Yeah?”
“Hey, it’s me. You busy?”
I earned a stern look from my yoga instructor, so I quickly scrambled to my feet and cupped my hand over my mouth as I walked toward the locker room. “No, what’s up?”
Frustration oozed from Hayes’s voice. “I need a ride.”
My brows scrunched. “Where’s your truck?”
He let out an exasperated breath. “Well, that’s the question of the hour. I have no idea. I think it got towed.”
A snort tickled my nose. “Still cursed by the Lady, I take it?”
Hayes growled on the other end. “It’s not funny.”
I thought it was hilarious. And ridiculous. For as long as I could remember, Hayes had suffered from impressively bad luck. Nothing huge, just minor inconveniences that made small moments in his life infuriating.
I glanced back at the studio as the class started rolling up their mats. “I need five minutes and then I’ll be there. Where are you?”
I tried to sound annoyed and put out, but the truth was, it felt good that out of everyone he could’ve called, he’d picked me.
Hayes wasn’t far, so I agreed to meet him. After wiping down my mat and rolling it up, I gathered the rest of my things and headed off to find him. At the opposite end of town, I saw him sitting on a bench near the sidewalk. His shoulders were hunched against the cold, jaw tight, expression pure murder.
I slowed the car and rolled down the passenger window. “Hey, stranger. Need a ride?”
Hayes rolled his eyes and stood. When he went to open the passenger door, I quickly hit the lock button.
“Come on. Open up.” He was annoyed and I was tickled.
“Dance for me.” I tried to contain my giggles as my eyebrows bounced.
“What?” he demanded, pulling on the door handle again. “Come on, Clara. Open it.”
“You heard me. If you want in, you gotta dance for it.” I leaned forward and turned up the radio as I grinned at him.
My brother’s jaw worked and his nostrils flared, but I wasn’t giving in. “Come on ...” I shimmied my shoulders in encouragement.
After a moment, Hayes rolled his eyes and started dancing along with the music, right in the middle of downtown. It was mostly angry shoulder shimmies and a half-hearted hip twist, but he did it. I dissolved into a fit of giggles.
“There.” His hands went out. “Happy?”