Claire made an attempt to be the most gracious of hosts, but I could tell she was struggling with finding a balance between "being my friend" and "being a friend my age". She more or less decided to turn over full control of her house to me while I was there, which to me meant nothing. I was content to lay on the couch and do nothing all day if it meant I could feel like nothing had changed.
Hell, for a while that's exactly what I did. With my bag tossed next to the couch, I flopped down and decided to channel surf. I knew there was nothing worth watching on, but it didn't take a genius to figure that out. Claire had briefly excused herself to go take a phone call shortly after I came over, boring, so I decided to get comfortable. I was told I could do whatever I wanted to get comfortable, so I placed my head on the arm of the couch and threw my feet up on the cushions. I planned to sleep here anyway, so it was a good a plan as any.
I stared mindlessly at one of TV's greatest random crime shows with a title comprised of more letters than your average kindergarten room while I wondered what to do with myself. If I were still 18 and largely uncorrupted by the evils of assholes in 80s pantsuits I might have a few plans about what to do while left alone with Claire Redfield. Not that she would be up for it, but a girl could try. There was really no point in denying it, at least to myself. I had a few ideas about what Claire was really like, and none of them involved any adjectives that could describe me (girl, twelve years younger than, etc…). She was probably talking to her fucking boyfriend right now. Did she even have one? Probably. Why wouldn't she?
Kinda felt like crying after that thought. Fuck that. Fuck it hard.
Rubbing my face to calm down, I tried to ignore thinking about what Claire might be doing and focus on myself. Luckily for me all I could do was fuck all nothing. TV sucked, and frankly, so did my life. If I tried really, really hard to pretend it didn't… it still would. It was a really shitty feeling to think about someone else so much. It was probably unhealthy, but the fact was in that rotting hell pit we'd been in together, survival meant only thinking about her, and doing whatever she told me to do.
Well, for a while.
Until I died.
Except I hadn't died. I felt like I died. I should have died. But in that one, final moment, I was happy. Happy? Maybe not exactly, but I wasn't afraid. I never figured I had much of a life to go back to anyway, and I'd managed to save Claire. I would just make amends with my life there and be shut of it all. It was a good plan, but it didn't play out that way.
I told them all about how I was saved, told them the story of how I lasted six long months. I wasn't alone, and if I had been, I'd be dead. We all knew that. But what I did not tell them, what I did not know myself, was how I even survived the rubble. I'm sure they pretended it was a harmless bump on the head, that I was the luckiest bastard in the universe. I knew that wasn't true…
Claire had told me about a friend of hers, mostly in passing because it involved talking about her terrible late teen years, who had been infected by, but later cured of, another virus. I didn't understand the logistics of it, but basically she was magic now. Was I magic now too? Slightly magic? Did it have a time frame to worry about and one day it would wear off and suddenly I'd feel all my bones crush like they rightfully should have? Okay that was fucking crazy talk, but life was a lot more messed up than I thought before.
Like I said, I didn't think I was okay.
Claire eventually returned, looking rather worn out by whatever conversation she'd just finished with. Apparently it broke down a few emotional barriers between us, because she made a vague hand gesture and said "Move your feet."
I obliged, she sat down, and then, I put my feet right back where they were before, just to see what she'd do. She didn't react, or really acknowledge I'd done anything. I called it a victory.
"Have fun on the phone?"
She groaned, tossing her head back. "God, no."
"Wanna…talk about it?" I said slowly, doubting I could help. Everyone told me talking helped, so maybe it'd help them too? I didn't have any responses planned out though, so it could get awkward fast.
Thankfully, she shook her head, patting my leg. "No, forget it. It was just…work." I couldn't tell if she was lying or not, and I didn't think it was my place to call her on it. Mutual respect and all that shit. I don't talk if I don't want to, so she don't talk if she don't want to.
Claire seemed to drift off after that, and where she went was a mystery. I hoped it wasn't too far away, and I hoped she had a flashlight. Of course she did I was right here. Just because we weren't talking or doing much of anything didn't mean my mind was ready to shut off. I was very aware of Claire right now, yet she seemed unaware of me. This became incredibly apparent when I felt her hands on my feet. Either she had a hell of a fetish she was dealing with, or she was so used to being with someone else, that this gesture came unconsciously to her. She wasn't looking at me at all, just blankly watching TV.
She definitely had a boyfriend, and I definitely just felt my heart break.
I must have done something to set her off. Maybe I flinched, maybe I accidentally whimpered at my own heart being crushed. Whatever I had done made her look at me, made her talk to me, but did not make her let me go.
"Something wrong, Moira?"
I shook my head, unable to think of a quick response. Maybe she'd done this to other people in the past, but right now she knew who I was, and that was enough to tape my heart back together.
Foot rubs, as it turned out, were the easiest way to put me to sleep, though only after years of anxiety and insomnia. When my heart finally calmed down from the realization Claire was doing this for me, not out of habit, I managed to doze off on the couch with her. I was treated to a dreamless sleep, and woke up naturally for once. Fucking jackpot. I considered needing to piss waking up naturally. It was a lot better than a nightmare.
Still half asleep, I wandered into the bathroom, did what I needed, and wandered back out. It was only then I realized Claire had left me alone on the couch. Rubbing my eyes, I looked around for her as if I might find her in the hallway I stood in. I was curious as to where she was, and the adventure to find her gave me an excuse to walk around and wake up a bit.
It was a miserably short adventure in a house her size, I admit.
A door that I assumed to be the garage door caught my attention, only because I faintly heard music coming from the other side. If Claire was having a party without me, I was going to be pissed. I didn't need sleep that badly (I did). She never told me I wasn't allowed in there, so without hesitation, I opened the door on my own.
Hot damn. Maybe Claire's home life wasn't so boring after all.
The first word that popped into my head was "man cave" but Claire wasn't a man. The alternative just sounded dirty, though. Either way, a garage like this probably belonged to some biker dude who spent his afternoons getting drunk in roadside bars. I tried to take inventory of the place before Claire noticed me. A radio on a work bench played some shitty country rock song I'd never heard before, there was a recycling bin full of beer bottles (not surprising someone who went through all that she had drank so much), and a few leather jackets on the wall. Was pink leather a thing? Apparently it was, and Claire had a vest made out of it…
Next to me on the wall hung the trashiest calendar I had ever seen. I was pretty sure no one actually bought shit like this, but sure enough I was greeted by the image of a half dress blonde woman posing with a bright red racing bike. Apparently the signature on it meant a lot to Claire because it was no longer November of 2010. Who the fuck was Elza W.?
Claire looked up at me now from her spot by her motorcycle. I didn't know a thing about bikes, but she sure looked hot doing whatever it was she was doing. Hot, and, well, mortified I'd walked in on all of this.