Suffocating

Unravel; II

Claire thought today would be a nice day, starting with her waking up, finding nothing conspicuous on social media, apologizing to Roxanne, and perhaps having Roxanne forgive her and hug things out and continue the day normally.

Sadly, Claire thought wrong.

"Do you know what this means, Claire?"

Sitting limply on the edge of her bed, with Roxanne standing in front of her, holding out her phone for Claire to see, Claire felt as though she, of all people, knew what this meant.

But she didn't say anything, partly because she didn't want to raise suspicion, but mostly because she was still shell-shocked and exhausted from having to use all of her energy to heal herself.

It wasn't a fun experience, having to eat scrambled eggs meant for three people. But it was either that or having to actually survive a day or two with a stab wound, and Claire did not want to deal with that drama again.

And even then, her shoulder still throbbed and ached and she really shouldn't be moving, lest she hurt herself.

She'd already hurt herself enough changing out of her clothing into her regular turtleneck last night.

Roxanne seemed to think her silence was one of disbelief.

Outside, the city buzzed with life. Cars honked, people talked. It was on the late afternoon. Claire had woken up an hour or so ago. She normally was an early bird. Roxanne didn't seem to notice that she'd yet made her bed.

"Look. Just- just look."

She gestured Claire to scoot aside, make room. The grey sheet of the bed rustled and wrinkled. Claire bit her tongue to hold herself from making any pained sounds as she moved. Roxanne leaned to her, her forearm inches from touching Claire's shoulder, as she held her phone for both of them to see.

"This is the blog I posted, right? And look at the comments." She pointed to the comments. Claire didn't read them. She knew she didn't need to. Roxanne would explain the comments for her in three, two... "People... People actually listened to me, Claire. They actually- fuck, Claire. They didn't brush me off like I thought they would."

Roxanne shut her phone off and tossed it carelessly onto the bed, right next to her pillow. She shifted until she was facing Claire, legs crossed. Roxanne's knees touched Claire's thigh.

Claire's jaw loosened, upon realizing that Roxanne was still wearing last night's clothing. Did she... did she not sleep at all? Claire could picture it; Roxanne lying on her stomach, laptop opened and blasting the maximum brightness, typing and scrolling over and over again, occasionally reading blogs or watching YouTube videos to pass the time.

Claire did not like the picture. Not at all.

"You were right, Claire." She had this gentle look on her face. It made Claire want to scream. "I'm still hella mad at you, but you were right, alongside Grover, Bella..." She laughed. "Even Rick's been telling me to do this."

Roxanne looked outside at the window, her eyes half-opened and painted with bags. Yet she looked more radiant, more alive than Claire had ever seen. Maybe it had to do with the morning yellow light, beaming at them soothingly. But Claire doubted it.

Roxanne was happy. Happier than she had ever been for a long time.

And all it took was to ruin everything Claire had built.

Claire swallowed when she realized how tightly her hands were clenched into fists. After unclenching them, her fingers still spasm in a need to grasp, hold, crush.