My Way [H.S Fanfiction]

Chapter Five

Suddenly it’s sunny. She’s on the pier again. And this time she recognizes it. It’s the last place that her mother and father had taken her before her father died. That last, truly good, memory she had of her childhood. She looks up to see a woman pushing a carriage, she’s wearing a black dress, and walking away from her. Leah. It’s Leah again. Clara watches her, calls for her, but she just keeps walking, pushing the carriage  along. She runs after Leah, trying to look around her and into the stroller, all the while calling her name. Finally Leah hears her. She turns, smiles and waves. Clara grins, her heart leaping with joy, she slowed to a jog, getting closer. Leah reaches down to pick something up, out of the stroller. Clara is only a few feet from her now, their eyes meeting, she slows to a walk, Leah begins to lift whatever is in the carriage-

Clara screamed, water soaked her whole body. It’s cold, freezing cold. She looked up to see Alex throwing a bucket into the corner of her small room, a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he turns away. “Wake up. I won’t tell you again.”

Clara's life has become a shell.. Every day the same as the last. She was done. She just quit.  She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror the other day. She didn't look like Clara Montez. Not anymore. Alex made her dye her hair, twice within the last six months, the brown roots were starting to come out again, but the rest of her hair was now a washed out blonde color. She liked to think she looked like her mom, maybe. She can’t really remember what her mom looks like anymore either. Her eyes are sunk in and though she isn’t restricted food, she looks unhealthy, pale and frail. The waves never pull back anymore, she’s always drowning in anxiety. And no one is willing to throw her a lifeline. 

Alex continued to fake kindness, and when that didn’t work, he switched to brute force. For the first few weeks Claa had fought, hard. Though he’d shattered the bones in her left ankle, she refused to give in to him, fighting him tooth and nail and getting beaten bloody. There had been days where she was completely blind and yet….he still apologized and said he loved her. 

He reminded her all the time. That she should be grateful. That he saved her from the evil in the world. He convinced her that the only place for her was with him. Her mom thought she was dead. She didn't even know what State she was in. If he threw her out the door with only the clothes on her back, even worse things could happen to her. But he loved her and he wouldn't do that. Not to her.

Slowly over time she gave up. She stopped fighting, stopped getting angry. Just stopped being a person all together. She kept her silence and obeyed without hesitation. It wasn't enough to save her from abuse if he was really feeling it. But over time the attacks had lessened. The only thing She wanted anymore was peace. And when she listened, she got it. 

Clara walked out into the living room to see Alex putting on his jacket, the tv was on in the background, which meant  she was allowed to watch it while he was out. She didn't try to leave anymore. He would play games with her, make her think that he had messed up and she could escape, only to pop out just as she was almost free and beat her. He conditioned her to obedience and it worked.

“I’ve got some errands to run. You need to be in your room with the door shut by three.” Clara slid past him like a ghost, flopping down in his ratty old lazy boy chair. He was used to her silence. He would take that over her smart ass mouth any day. “I love you and I’ll see you later…” she didn't  acknowledge him, face stony, she stared at the tv. 

Sometimes when she was alone…..She did allow herself to think of Harry. She analyzed their week together over and over again, and had come up with some theories. The first one, which was also fact, Harry was using her. Maybe she didn’t want to believe it, ,maybe she didn’t want to know. But she wasn’t stupid. He took her to be a human shield. If the cops had stopped them at any point in time, he could have used her as leverage to get away. She knew that was true, no matter what he’d said about his ‘family.’ Two, no matter how hard he denied it, he really had enjoyed her company, and she wasn’t just a hostage in the end. She knew she had become a friend, at the very least. And even if she was wrong about that, on some level, he cared enough to not only save her from a drunk homeless man, but to also wash the sheets when she couldn’t lay on them, offer her alternative medicine when she couldn’t get her meds, and buy her coffee and a bagel for breakfast. He could have let her starve or suffer through her panic attacks alone….But he didn’t.