Delilah nodded, tried to smile, tried to do anything that felt like herself before she walked into this house. No, before that. Before she came back to Bright Falls.
“Bullshit.” Claire said the word so softly, so sweetly, even though it was a swear, Delilah felt herself crumple. Her mouth twisted and her eyes burned and she didn’t know what to say or how to think about anything anymore, not Astrid, not herself, not her entire childhood.
“Hey,” Claire said, reaching out and taking Delilah’s hand. “What’s going on?”
Delilah shook her head, but her fingers gripped Claire’s. She swallowed over and over. There was way too much spit in her mouth. Maybe she needed to throw up. She was suddenly dizzy, her core thrown off-balance.
Claire read her like a book, leading her to the bed and guiding her to sit down. She rubbed slow circles on Delilah’s back, and Delilah inhaled, then let her air out slowly.
“What happened?” Claire asked, fingertips trailing down Delilah’s neck.
Delilah eyed the journal on the floor, then bent to pick it up. “Do you . . . What was I like back when we were kids? Do you remember?”
Claire frowned. Clearly, this was not the question she was expecting. “Um, yeah, I remember.”
“And?”
Claire slid her hand down Delilah’s back. “You were quiet. Sad. You . . . didn’t seem like you . . .” She rubbed her forehead with her free hand. “I don’t know.”
“Just say it.”
Claire sighed. “You didn’t seem like you cared much about anything. About anyone here. Making friends or getting to know people. But you were just different, and I don’t think anyone knew how to—”
“And Astrid? How was I with her?”
Claire winced. “What is this about?”
Delilah ran her hand over the journals. “I just . . . Have you ever wondered if you got it all wrong?”
“Got what wrong?”
“I don’t know. Something big. Like maybe you just missed all the signs, or you didn’t know how to interpret them.”
“What do you mean?”
Delilah shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean.” She thought about those first months after her father died, how alone she’d felt, how abandoned. Isabel was nursing her own grief, Astrid too most likely, so there was no one to help ten-year-old Delilah through the night, no one to hold her hand or wrap her up in their arms or tell her it was going to be okay. She remembered feeling invisible, lost, like maybe her body wasn’t even real. By the time Isabel got it together enough to be a presence in the house, Delilah was already gone. In her mind, anyway. She knew she wasn’t wanted. She knew Isabel never planned on raising a kid who wasn’t even her own blood. A strange kid, at that.
And Astrid . . . Had she tried with Delilah? Did she actually want a sister and Delilah simply didn’t know how to be one? How to be anything to anyone as a little girl who’d just lost the only person who’d ever made her feel wanted?
“It’s okay,” Claire said, pressing her lips to Delilah’s temple. “Whatever this is, it’s okay. Just talk to me.”
Delilah turned to face her, searching Claire’s brown eyes. All of that loneliness from childhood, all of those feelings of being unwanted, a burden, something to be tolerated, she didn’t feel any of that when she looked at Claire.
She felt the opposite.
She had from that very first night in Stella’s, before Claire even knew who she was and Delilah turned the whole thing into a hilarious joke, a twisty little revenge scheme. Even then, something pulled her to this woman, and she didn’t want to miss it.
She didn’t want to misinterpret or ignore or shut down.
Before she could think through it further, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to Claire’s. The other woman gasped in surprise, but then relaxed, cupping Delilah’s face in her hands, her lips parting to let Delilah in. The kiss was slow and desperate at the same time, exactly what Delilah needed. She let the journal fall to the floor again, wrapping her arms around Claire’s waist. They fell back onto the pillows, tangled like a knot. Delilah didn’t want to come up for air to talk, knowing Claire would listen and understand and accept her. Right now, she just wanted to feel Claire’s body pushing against hers, her fingertips drifting down Delilah’s cheek like she was something precious.
“Hey,” Claire said against her mouth, framing Delilah’s face and pulling them apart a little. “Delilah, I . . .” She paused, doubt flickering in her eyes.