Tuesday Dinner
1778 Words
The rain didn’t wash it away. Claire thought it would. She stood on Marcus’s porch with her phone clutched so tight the case bit into her palm, the screen still lit with the message that wasn’t meant for her.
I can’t wait to see you tonight. Don’t tell Claire.
Behind the door, she could hear him laughing that same laugh he’d given her after their first kiss, after she’d told him about her dad, after she’d said I trust you
She should have knocked. She should have screamed. Instead, Claire just stood there, watching the rain turn the porch light into a halo around her, wondering which version of herself was supposed to handle this one.
She swingsthe door open.
And there he is Marcus, hair damp from the shower, towel slung low on his hips like he owns the night. He’s smiling, that easy, crooked grin he used to save just for her.
Then he sees her. The smile stutters.
Behind him, in his living room, is Maya. Her best friend. Barefoot, wearing his shirt, holding two glasses of wine like she belongs there. Like Claire is the intruder.
Maya’s eyes meet hers over Marcus’s shoulder. No shock. No apology. Just a slow, terrible recognition.
“Claire,” Marcus says. Her name sounds foreign in his mouth now.
The rain keeps falling. It drums against the porch roof, against Claire’s skin, but she doesn’t feel cold anymore. She feels hollowed out like someone reached inside and took every version of herself she’d built around him, around Maya, and left nothing.
Maya sets the wine glasses down. “We should talk.”
Claire’s knees give out.
Then, gasping
She jerks awake.
Not on a porch. In her own bed. Sheets tangled around her legs, heart hammering against her ribs like it wants out. Sunlight cuts through the blinds in hard, honest lines. The red numbers on her clock blink: 9:00 AM.
For a second, she’s still there. Can still smell Marcus’s cologne mixed with rain. Can still see Maya’s face, not sorry, just caught
But the wine glasses are gone. The porch is gone.
Because it’s been two months.
Two months since that night actually happened. Two months since she found them, since she ran, since she told herself she wouldn’t dream it again.
Morning light doesn’t make it softer. If anything, it’s worse the dream clinging to her skin while the world expects her to be functional. To shower. To answer emails. To be a version of Claire that doesn’t flinch at 9:00 AM on a Tuesday.
Two months of silence, and now this.
Claire stares ,the dream still heavy in her throat.
The phone rings.
She grabs it. “Hello?” Her voice is raw from the dream, from sleep that wasn’t rest.
“Hey,” says Alana. Her sister. Bright, even at 9 AM. Too bright. “You’re alive. Good. Don’t forget, dinner tonight. 8 PM at Mom’s. You promised.”
Claire closes her eyes. Dinner. Family. The version of herself that sits at that table, passes the potatoes, laughs at Dad’s jokes like nothing’s broken. She’d forgotten. Or maybe she’d hoped forgetting was allowed.
“Claire? You there?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m here.”
“Don’t flake,” Alana warns, but her tone softens. “Mom’s making that roast you like. And… just come, okay? We miss you.”
We miss you.Like she’s been gone longer than two months. Like the girl who showed up to Sunday dinners with Marcus on her arm and Maya as her plus one was a different person.
Because she was.
“8 PM,” Claire repeats. “I’ll be there.”
Alana hangs up, and the apartment goes quiet again.
8 PM. Eleven hours to figure out which Claire to send to dinner. The one who pretends she’s fine? The one who’s still angry? The one who hasn’t told her family what happened because saying it out loud might make it real in a new way?
She looks at the clock. 9:03 AM now.
The dream still sits in her chest. And now she has a deadline.
She’s halfway through the motions before she catches it.
Bare feet on the cold tile. Toothbrush in hand. Hair half tied up, the way she wears it for her shift at the gallery neat enough to be professional, loose enough to look effortless.
She’s even pulled her black work pants from the closet. They’re draped over the chair, waiting.
Then it hits her. Tuesday. Her day off.
Claire stares at herself in the bathroom mirror. The woman looking back has dark circles under her eyes, lips pressed thin. The woman looking back dreamed of Marcus and Maya and woke up at 9 AM with no place to be until 8 PM.
She sets the toothbrush down. Slowly. Like the weight of the day just changed shape.
A day off. Eleven hours stretching wide open, empty except for a family dinner she isn’t ready for. No gallery to hide in, no customers to smile at, no small talk to armor herself with.
Just her. And the dream. And the memory that isn’t a dream.
She glances at the black pants again. The uniform of a version of Claire that had her life together. Or at least faked it well
Claire doesn’t sit with the emptiness. She weaponizes it.
If she has to face 8 PM, if she has to sit at her mother’s table and pretend the last two months didn’t hollow her out, then she’s going to do it on her terms. Armored.
Shopping.
She showers until the dream rinses off her skin. Puts on jeans, a clean tee the “I’m fine” uniform. Grabs her card, her keys, her sunglasses even though Lagos is overcast today. Sunglasses hide a lot.
The mall is already breathing by the time she gets there. 10:32 AM. Music low, AC humming, other people living other lives. Normal ones.
She walks with purpose. Not wandering. Hunting.
She needs something new. Something that doesn’t belong to the Claire who wore Marcus’s hoodie on Sundays. Something Maya has never seen her in. Something that says I’m still here without saying anything at all.
She passes the stores they used to hit together her and Maya. Finds herself avoiding those windows. Instead, she steps into a boutique she’s never tried. Quieter. Cleaner lines. Expensive in a way that feels like a challenge.
The sales girl smiles. “Can I help you find anything?”
Claire meets her own eyes in the mirror behind the counter.
“Yeah,” she says. “Something for dinner with my family. Something that makes me look… like I won.”
No soft drapes. No “forgiving” silhouettes that say I’m healing
Claire walks past the florals, past the knit dresses that look like hugs. Her fingers trail the rack until they stop.
Black. Structured shoulders. A blazer dress cut clean at the thigh, nipped in at the waist like it has opinions. The kind of piece that doesn’t ask for space. It takes it.
She tries it on.
The mirror doesn’t show the girl who fainted on a porch two months ago. It shows a woman with a jaw set and collarbones like knives. The fabric doesn’t cling; it commands. Her legs look longer. Her eyes look colder. Good.
“Ma’am, that was made for you,” the sales girl says. Not salesy. Just true.
Claire turns, checks the back. No traces of the dream. No Marcus. No Maya. Just lines and angles and a version of herself that doesn’t bleed in public.
She pairs it with gold hoops big, unapologetic and pointed heels that click like warnings on tile.
At the counter, she doesn’t flinch at the price. Some armors are worth it.
By 1:14 PM she’s walking out, garment bag over her arm, sunglasses back on. The mall moves around her, but she doesn’t. She cuts through it.
8 PM feels different now.
She isn’t going to dinner to be the wounded daughter, the quiet sister. She’s going as Claire. The one who survived the porch. The one who woke up. The one who chose sharp.
Her phone buzzes. Alana again: Still coming tonight, right?
Claire looks down at the bag in her hand. At the reflection in the glass doors a woman in jeans and a tee, carrying a weapon.
She types back: Wouldn’t miss it.
Now there’s just one thing left: the hours between now and 8 PM.
Hair next.
Because sharp needs precision. Untouchable needs polish.
Claire doesn’t go to the salon she and Maya used to book together the one in Toronto with the gossip and the cheap lattes and the stylist who knew both their timbits orders. She’s done bleeding in familiar places.
She finds a new spot on Queen West. Sleek. Minimal. The kind of place where the mirrors are clean and the chairs don’t swivel toward memories.
“Wash and silk press?” the stylist asks, hands already assessing.
“No,” Claire says. “I want it sharp. Cut.”
The stylist raises an eyebrow. Good. Let her be surprised. Let everyone be surprised.
Claire points to the photo on her phone. A blunt bob, jaw length, clean as a blade. No layers to hide behind. No softness to tuck her grief into. Just a line. Definite. Final.
The scissors sound like decisions. Snip. Snip. Snip
With every fall of hair to the floor, two months get lighter. Marcus’s hands in it gone. Maya braiding it on lazy Sundays gone. The girl who cried in this exact position after that night in their old apartment gone.
When the dryer stops and the stylist spins the chair, Claire doesn’t recognize herself for half a second.
Then she does.
The woman in the mirror has a neck like a dare. Cheekbones the new cut frames like a warning. Eyes that don’t look tired anymore. They look awake.
“Untouchable,” the stylist murmurs, almost to herself.
Claire runs a hand along the edge of her hair. It’s smooth. Cold. Perfect.
She pays, tips well, and steps back into Toronto at 4:47 PM. The October air bites, clean and unsentimental. She catches her reflection in a storefront and doesn’t stop walking.
Dress: bought. Hair: cut. Armor: complete.
8 PM is three hours away. Her mom’s place is in Mississauga a 30 minute drive, but the GO train will get her there by 7:30 if she leaves now.
The cold is already working with her. Sharp weather for a sharp woman.
It's Time to face dinner she muttered to herself
- Writer
