Undeserved Devotion

Chapter 7

Claire finds Chris in the kitchen looking through the fridge and cabinets. “Oh hey, looks like we don’t have a lot of great stuff left for dinner, so I’m going to run out to the store. It shouldn’t take long. You want to come?”

“No thanks, I’ll stay.” Chris nods and turns to grab his key. He hesitates at the door and looks back at her. He doesn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. Claire can see plain as day that the look on Chris’s face is begging her to be here when he gets back. She nods and gives him a small wave.

After Chris leaves, Claire goes back up to her room. She sits on the edge of the bed and fear takes her again. She flops back on the bed in a huff and grabs a pillow for comfort. She is transported back to another memory of when Chris was sneaking back out of the room before his parents caught them. She didn’t want him to go, so he grabbed the pillow he had been sleeping on and gave it to her. “Hug this when I’m not here.” She smiled at the sweet gesture and finally let him go. After he left the room, she did indeed hug the pillow and was comforted by not just the action, but also that the pillow smelled faintly of him.

Claire smiled to herself at this memory and even though she was still terrified, she told herself that she owed this to him. At the very least, she had to stay until he got back. She forced herself to get up and decided a hot bath would help relax her.

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When Chris returned from the store, he was relieved to see Claire’s car was still at the house. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he really thought she was going to bolt while he was gone. He hears her shower going, so he starts putting dinner together.

About half an hour later, Claire comes down. Her mouth starts watering as she smells the delicious dinner. She sees that Chris has set the table already and has a fire going. Sheesh, how long of a shower did I take, she thinks to herself. She turns to enter the kitchen and stops dead when she sees what he’s making, “Chicken poblano?” Chris gives her a shy smile, “Yeah, I wasn’t sure what to make so I went with your favorite, or at least what used to be your favorite. Is that OK?” Claire is touched, “Of course, just surprised you remembered is all. Can I help?” Chris gestures to the bar while still tending to the stove, “You could pick the wine and pour us some glasses.”

Claire does and when Chris refuses any additional help, she goes to sit by the fire with her glass. She watches him, but can’t help thinking that there is no way he is this OK with things.

Dinner is served and the two are just catchingup with old friends. Chris asks about her career, her family, and friends. He casually asks if she’s seeing anyone and was visibly relieved when she said no. Neither one cared to discuss any details further, and Claire’s anxiety continued to build as she anticipated getting to the part where they discuss their relationship. Not ready to get into the heavy conversation yet, she asks about his family. “Well, OK, I guess. As you know, I don’t have much that I’m close with. And….. Dad passed a couple years ago suddenly of a heart attack, so I’m sure he’s happy to be reunited with mom again.” Claire wanted to rush over and hug him, “Oh Chris, I’m soo sorry. I had no idea.”

Chris shrugs, “It’s been hard, but I threw myself into my work and honoring him by making this company a huge success.”

“Wait, this is YOUR company that does the retreats and stuff?” Chris takes a drink of his wine and nods.

“If you’re the owner or CEO or whatever, why are you the one hosting the training? Don’t you have a staff for that?”

Chris runs his hands through his hair, “Yes I do have staff that usually handles these retreats, but… I decided to do this one, when I saw your name on the roster.” Chris continues quickly, “Before you get too mad, I know it wasn’t fair to ambush you, but I wanted to see if you would even be willing to be in the same space with me, and… I was hoping to get this chance with you.

Claire processes this for a minute before the anxiety and anger explodes out, “So what, you took advantage the situation to spend some time with me? For what Chris, to tell me how bad I was to you, that I left you and then you lost your dad. That’s I’m a horrible person for just walking away from you and disappearing.” Claire can’t stop the tears that are now steaming down her face, “I only did what I thought was best. I can’t believe that I actually thought this was a good idea to try and talk to you.” She stands up and starts to run from the room.

Chris is fast and catches her arm, he pulls her, so she’s facing him and holds her firmly. “Claire slow down. That was not my intention at all.”

Claire yelling now, “Do you not even see how messed up this is?”

Chris sighs and starts to pull her up the stairs, “Come with me.”

“What? No, Chris stop, let go.” But Chris doesn’t until they are in the master bedroom and he gently pushes her to sit on the bed. “Claire please, I want to show you something.” Claire is still overly emotional but intrigued as to what he could possibly what to show her in here. She knows that he would never harm her, even after what she did.

Chris comes back to the room and hands Claire a shoebox. “Open it.”

Claire opens it and finds a myriad of things. She recognized some things as tokens from their relationship, like letters, ticket stubs and the like. Then she picks up a small jewelry box in one hand and a stack of apartment applications in the other. She holds them up and Chris answers the question before she can even ask, “Those are apartments next to every grad school I knew you applied to. I wanted to be prepared for wherever you ended up going. And the box.. well that’s the ring I was to going to propose with after graduation.”

Claire starts crying again, “You’re showing me these things to make it worse? Like I didn’t know you were the best boyfriend ever and that I didn’t deserve you? Why do you think I left, I didn’t want to drag you down with me.” Chris takes the box and items away from her. He gets on his knees in front of her and lifts her face to look at him. “I only wanted you to know how devoted I was to you. I thought if you knew I was planning to be there for everything, it would make it easier for you to believe me when I tell you, I understand why you left.” Claire just gives him a blank look.

“Come on, lets go back downstairs and finish our talk.”