Re: Great Gatsby: Jude/Clem/Shane/Graham
Clem's nerves just weren't up to a thing. She knew Jude was disappointed and real irritable. Even before he went sounding like her daddy when he was displeased with how she looked or how didn't fawn near enough. She knew that look on Graham too, like trouble was about to boil over real quiet, without anyone even seeing it coming.
She tugged that mink tighter, like it was some armor against real bad things, and she looked at Jude soft. "Jude... It's not you. I swear, it's not. I just need time," and she was begging, clear as day, she was begging. Explaining was something she didn't want to do, and she didn't want to go unraveling out there in that summer sunlight. "It's easier right now... Folks who were there, they're easier." Because she knew clear as crystal that Shane would be wherever Graham was. Shane's woman and the boy too, likely. "Alex and Chloe, I know.... You said they wouldn't come, but I keep thinking on it. I..."
She trailed off, and she stopped there. "My bags can stay," she said, the best promise she could make about coming back, and then she turned, bruised and slow, and walked inside.
"Sun's bad for the complexion," she muttered as she went.