Work Text:
“He kissed me, Claire!”
Claire knew that was true immediately. It was the way her sister said it, her eyes (always so expressive, too expressive) desperately searching hers.
Her gut feeling and mind told her the same thing: your sister is telling the truth.
But she chose to ignore all three.
It’s easier that way.
Except those six months with no contact have been the hardest of her entire life. This includes their mother’s death.
Claire doesn’t think she’s ever spent this long without talking to her sister. Not for her own lack of effort, as she could get too deep into her head and work. But her sister never let a month pass without getting in touch, checking in if everything was alright, if she had a good fuck lately.
Of course, Claire would always end the call right then and there. Some things didn’t need to be discussed between family members. But she did appreciate the concern.
It’s always been like that between them: older Claire, so well behaved, so correct, so perfect, so stuck. As boring and uninteresting as their father. And her younger sister, carefree, indulging herself too much, charming — just like their mother.
Her sister could bag any guy, Claire’s seen it enough to know it’s true: from good (poor Harry, they just didn’t work) to decent to… interesting characters (Teeth git, you shall be remembered). Every time Claire asks how in the world she finds and gets them, it’s always the same answer, the cheeky ‘took it up the arse’.
That’s not the actual reason. Her sister sincerely thinks she only gets these men because she opens her legs unashamedly.
Claire knows it’s much more than that. That same vivacity, charisma, wittiness and addictive something that mother had… her sister has in spades.
It’s even clearer now after their mother died. Grieving is even more difficult since god seems to be mocking them. How can one grieve for someone when a clone is walking around? It looks like their mother is still here, in front of her. No wonder their father can’t look his own youngest daughter in the eye. In the hardest days, even Claire finds it hard to.
If Claire were a better person, she’d have told Pheebs all of it long ago. Her good traits, that yes, she does have a great arse, stop worrying about the tits already, damn it, but mainly, stop talking just about bodies. Her little sister deserved a good life, a good job, a good man. Even after what happened to Bo. No, especially because of that.
But Claire isn’t really a good person, try as she might to pretend to be one.
She knows how to perform as others expect. She gives them the good girl performance, always has. The obedient girl. The one who always fixes mistakes as opposed to her sister, who always starts them.
It’s helped her in her work life and for that, she is thankful. Every time she looks at her big office, it’s with a sense of accomplishment. She is a bad bitch and she deserves it.
But every other area in her life, she’s a sobbing, disgusting mess.
A husband she can’t stand to breathe in the same room — any laughter he once brought out of her soon faded into awkward forced chokes she pretends are laughter. A very disturbed stepson that somehow she feels guilty for, even though she knows there is no reason to. Martin screwed him up all by himself, long before they met. But she feels responsible somehow. She tries to treat him as a son. To see him as a son.
It’s all playing house; they’re all complete strangers. They had been from the very beginning and, even after years, nothing has changed.
Her house is not a home, or whatever shit her sister quotes from the latest trendy feminist book she pretends to understand.
Claire is a joke, a mockery of ideals she once held dear and now shits all over them.
An absolute sordid joke of a girlfriend, now wife; of a mother; of a sister.
How could she judge her father for marrying that cunt when she’s done the same? Martin is the exact same type of narcissist who leeches off attention and makes sure to never let go.
A parasite. And isn’t it nauseating to think of your husband that way?
Not for the first time (and never for the last), Claire wishes she were like her sister. For as long as she could remember, she always wanted to be like her: free, irreverent, individualistic, witty and so sure of herself. No roles or boxes are necessary for her sister. She is who she is and she does whatever the fuck she pleases. Whenever she wants. Whoever she so chooses.
And god if Claire doesn’t loathe her for that.
Her mother always knew. With gentle reminders and tact only she had, she helped Claire see her own good points.
‘No need to finish the workbook when class just started, Claire, come take a bite.’
‘So what if your sister was asked out by her little classmate and you weren’t yet? It’s not a race, darling. Let’s go out for a movie, didn’t you want to watch that fancy French one?’
Her mother knew just how to alleviate things. Not truly solve them, for she was no miracle maker but just to soothe her.
It was easier when they were children.
How she missed it. She wanted to be soothed like a child and at her goddamn age. Talk about decadent.
What her sister wanted, she got. It pissed Claire off so much. She lost boyfriends to her.
So forgive her for not caring when the precious little thief came crying about her life and sex troubles. As if mocking her, as if she knew Claire didn’t get off in years now.
Claire knew that wasn’t the case. As soon as she suspected it, behold, the burrower was the very gift she came up with. Her sister cared, truly.
But Claire didn’t want to be taken care of — much less by her younger mess of a sister. It felt humiliating.
At least her husband was hers. Her job was hers. Even that creepy stepson was hers. Those were three things her sister would never have.
Her sister had no family of her own, might never have.
No, that’s a lie. She had Claire.
No, still a lie. It was the other way around: Claire’s only family was her. Their father didn’t really count; never did, especially now as defeated and uninterested in life as he was.
That sexhibition had been hell on earth. Granted, that’s what she expected with all the fuckery this family came up with, but never quite to this level.
Why was her life turning into some inane contrite telenovela? She didn’t even like those shit shows. Can’t a woman just work and have none of this trite shit bother her?
And so, Claire did what she always did. What her mother and sister at times did and what her father could not stop doing: she thought only of herself.
Or, as she forcefully put it (to feel slightly better about herself), she chose herself. Like a powerful, strong woman. Not a crying, weeping, weak child.
She chose to stay with her husband and trust him. Even though she knew deep down what a lowlife he was.
Even when she knew her sister was telling the truth and the depraved drunk kissed her. He ended the remaining bonds of their failed marriage. Not her sister.
But Claire was a married woman with a family and a stable job. Everything her sister couldn’t have. She couldn’t give that up.
It was her only proof of success in life.
Maybe being a mother would change her, she thought.
Distantly, she remembered bits and pieces of those awful, boring feminist seminars their father bought for them. ‘Never let a man make you feel inferior’, ‘don’t choose motherhood or beauty for superficial reasons’, ‘be a strong, confident woman for the right reasons’, and all that crap.
Well, she was being strong and that was that. No need to waste time trying to remember classes that did not get her ahead in life, nor gave her a raise. Not like she even paid proper attention or had notes to show for going to those seminars. All her sister’s fault, of course, for distracting her with jokes; wearing that goddamn stolen shirt Claire searched for everywhere; just her being there was enough of a distraction for anyone around. She wouldn’t shut up.
But Claire was a proper adult, unlike her.
Yes, motherhood could help her, if not outright fix her. One could dream. Maybe she would display a natural talent for it, just like she did for work. Imagine if she could be just like her own mother! What a wonderful mother she would be.
‘You never will. You’ll be just like your father — you already are’.
She kills that voice down, quickly and swiftly. There’s no time to waste on sentimentality.
They try for six months. To say she never orgasmed would be a lie. To say she frequently did, yet another one. She was good at faking it, she’d give herself that. Martin never noticed, too drunk out of his ass.
During that fateful dinner, when it had happened… Claire felt so disgusted. At first, at herself. Then at him, then her sister, everyone at that godforsaken dinner table (oh right, there was a priest there, she forgot).
Claire felt disgust at herself for the undeniable relief it brought her. How could she not want her own husband’s child?
She did want to be a mother. She thought she did.
But never with Martin.
Claire was relieved to lose the baby.
What type of life could she lead like this?
Every second spent in Finland is like a balm to the soul.
She loves it all: the icy, unforgiving coldness that cuts across her skin; the landscape, beautiful white covering everything, erasing all ugliness and creating a sheet (even if artificial) of perfection.
Mostly, she just loves being far away from everything. Not having to see her father and the cunt, not needing to deal with Martin’s drunken whines and the most bizarre stepson known to earth.
She does miss her sister, though.
How ironic that the man of her dreams shows up only now, when she’s old, saggy, and tired of life.
Add another shot to that shitty life bingo since irony struck twice.
His name is fucking Klare.
Her sister could never know; she’d be insufferable.
Thanks to her sister’s insistence, they slowly reforge those bonds.
No, that is wrong. Their bonds are the only strongholds in Claire’s life now, with their mother’s passing.
Her sister is the only important person she truly has left.
And isn’t that disappointing.
So Claire begs.
If that’s what will make Martin walk away from her forever, she will do it.
Her pride be damned.
She gets down to her knees and begs her husband.
In the back of her mind, she thinks how she’d love to see the face of her feminist seminar teacher here. That old woman would be scandalized. Looks like neither of them learned any damn thing from the seminar or the silent retreat.
And fuck them, truly. For those stupid talk it out (or shut up completely) sessions that went nowhere. Their father, too, for throwing them into these meaningless activities, all to avoid discussing their mother.
He was a coward, thorough and thorough.
And so was Claire.
She lost too much time being afraid. Afraid of how people would see her if her marriage failed, if she wasn’t perfect in every aspect of her life, afraid if she just up and left to another country, and not even a popular European one at that.
That was enough. She wasted too much time already.
Claire has her sister and that’s enough. The shocked and happy — proud, so proud — look in her face is all Claire needs to keep grounded.
And so she stays on the ground. The Claire from six months ago would have never gotten to this point. She wouldn’t even consider it.
But she was a different woman now. She knew what actual love — is it too soon to call it love? — Fuck it if it is, these short moments with Klare were better than years with this fucker in front of her, she can go have fun and live her goddamn life for once and find out if it’s actual love.
Destroying her pride is an insignificant price to pay for freedom.
If only she’d realized it sooner. If only she’d been willing to learn from her sister instead of just picking her apart for so long.
Propriety be damned. Responsibilities be damned.
She ends up living a romantic comedy film’s end scene– the ones her sister unironically watched and liked – so ridiculous and so stupid. With running out of a wedding — who cares about that empty ceremony anyway? — and straight to an airport. Catching up to Klare had been a goddamn Hollywood movie right there. She’d never admit to her sister, or she would never shut up.
It’s silly, so immature and so irresponsible. Something her sister would pull. Not Claire!
And it's just goddamn wonderful.
Claire & Klare
Invite you to their wedding celebration
On Saturday, the twenty ninth of August
At three thirty in the afternoon
At Kamppi Chapel
Narinkka Square, Helsinki
Casual Attire
The very first invite Claire sends is not to her sister, for she is right there at her side, planning the most elaborate (and weird) decorations known to humankind.
It is to their father, who they both know damn well won’t be going to Finland in winter, as his wife already has a fully scheduled month of exhibitions.
But something in Claire makes her feel hope. Maybe he will also notice all the mistakes he’s made in his life and reevaluate it all. Rethink how he treated his youngest in particular.
Even if not now, maybe someday.
Claire herself still has quite a lot to work on as well. Good work though; the fun kind that only her sister and Klare can come up with.
Here’s to a winter wedding!