A/N: Hey beautiful people! :D I'm back from a long trip with the family on the road. That was quite the adventure, I got so many great shots to print and some to work on. Now I'm home to the comforts of writing and more photography. But possibly there's more trips on the road coming up tonight for the next week, who knows. Anyway, enough of that and sorry for delay.
On with the chapter! ^_^
Disclaimer: I own NOTHING of Degrassi, only my female character.
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Wednesday, third day of school, barely the first week into a new year and Clare was running late. She couldn't believe it, of all the things to forget was to remember to set her alarm. When she woke herself and checked the lit digits of her clock, she nearly wanted to smack her head into the wall for being so stupid. But even for that there was no time. After a throw of clothes, a near trip over her feet down the stairs, and a quick grab and go breakfast, she was out the door. Usually when she walked to school, she would have time to breathe in the cold morning air, linger her thoughts on every object. But she didn't have time for that; the late bell had rung by now.
Clare rounded a corner, as the school stairs came into view she immediately ducked behind the bus stop shelter, quivering like a frightened rabbit. As expected the school grounds were dispersed of students, save for one, one which she didn't want to see. Luck clearly was not on her side today. True she hadn't seen or heard from him all summer, hell she didn't even prepare herself to see him again at the start of school. He hadn't arrived on the first few days, and although curious she was relieved. After what had happened months ago she didn't want to see him, she knew she would barely be able to be around him, let alone even look at him. But at the moment she surprisingly managed to from a distance. There he stood, calmly looking at his father as Bullfrog was, what looked to be, softly lecturing. Eli would nod his head to Bullfrog, never moving his lips for an audible answer. She notices Bullfrog hand Eli a long blue case. Immediately she assumed it to be one of those medical pill boxes. Eli zipped it into his backpack and stood silently as Bullfrog gave him a quick hug before he left, which he lightly returned. Bullfrog hopped into his car and drove off. Eli stood there motionless looking out where Bullfrog had left, turned slowly, walked up to the building, and disappeared through the doors.
Clare let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. She couldn't help it. The fear and flashbacks of that night paralyzed her; it gripped her and receded into combustion of trembles reminding her why she couldn't stand the sight of him. The last vision her eyes served her was at the hospital, seeing nothing but a crazed, manipulative, suffocating monster that surpassed her limit of tolerance. She inhaled a few deep breaths and waited two more minutes after she saw him disappear into the school before taking off into a run again. Her attention had been so solely focused on Eli her eyes missed the elevated crack in the sidewalk and tripped. She fell and slid on her palms and her right knee when she jerked it to prevent her whole body from connecting to the ground. The contact between the hard ragged cement and her thin skinned knee rang pain into her bone and sensitive cartilage. She hissed in pain and shifted to her side to sit down. She inspected her scraped knee, a tiny patch of skin torn off with streaks of blood outlining the skinned opening, very mild but the scrape burned painfully. She bent over to look closer, but suddenly leaned back as another pair of feminine ringed hands took hold of her knee.
There was quite a few on the stranger's fingers, all silver. On her right hand contained a symbol of an Ankh, one of an owl, and a long band covering her knuckle to the middle of her finger; the other supplied three, an onyx stone ring, triple moon, and the last with a knotted symbol. Clare's eyes trailed up. The figure's head was dipped but covered over with a hood from their sweater. Clare inspected the tanned uniform skirt and was correct to see it was a girl. She watched the girl take one hand to reach into their bag, hauling out a small metal box. Taking a few items out, she gently scraped off the dust and dirt leftover on Clare's skin. After a few more seconds of inspecting her injured knee, the stranger padded her scrape with a wet square, Clare assumed to be an alcohol swab, judging from the strong smell. She winced. It stung for a few seconds before fading like backlight of a cellphone. Then before Clare knew it, there was a cool gel being spread on her cut and noticed it was a creamy white before the stranger's hands placed a bandage on. Clare noticed on the girl's left wrist was a charm bracelet, a simple chain with dozens and dozens of soda can tabs dangling on it.
"Thank you," Clare sighed as she felt the pain leave instantly. Talk about magic hands, she mused.
The hooded girl placed her small box back in her backpack and raised her head. Clare found her very beautiful. Round hazel eyes, innocent like a child's but steady and suppressed with fire. Her hazel color was unusual. She had the common combination of amber with green but was also swimming with tiny pools of violet blue. She noticed the girl had dark hair from the roots on the edge of her forehead, but the rest was tied and hidden under her hood, possibly in a ponytail. Her face was round with a strong neck, clear of make-up, and with brows shaped beautifully curved for her features. She noticed a chain necklace dangling in front of her sweater, the charm hanging in the middle was a cross. The collar of her polo was blue, she's a senior. Her skin was a mixture of olive and pale. Her cheeks were pinked from the chilly air. Her lips were simple and plump. The girl had a neutral expression at first, but then smiled and nodded. She stood up, pulling Clare to her feet, handed Clare her purple binder that had flown out of her hands when she tripped and walked away without a word, with a smile kept on her lips.
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Just get through the day, each day one at a time. Little phrases like that were minimal help, not much ammo to contain anxiety and anxiousness, at least it was for him. Eli sat with a sullen attitude in class. He had missed the first few days but for some reason the student staff on the first week of school love to repeat announcements. One new change that highlights everyone's life is every Friday was now Casual Dress day. How wonderful. Now they sounded even more like a pompous private school institution. The usual tardy familiar faces were gone and now replaced with new ones, which a few that were female who happened to smile at Eli only to receive a glare. Satisfaction manifested in him by the looks of outrage appearing on their faces in return. Not that he cared. He didn't care for anyone, not anymore. The only person who meant anything at all to him was Adam, but then again with Adam not attending this class was a small gentle relief. So there he sat in Advanced Painting, a class he could tolerate. No supervision or timid looks from Adam, but best of all, no Clare. His parents had figured it would be a good idea to have more electives this semester since he had completed most of credits ahead since tenth grade. Today's given assignment was to sketch their ideas for their first incoming project to work on the next week. Ten minutes settled in his seat he heard the door creak open and heavy footsteps from boots walk over to the teacher's desk. His glazed green eyes glanced up from the walking black Magnum boots, the khaki skirt to a girl removing her hood, smoothly revealing a short girl with dark auburn, on the borderline of cherry red, hair tied in a tight bun. She walked to Ms. Dawes desk handing her a slip. Eli could overhear the soft whispers.
"My apologies Ms. Dawes," the girl said sincerely.
"No problem Louie," Ms. Dawes smiled. "Nice of you to join us."
"May I ask what I missed?" she asked. Her voice was smooth and hushed.
"Just take a seat and begin sketching, the email I sent you of the term itinerary hasn't changed," Ms. Dawes gestured to a few empty stools.
The girl smiled and nodded. "Thank you."
"Oh and Louie," Ms. Dawes called her back. "Lovely piece of The Empty Shell in your portfolio, I absolutely adored it."
"Thank you again," Louie smiled gratefully.
Weird nickname, Eli noted to himself. He watched her take the empty stool at the front, a table away from him. How strange. Usually students, especially new ones, are so keen on finding seats in the middle, to the sides closer to the door, or in the back. There's hardly a time when a student willingly sits up front, especially when there were quite a few empty ones in the back. Ignoring her, he went back to focusing on his own work. He began to drift again. All the while sketching he felt the numbness cool over him. It was soothing, but yet it didn't prevent a flash of memory when he realized he drew a small sketch of his old hearse, Morty, on the corner of the paper. Crumpling it into a crippled ball, he began again. He shivered from the memory of the last few seconds of hearing that awful crash of metal colliding with concrete before he was knocked unconscious, and the pain that tagged along even after he had woken up waiting to see her. He attempted to shake the thought away. His gaze drifted up, inadvertently landing on Louie, being she was directly in his line of sight each time he did so, and noticed her rubbing the temples of her forehead. Seeing her do that once was one thing, but watching her do that during the course of rest of the period appeared strange to him.
The bell ending class rang, it was every student's savior melody. Butts jerked off the stools and everyone ran like cattle towards the door for escape. Eli was trying to zip up his backpack when someone rudely ran past him, knocking it out of his grasp and onto the floor. His bag was still open and his contents went flying out. He growled in frustration and kneeled down to collect his items. He noticed a hand reach over to grab a few papers to help but he snatched them before the hand could touch it. "No thanks, I got it." He muttered, not caring who he was talking to. But the now pair of hands reached over along the floor to collect the fallen utensils of pens, highlighters and pencils. He looked up and it was the new girl, Louie. She held them in a small stack out to him, waiting for him to take it. Instead of using the proper response of thank you, he glared at her instead. 'Didn't she hear me?' His glare didn't move her. Louie smiled wider, handed him his utensils and tells him, Have a better day, before walking out the door. He continued to glare at her retreating figure and rolled his eyes. Whatever.
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Adam came up from behind Eli and clapped him softly on the shoulder, "Hey man."
"Hey," Eli greeted softly, then returned to poking his food with his fork.
"Gotta eat Eli, you can't take your meds on an empty stomach," Adam reminded, taking a seat in front of him.
"Thank you doctor," Eli muttered.
Adam lightly chuckled. "You're welcome." He was sympathetic for Eli, but he would be damned if he'd contribute to his depression. He was going to be hard on him at the same time being smooth. He still watched what he said, especially when it came to Clare. But he is most relieved that Eli isn't how he was at the start of summer, back then he couldn't even utter Clare's name without Eli diving into a panic attack. He didn't want to hate her. But he found it incredibly hard not to. She disconnected from him. He had been definitely pissed at both of them for what happened that unfortunate night and he wanted to help, but Clare wouldn't talk to him. For the rest of the school year, she was too withdrawn behind her own sorrow walls to pay him any mind along with her bodyguard Alli making it difficult. He tried to understand, but when summer finally came around, before he could attempt to try to talk to her, she took off; off to a freaking bible camp then to visit family in the states, doing everything she can to not come back. He felt abandoned. And he was angry, he still was. She was supposed to be his best friend, and she wouldn't give him the time of day.
Adam glanced around the cafeteria. One table that stuck out was a lone figure of a girl reading a book. He wasn't sure if he'd seen many girls who could get so distracted into a novel. Clare and Alli were across the room behind Eli. He looked over once, but took to finding the surface of his table interesting again and didn't look up again.
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"He must be drugged," Alli remarked, biting into her sandwich. Her meal carried no extravagant taste today for her; no today was drear and dull, and the current moody state of her best friend sitting in front of her petitioned no help or improvement.
"Who?" Clare asked, acting oblivious.
Alli's eyes softly rolled at her false unfocused attention and sighed. "You know who."
"What about him?" Clare replied dully, she hoped Alli would take the hint but unfortunately the chatterbox loved to talk.
"They must have him on multiple drugs or something. With the way he was so completely obsessed with you, I half expected him to be stalking your every move at this point,"
"Guess I'm lucky," Clare muttered. She began to grit her teeth. At the moment, she didn't want to think of him.
Alli gazed back at his table. "He hasn't looked over here once," she noted to herself but Clare was becoming fed up.
"Do you have some sort of a crush on him or something?" Clare sarcastically growled, slamming her hands down on the table. Her abrasive action alerted the attention of a few other tables before they internally shrugged off the spontaneous outburst of drama queens.
"No," Alli replied softly, urging her mouth to only utter one word to not provoke her friend further.
"Then why do you keep talking about him?" Clare demanded in a fierce whisper.
Alli had the decency to look apologetic. "Sorry, I won't anymore." After skimming the cafeteria, her mind was peaked when it landed on the lone Louie sitting in the far back near a corner. "Do you know who she is?"
Clare rolled her eyes again. "Who?" she asked, neglecting to hide she was clearly annoyed.
Alli nodded with her chin gesturing behind her. "New girl."
Clare turned to peer over her shoulder and recognized her. "I know she's new but I don't know her name." Wait for it. Though Alli asks a question, Clare knew better that she already knew the answer, which was another annoyance she surprisingly continued to tolerate from her best friend.
"Louise Jaclyn," Alli reported, expressing her undeniable obedient involvement in the rumor line. "Least everyone thinks it is, she's been going by Louie, possibly a nickname so everyone believes her real name is Louise. The only other rumor going around is she's some kind of superwoman, besides that she's a complete mystery."
Clare appeared genuinely confused. "Superwoman?"
"Some people have seen her around the neighborhood jogging, and she's pretty athletic. She leaps over mailboxes, swings around poles, gates, hops on fences and manages to run across them with great balance before leaping off while she runs. Plus she's very fast."
Clare shrugged, not really caring to fuel the thought as a form of 'weirdness.' "I know she's nice."
Alli's face shifted to small surprise. "I thought you said you didn't know her."
"I don't know her name," Clare repeated. "But I've sort of met her already this morning when I arrived late to school." She relayed to Alli about her fall, her cut, how quick Louie had patched her up and was sure to skip over the details of watching Eli being dropped off.
Alli's lips curled down impressed. "Wow, she does sound pretty nice," she said. "But why is she sitting alone?"
Clare looked over again. Louie was alone, but there was no trace of loneliness or sadness in her expression; quite the opposite. She looked happy, very content with herself sitting with her leftover trash from her lunch settled next to her as she read her book. Clare couldn't help but envy the glow in her eyes.
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Louie was comfortable and completely immersed with reading her book, despite nagging pinches collecting on her skin and into her head. She ignored the signs as best as she could until another small headache crawled along the front of her forehead. After a while of enjoying simple literary pleasures, she decided to head out early to locate the gym. She tossed away her trash into the bin near her and packed away her things, preparing to leave when she noticed at the corner of her eye a jock walking to her table.
His stiff boned face was emerged with confidence. "Hey," he grinned.
Louie looked up and smiled politely. "Hello."
"What's up?"
"The sun, the stars, the moon," she replied. Louie wanted to laugh at how quickly the confidence bloomed to confusion in a heartbeat but refrained. Of course that wasn't an answer he was expecting. Boys were so typical.
"It's the afternoon?"
"Just because the stars and moon are not visible, doesn't mean they're not up there," she raised an eyebrow smiling politely but allowed a small chuckle release under her breath.
The poor boy stuttered internally and physically, caught stumped and derailed from his previous goaled thoughts. "Uhhh, y-yeah," he agreed stupidly, losing more than a fraction of confidence. "Sorry, ummm, I was wondering if you would like to join me at The Dot after school?"
His attitude in the question changed, and she liked that; a much better alternative than to his original approach she knew he was going to take. Not such a bad guy, she noticed; so she decided to go easy on him. "It's nice of you to ask me. And thanks but no thank you."
"Oh, right, ok," he turned to leave, eager to deflate the embarrassment.
"What's your name?" she asked.
He turned back. "Justin."
She took his hand and shook it once. "Louie. And it's nice to meet you, have a better day." She gave a small smile and walked off to exit the cafeteria.
Even though she had just turned him down, he couldn't feel any resentment towards her and his previous humiliation upon his pride rolled into nonexistent. In fact, he felt nothing but ease. Her genuine smile and kind words appeared to have struck a tad of calm acceptance from the small rejection. He didn't feel he lost anything as he turned to rejoin his group of friends, not caring if any would tease or laugh at his failure.
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"Did she just turn down Justin Burris?" Alli stared in shock.
"Sure looks like it," Clare said. "Listen I'm leaving, I have to get to the library before lunch is over."
Alli nodded. "See you in math then?"
Clare nodded in return and walked away.
Alli watched Clare retreat out the doors and glared over at the table where Eli and Adam were. It was going to take a lot to get Clare back and she blamed him. Only him. She would make sure he stayed away from Clare this year. He was nothing but trouble. She could sense he carried regret, but she didn't trust him to take care of Clare. No way was she going to let that psycho go anywhere near Clare without going through her. And she'd make sure of it.
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Clare turned a corner to find Louie in the middle of the floor looking at a slab of white paper and to the numbers on the doors. "Do you need help?"
Louie raised her head and smiled. "I'm looking for the gym?"
Clare pointed to the back of her. "Back this way, two halls down to the right and the doors will be there right in front of you."
Louie giggled at herself and murmured "Thank you." She moved past Clare and tucked the paper back in her pocket.
Before Louie could disappear, Clare found herself asking, "You're new, right?"
Louie chuckled lightly before facing her. "Yes, I am."
"Well if you're interested, after school tomorrow we have our first Friendship Club meeting," Clare offered. "We meet, talk, pray, keep faith together, and more. The people are great too."
Louie's smile widened, her white teeth sparkling from the fluorescent lights above. "Thank you for the offer, but no thank you."
Clare's curiosity bit at her. "Are you Christian?"
Louie answered politely, "No, I am not. Thank you again for your help." She turned to head to her destination.
"Did you lose your faith?" What the hell was wrong with her? Clare didn't know why, she just had to ask. It just slipped out of her mouth before she could bring it back. She didn't know why, she felt strongly compelled to just talk to this girl, plus Louie didn't look all that uncomfortable or annoyed with her questions as she turned back to look at her.
"I never lost it," she replied softly, her smile never wavering.
"You don't believe then." There she goes again. Someone should smash a bat over her head or slap tape across her lips. "Or have a religion?"
"I accept it as the best thing for many out there that are happy with it, including you," Louie began and paused. "But for me, it would be the worst. Have a better day Clare," she smiled again and turned the corner out of sight.
'How the hell did she know my name?'
The thought puzzled her to the end of the day, till her hand pushed open the door to leave the school, till she took her first step on the steps and looked to see Louie strapping on her helmet and ride off on a Vespa. Definitely strange, but intriguing girl.
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Louie decided on a quick run to stretch her muscles before heading out to work. After throwing on her simple track pants and shirt, she set off on her usual route down the lone sidewalk toward the direction of the park. On the way, there was a man walking his dog coming up ahead. Her speed accelerated, her eyes scaled her path to pass him. She hopped with her toes on the smaller newspaper vending machine to hop on the higher one and onto the ground passing him in a graceful landing and continued forward. Through the thrill of the run, she allowed her mind for a few moments to relay her first day. The school was nice, but had drama written all over it. She wasn't one to question, but something inside her told her there was much work laid ahead in store for her.
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A/N: Not the best first start but bear with me xp
Although mistakes are annoying, I know.
Stay smiling! Stay beautiful! PLUR
-Treasure