I'm re-watching The Boiling Point, and this is a result of my intense feels. It's set after the dorm life mini. Angst alert, EClare style.
"I know we're meant to be together. Even though I can accept that we're not meant to be together now…I still love you."
Clare sighs, bitterly fighting against the flooding waves of tears brimming in her eyes. God, she misses him like she never thought possible. More tellingly, she misses the person she had been with him more that she had ever thought possible. When had she strayed so fucking far from who she was? Where was that innocent girl who loved talking about books more than she wanted to kiss, but still craved to know the feeling of her best friend's lips? Where was the girl whose heart had beat so quickly and excitedly when the first possibility of the right setting presented itself?
Suddenly, Clare remembers something, and she desperately scrambles to get her laptop in bed with her. It's dark and one a.m., but Clare hadn't been able to sleep. She thought maybe hearing his voice would help ease the blow.
She feels her heart tremble with a poignant longing now, something so vivid and stirring that it has to be a black hole, sucking her in. She almost breaks when it takes her computer forever to long her on, but the minute it does she's tearing through her video files.
Buried under a lot of newer files, Clare finds what she's looking for: the tenth grade English Romeo and Juliet assignment. She starts it, drags it toward the end and puts it on full screen. She watches the way he looked at her before leaning in, the color and expressiveness and depth are dulled in comparison to the real thing, but she can still feel the heat of his effect on her. Her skin tingles because of that look. There's so much love and hope there.
And then there's the desperation, the need. The way his eyes flicker on-camera, the tension too much for him. The way the need each other burns her now in the same way it did then. God, that was honestly the moment she fell in love with him.
Clare rewinds, watching it again and again and again. She doesn't make any noise, just lets the tears run silently, their flow steady. When her computer dies, she turns on her side. She gives herself a fully thirty minutes of staring blankly into the dark room before she can't stand the need to feel what he does to her from the inside out again.
She grabs her cell phone and squeezes her eyes shut. "…Never have I ever not been in love with you…I know we're meant to be together. Even though I can accept that we're not meant to be together now…I still love you."
"I still love you, too," she promises, the bitter hatred in her voice all internally directed.