A/N: I don't really know what this is but I wrote it like two months ago and I read it like today and it hurt my heart so I'm posting it.
So here's just something random I decided to post. I guess it's like a drabble but it's not a drabble? Oh well!
Her hair feels silky in between my fingers.
Her body feels like warm putty against my chest.
I hold her how I'd want to be held if I was in this situation. Gently. Honestly. With utmost care.
She had been crying for what seemed like hours. And there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could say.
I feel as if I've let her down but I know that I've done everything right… as awful as this all seems.
It still makes me sick to think of him… with his hands on her.
I brush my fingers through her curly locks and she stirs momentarily against my chest, her arm wrapping around my waist to pull me closer. She wants to know that I'm there. I'm here, Clare. I'm here. I want to whisper but the words are lacking from my mouth.
I can hear her sniffling, and I can feel a wet feeling occurring on my shirt and I realize she's crying again. Just when I thought she was asleep, she's crying again, and it makes me feel worse. I can't stop the crying. I can't cease her tears. Even a gentle hush from my lips wouldn't stop her. She still feels guilty, I know she does. She's gotten back at the man who touched her and yet she still feels guilty. I've tried to tell her that none of this is her fault, but she doesn't believe me. I don't think she cares.
"Clare." I whisper, nuzzling my head into her curls and breathing in a cinnamon smell. She always smells like cinnamon and sugar. Like Christmastime. "Please don't cry."
"I'm sorry, Eli, I'm sorry." She blubbers, holding onto me tighter. I'm here, I'm here! My insides scream. "I can't stop. I can't stop crying. I can't stop feeling like a dumb, naïve little girl. I am one." She cries, rubbing her face against my t-shirt and soaking it wither tears. All her words break my heart.
She's breaking my heart all over again and it's for an entirely different reason.
"No you aren't." I try to convince her, but I know she doesn't really care what I have to say. Asher Shostak has ruined her state of mind. Tampered with it. Changed every inch of that mind that could stand up for herself and had some sort of self-confidence. Self-confidence was thrown out the window at this point.
And trying to build her up didn't help all that much either.
Her body shifts, and she's no longer lying beside me. She's up and about. She's sitting up on my bed and wiping away her tears. Is she changing? Is she not going to feel horribly about herself any longer? No. No, I think that is forever imprinted in her brain and she'll always believe horrible things about herself, as much as I'll try to fix her.
She fixed me. I could do the same for her.
"Look at me." I tell her, and her swollen eyes look over to me. Her red puffy cheeks look miserable and her curly locks are a mess from my fingers running through them. She looks so unhappy. I can't make her happy anymore. "I love you."
"I love you to-"
"No, I really love you." I interrupt her. I don't want her replies of I love you too, I don't want it anymore. I know that she does. But I don't think she knows that I do. Because it took me longer to say it back to her after the first time. Because she can throw away I love you to everyone she cares about. She loves Alli, she loves her family. I know she loved KC at one point and fuck, everyone knew she was 'in love' with Jake Martin.
But did she ever really love me.
Does she really love me.
No, no I know that she does. She does. And if she doesn't I'll keep telling myself that it's the truth because I'm pretty sure I can live off of lies in my head. But no matter what sort of love or infatuation that she feels towards me I'm in love with her. My heart belongs to her. And I know that I don't tell her enough. Ever since my play I lacked in the loving department.
Clare nods, and just smiles slightly. I can feel the unbelief emanating off of her body.
"You don't deserve all of this." I whisper, fiddling with my hands in my lap. "You deserve to be happy. You deserve good things."
"You're a good thing. I've got you." She says back quickly in response, and honestly I didn't know that she was even listening to me. "Being with you makes me happy." She sits her body at the end of my bed and pulls her knees up to her chest. "What if we ran away?"
"What if we did?" I repeat, and she sighs.
"I want to run away." Clare closes her eyes for a moment, as if imagining what it would be like to be thousands of miles away from a place like this. "Toronto gives me too many memories. And most of them are bad."
"What about me?"
Her eyes open and she looks at me unhappily. "Most of ours are bad too." She admits, and I'm glad she can, to be honest. As much as it pains me to hear her say that she can admit it. She knows most of our memories weren't the best. "But I'm glad I'm with you now. I'm glad you're getting better."
"It's all thanks to you, you know." I tell her, and her hair shakes, and a hum falls from her lips.
"No, that's not true."
"Yes it is." I argue, trying to lock with her eyes but she won't look directly at me. Only around me. "If you hadn't left me at the hospital, I would never have known what was wrong with me. I would have gone on being manipulative, and you would have been even more terrified of me. We wouldn't be together now." Our eyes lock now and I can see she believes me. I can always tell by her eyes whether she believes me or not.
"I love you."
"Do you promise?" I ask, and she nods. She nods so confidently that it even catches me off guard. "Then let's run away."
"I don't know where to go." She sighs, "I've thought about it a million times."
"You'd run away without me?"
"No. I would never leave you."
It's baffling me to hear her say the things she's saying. And she says it in the most sincere voice, and my heart is practically bursting out of my chest. She's serious. I don't want her to be serious but she's serious.
"Would you marry me?"
"Yes."
I close my eyes and my head falls against my pillow at her words. She'd even marry me. "We could go to Ottawa." I suggest. Clare hums.
"No, my dad's in Ottawa."
"Vancouver."
"I don't like it there."
"We could move to America."
She doesn't breathe a word at this point. It's like she's generally considering my offers and I don't… I don't know why she's doing what she's doing but it's making my head burn. My eyes open immediately as I feel her crawling up on me. Her arm around my waist once again and her head right between my arm and my chest. She feels safe there.
"California?"
"Anywhere."
"Florida?"
"I said, anywhere."
"But I know you want to go to New York."
Her words briefly sting and I know why. She's bringing up NYU, and it's because she knows how much I want to go there. My whole semester was based around it. NYU was my dream school. It is my dream school. But I would give it up for her – and I tell her that, but she shakes her head.
"No, I couldn't let you do that."
"NYU is just a place, Clare. You're all I want and need."
"We wouldn't have any money to run away with, anyway. This conversation is stupid."
There she goes again, being all prickly again. She moves away from me and lies on her back. I want to yell at her for being so irrational and let me hold her again but I'm not an idiot. Well, I am, but I know how to control being an idiot now.
"You could come with me to New York." I tell her, and I can almost feel her laughing. I don't like this side of her. The one that gets all weird when she's upset. The one that becomes sarcastic and breaks down crying again. It happens a lot. Especially lately. We go around in these circles where we're loving, and then angry for a moment, sarcastic – and then there are tears. And I know eventually it'll all go away and I just have to put up with it while it's around.
"I have school, Eli."
"You could go to school there."
"No I couldn't. I'd need to go to Degrassi. I'd need to finish there. After you'd leave… I'd only have one more year to fin…to fin…" She's crying again, and this time I don't even know why she's crying.
We're back at the beginning again. The beginning of the cycle where she's sobbing into my chest and I don't know what to do except tell her things will be okay and that she'll just need to trust me. It doesn't work but it comforts me to say the words.
"Don't go." She breathes, and I get it now.
She wants me to stay.
She doesn't want me to leave her.
I don't want to leave her – but I have too. It's NYU. It's my dream school. It's something I want more than anything. It's something I'd do anything for. I risked so much at Degrassi just to get good things for my portfolio. I visited the campus. I signed applications. I've done everything I can and the moment I get that acceptance letter I'll be –
"Okay." I say quietly. "I'll stay."
- giving them my regrets.