A/N: I've posted some drawings for this story on my tumblr for whoever would like a little bit more insight! The direct link is on my fanfiction profile. :)

Splitting Colors

Chapter 4

Sarah looks up from her food once she notices someone else setting their tray in front of her. "Are you gonna tell me where you ran off to at the party?" asks Duck in a level tone as he takes a seat across from her at the cafeteria table. The sound of dispersed chatter can be heard throughout the vast room.

She stops aimlessly swirling her spoon through her lunch, realizing that she still hadn't told him what happened.

Of course, after Sarah had burst out of the front doors crying, Duck had texted her multiple times that night after the party, asking where she was. About an hour later, she responded and told him she was fine and just went home. She also told him not to worry and that he should just go home too. However she didn't explain why. And that was all she had said to him throughout the entire weekend.

Sarah sighs, feeling awful all over again. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left without telling you." She'd felt really bad about it all weekend. Even though she hadn't responded to any of his messages yesterday, she realizes that she really shouldn't have left him wondering like that. He must have been pretty worried.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm not mad," reassures Duck. "I just… you know, wanna make sure you're okay."

Even though it's a comment that Sarah would normally smile at, all she can do is look away. Her hands come up to wrap around her arms as she stares at the ground. That familiar feeling of shame and embarrassment that she had felt at the party suddenly rushes back to her.

"Did something happen?" Duck finally asks with concern upon noticing the girl's discomfort.

She wants to tell him, but she hadn't even told her dad anything about the party. Well, nothing that wasn't a lie. She'd told him that Clementine walked her home because Carlos would've flipped if he knew that Sarah was walking alone at night. If he knew she had come home crying, Carlos would've assumed that Clementine was the one that did something, so it's not like she could've told him the truth.

She knows it was pretty unfair of her to just leave Duck like that when he had been the one she arrived there with, but Sarah had pretty much buried herself in bed all weekend, she felt so bad. Honestly, she wishes she could be doing just that right now.

She was just so humiliated. There is no way that anyone is going to want to talk to her after finding out what Sarah 'supposedly' did, especially not Clementine. God, and the way everyone had been laughing at her as she walked out, and making those awful sex noises behind her, as if she was invisible to them. As if her feelings didn't even matter. How could anyone be so mean?

Yeah, Sarah is really in no place to relive that right now.

"I don't want to talk about it," she mumbles.

"Okay, that's fine," Duck raises his hands in acceptance. His tone is comforting. "We can talk about something else."

"Thanks," says Sarah.

They move on to chat about everything that isn't related to the party as they eat their lunches together - mostly about school projects and their home lives. She enjoys talking to him, mostly because he's really the only person at this school that speaks to her. She appreciates it nonetheless, as well as how understand he's being about all of this. Sarah is just happy to finally have her mind taken off of the party.

Fifteen minutes later, Duck crumples up his napkin and throws it onto his now empty tray. "Well. Gotta start studying for the physics test I have in twenty minutes." He grabs his tray and rises to a stand.

"Yeah, I gotta grab a couple things from my locker," adds Sarah as she also begins to pack up her things. She figures she might as well get some reading done until the lunch break is over.

"I'll see you around, alright?" says Duck as Sarah swings her backpack over her shoulders.

"Have fun," Sarah advises jokingly, smiling as he leaves.

She strides through the noisy and crowded cafeteria, returning her empty tray to the counter. As she makes her way back, she catches sight of Clementine and a bunch of her friends sitting at one of the tables a short distance away. Becca and Natalie are next to her, as well as three other people that Sarah doesn't recognize.

She swears her heart momentarily stops beating at the sight of her. All Sarah can see is Clementine and that boy, and what they were doing in that bedroom. She can even hear the way Clementine's voice had sounded…

Shuddering and hating herself even more than she already did, Sarah forces the thought out of her mind and continues walking.

By the time Sarah had noticed them, it had been too late to turn around without making it obvious. So, she continues to pass by as fast as possible with her chin lowered. She hopes none of them will notice her, but she isn't so lucky.

"Hey, Sarah."

Sarah practically freezes like a statue when she hears Becca's obnoxious voice coming from behind her.

"We lost you at the party on Saturday," she comments.

Sarah turns around slowly, her shoulders so tense that they're practically touching her ears. She mentally kicks herself for not just continuing to walk. Now it's too late. They've already acknowledged each other, now Sarah has to stay and listen to what they have to say.

"Yeah, you left kind of early," says Natalie.

Like you care.

Sarah's gaze wanders in every direction except for Clementine's, completely avoiding her eyes. She can practically feel the other girl just watching her as she sits there silently. "I…" begins Sarah, starting to panic.

"What's the matter?" continues Becca. Her tone couldn't be more fake. "You look like you're gonna cry."

Sarah only responds to her with a hard stare, remembering how they had made her cry at that party. She knows that Becca is just trying to push her buttons. It's like they just want Sarah to admit everything in front of Clem. She's only acting like she cares right now, and for what? Why are they torturing her like this? Didn't they do that enough already?

Both ends of the conversation are just so aware of Clementine sitting right there in the middle, and if one little bit of information slips out, she's going to find out what happened. So instead, Sarah chooses not to say anything. She can't. She physically can't.

With her pulse pounding in her ears, Sarah accidentally meets eyes with Clem. The girl is just barely creasing her brows at her, her brown eyes searching Sarah for an explanation.

Oh god. Clementine is looking at her. And she knows something's wrong. She's going to start asking questions. Sarah needs to say something right now, anything, or else she's only going to seem more suspicious.

"What's going on?" Clementine finally asks no one in particular, noticing Sarah's uneasiness and Becca's odd tone.

Becca glares pointedly at Sarah. "Do you wanna tell her?"

Sarah glances continuously between all of them. No. No, she does not want to tell her. "I—I just… it was pretty late…" she stammers, attempting to explain.

The boys at the table are snickering underneath their breaths, but Sarah is too disoriented to notice.

"Sarah, are you okay?" Clementine presses her eyebrows together. Her gentle voice is drenched with concern, her volume lowering in the slightest as if Sarah is the only one that was meant to hear.

Natalie sighs exasperatedly, clearly not having any of it. "Sarah was spying on you and Gabe. Doing it in your bedroom," she states bluntly.

"What? N—no! No, it wasn't like that!" protests Sarah, her volume rising in defense.

Clementine's eyes widen so slightly that it's hardly even noticeable. It looks like she may have stopped breathing, but Sarah is unsure. Clem doesn't say anything, she only stares at Sarah with an expression that's completely unreadable.

Oh god, it feels like her body is slowly being crushed into a tighter and tighter space, and her limbs are shaking so much because of it and there's nothing she can do to stop it. "I—I swear, I didn't… I wasn't spying on you. I didn't know." Sarah directly tells Clem, hoping with everything she has that she'll believe her.

"You knew it was her room, didn't you?" jabs Becca.

With her breath panting, Sarah glances continuously between them and Clementine.

She looks confused, like she's piecing everything together in her head. She isn't looking at Sarah anymore, and Sarah can't tell if Clementine is mad or not. Why isn't she saying anything? God, she just has no idea what Clem is thinking right now.

Sarah knows she need to learn how to stand up for herself, or else things will just end up getting so bad that she'll eventually have to move schools again. The thought alone terrifies her. She tries to muster together all the strength she has. "W—well, yeah, but—" babbles Sarah. Her eyes are welling up with tears.

"Then I'm sure you knew perfectly well what was going to happen."

Sarah resists the urge to actually ball her fists up at that moment. She's just so frustrated and hurt that she can't even form any further words. And these girls are doing it to her on purpose, and enjoying every second of it. The worst part is that they're not even giving her a proper chance to explain herself. It's especially hard when there's at least five pairs of eyes just watching her, and she can just tell that they're all laughing at her behind those stares.

Just like everyone always does.

"You told me to go in there!" huffs Sarah, her volume raised.

"What?" Clem snaps her gaze towards Becca with an appalled expression. It turns suddenly quiet among the group. "Why would you tell her that?" she chides, glaring hard at the other girl.

Sarah walks away crying before Clementine even realizes.

Completely forgetting about Becca, Clem stares after the other girl with hurt in her eyes, watching her race out of the cafeteria. It's uncomfortably silent around the table after that, with only Clementine's rage felt among the group.

"What the fuck, Becca?" she rises to a stand, her voice harsh.

"Calm down. It was just a joke, Clem," she reasons, a chuckle hidden underneath her words. Becca raises her hands up in defense as if the other girl is overreacting.

Clem can't understand how she could really be laughing right now.

"Yeah, we didn't think she would actually do it," Natalie adds.

Clementine can't even listen to them try to defend themselves right now. She knows they don't mean that. She shakes her head, ignoring all the eyes at the table that are now focused on her. "What the fuck is wrong with you guys?" she mutters under her breath before turning to leave.

Clementine hadn't seen where Sarah went, but she thinks she has a pretty good idea of where someone in this school might go to cry. There aren't many places she could be that isn't completely out in the open. Still, she peers down every hallway she passes just to be sure, but there's no sign of the girl.

As Clem strides into the girls' washroom, she doesn't care that she's drawing attention to herself by walking so fast. She just has to make sure Sarah's okay. She can't let her cry and not try to do anything about it, especially knowing that Becca clearly isn't going to care enough about it any time soon.

There doesn't seem to be anyone in here at first glance, but Clem stops in the centre of the room and listens anyway.

After a few silent moments, she hears someone sniffling from behind one of the stall doors. She slowly walks along them, finally stopping at the farthest one.

"Sarah?" she says softly.

The whimpering stops after that, but Clementine knows that Sarah's in there.

"Are you okay?" she asks when there's no response.

"I'm fine," the girl sniffles once more.

Clem can tell that she's trying to make her voice sound normal, but she can hear how broken it really is.

Staring at the stall door, then at the ground, Clementine contemplates what to say. She really doesn't want to be bothering the girl right now, especially if she just wants some space, but she couldn't live with herself knowing that she'd be crying alone in there otherwise. Nobody wants that. "I'm… sorry about Becca," Clem finally says. "She can be… a bit of a bitch sometimes."

When there's no answer, Clem feels like the other girl may not want to talk right now, but her heart lifts in the slightest when she finally hears Sarah's voice again after what feels like forever.

"You're not… you're not mad at me?" Sarah asks, her voice small and quiet.

Clementine almost wants to chuckle at that because of how ridiculous it is. "Why would I be mad at you?"

"Because… because of what I did," she admits. "I shouldn't have been in that room."

Heat rises to Clementine's face from the reminder. She's definitely not happy about what apparently happened, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't at least a little embarrassed. It's not like she wanted someone to walk in on a private moment or anything, but then she remembers how the other girl must be feeling, and how much worse it must be for her. It's not Sarah fault. Clem just has to remind herself that.

Clementine sighs deeply, remembering everything that had just been said in the cafeteria. "It's them that I'm mad at. Not you."

"Really?" Sarah speaks up.

"Yes," responds Clem. "Now can you please come out here so I can see you?"

A few silent moments pass by. Eventually, Clementine hears the door unlocking and Sarah hesitantly swings it open, revealing herself. She steps out slowly, the door creaking behind her.

Clementine can tell the girl had been crying. Her eyes and nose are red, and she's insecurely looking at Clem's feet rather than her eyes.

"She told me you wanted to ask me something. And… and that you would be there," Sarah explains, hugging her arms.

Clementine just watches her for a moment while piecing together what happened. She realizes she's not entirely surprised that Becca and Natalie would've done something like that. Her eyes then flicker away awkwardly. "You didn't, um… you didn't see anything, did you?" she asks hesitantly, partially afraid of the answer.

"No," Sarah quickly clarifies. She sniffles once more. "No, I left."

Clementine plants her hands on her hips. "Okay," she sighs deeply, relieved.

"I just… I don't get why people have to be so mean." Her voice cracks and a couple of tears spill out again. Sarah wipes her cheek with her palm, hating herself for crying so much.

"Yeah well, it's just another part of high school, I guess," agrees Clementine, also feeling disappointment with the harsh truth of her own words.

Sarah wonders how Clem can be friends with people like that. She doesn't bother to ask though, figuring there would be no point. "I should've never gone to that party," laments Sarah. She momentarily blinks at the ceiling in an attempt to clear her watery eyes.

Clem only watches the girl with pity, wishing she didn't have to feel this way. She feels really bad about what happened, and would've done something to prevent it if she had known sooner. But there's nothing that either of them can do right now except forget. "Don't worry about it, alright?" encourages Clementine. She would really hate it if either of them let this get in the way of each other. "It's not your fault."

It isn't until then that they make eye contact for the first time in the conversation. Sarah smiles brokenly. She's grateful that Clementine is even in here with her, talking to a crying girl in a bathroom stall. "Thanks," she mumbles.

"You're welcome," Clem's lips tug into a warm smile, her eyes sparkling and her voice gentle. "Come on," she takes a deep breath, briefly reaching out to touch the girl's arm. Taking a step back, she nods towards the door that leads back out into the hall. "We should probably get to class."

Sarah flops onto her side again, aggressively flicking the thick blankets off her with a heavy sigh. She flutters her eyes open, her vision only meeting the pitch blackness of her bedroom ceiling.

It's probably been at least an hour since she turned off all her lights and attempted to go to sleep, but all Sarah can find herself thinking about is that very one-sided conversation she'd had in the cafeteria with Becca and Natalie earlier that day.

She plays it over again in her head, not even knowing why. She thinks about the way Clementine had looked when Becca told her Sarah was spying on them. Her heart beats a little faster just thinking about such an awful moment.

Exhaling at length, Sarah slowly rubs her hands over her face with aggravation, wishing she could just stop reminding herself about it. Then she begins to replay the conversation she'd had in the bathroom with Clementine.

Just at that moment, her phone suddenly vibrates on the bedside table next to her.

She immediately reaches for it, thankful for a distraction right now. It's not like she's going to fall asleep any time soon. She grabs her glasses and places them on the bridge of her nose, squinting from the bright light shining in her face.

The last thing she expects to see on the screen is Clementine's name, and a tiny image of an orange right next to it.

The girl is suddenly reminded that Clem had offered to type her number into Sarah's phone after they walked out of the bathroom together. "In case you need someone to talk to," she'd told her, before bolting off to class and leaving Sarah dumbfounded as usual.

Sarah scrambles to open the message as soon as she sees the notification.

"How are you feeling?"

Initially, Sarah only blinks at the screen. She reads the message over a couple of times, her lips absentmindedly tugging into a tired grin as she types out a response.

"Much better, thanks :)"

Clementine responds almost instantly, although it feels like forever until she does. "Np! Again im really sorry about what they did to you"

Sarah stares at the screen in thought for a few moments. She begins typing out a reply, but quickly deletes it once she notices the three dots on the screen that indicate Clementine is typing something.

Soon enough, another message pops up: "Like I knew becca could be a bitch sometimes but I didnt think she would go far enough to do something like that"

"Its fine, really. It wasn't your fault", Sarah responds.

She stares hard at the screen, waiting for those three dots to pop up. They don't for a few moments, so she ends up scrolling back to the top of the chat and reading their conversation over again. Finally, her phone vibrates in her hands once more.

"ok. just wanted to make sure you were okay"

Sarah can't help smirking at that. She bites her lip while eagerly typing again: "Thank you, I appreciate it"

"ok well im gonna try to get some sleep. Good night :)"

Sarah's heart warms just from the thought of Clementine even thinking to message her at this time. She composes one last message before locking her phone and placing it back on her bedside table: "Good night :)"

Sarah swears she fell asleep with a smile on her face.