Seasons: Now M rated!
Kiminochi: Thanks for reviewing, both times. To be honest I wasn't thinking of detailing the sleepover, I'm not really going to detail a lot of this one because there will definitely more sleepovers to come, and I will detail most (if not all) of them.
SunshineGirlx3: I guess we agree where Gray is concerned, but I am trying to flush out a different "Claire" than what most people are used to. I'll see what I can do about adding an author's comments page to my personal website to maybe give my opinion related to her. I should have that up by the 5th chapter.
Sleeping in the Chest!
Gray's PoV, 6:48PM Fall 3
I sat thinking about what just a single day's time had brought into my life. From the fight to, the trip home, the panties, the crying, the breakfast, and most recently the small "argument" that I had had; with one person, Claire, of all people. It wasn't even Thursday yet and already all of this crazy shit had happened, it was all a guess in my mind as to which of us was going to end up dead by the end of the week.
One thing still bothered me about earlier when Claire simply lowered her head and pointed to the door, of course I knew what she meant, but it was unlike Claire to not defend herself; hell, she does it even if she really didn't have any reason to do so. Could it have something to do with the way she was crying, but then what caused that? There was definitely something buried under the façade that is Claire's happy smile.
Knock Knock Knock
Someone was at the door. "Come in." I said; who could this be? "Mary?!" I saw the petite raven-haired girl standing in the now-open doorway.
"Um…Hi?" she started. Nervously clutching something in her hands. "I…um heard about what happened yesterday."
"Oh, you did?" I replied watching my tone as best as I could, for even when I was trying to be nice I could often come off as being angry.
"Yeah…and I thought I'd just come by and give you this," she said handing me the package. "It's some baked corn, I figure things must be a little tight right now, so…" She faded; I got the queue and immediately picked up.
"Thank you; I love baked corn, but really…it's not too bad; the situation I mean."
"Well I thought would just bring that by, I have to be getting along now. So…" She trailed off nervously as she headed to the door.
"Alright I'll be seeing you…" I said smiling. Mary closed the door and once again I was left to ponder the facts of my life. However, my mental workload increased as I realized in how much of a hurry Mary was in. It was completely unlike her to be so…preoccupied, I believe is the word I'm looking for. She always left plenty of time for anything that was needed. Only once in a blue moon would she end up screwing up her schedule. This was odd, or maybe I was just paranoid; or better yet, both.
Claire's PoV, 10:32 PM
I had stepped out for a bit to get away from the excitement that was the now near-riot stage party. It felt wonderful, to come outside on a clear night and stare at the stars on the deck that I myself built in front of my house. It extended from near my door and trimmed the outside of the house in front. It was a vast accomplishment for me and many a time that winter I would find myself getting in bed around 3PM. Finally on winter 23 of my third year, it was complete, taking just over three weeks to produce. After that, I was personally in awe at Gotz's ability to put up things like this in three or four days, then again he's got god-knows-how-many years behind him. However my deck was mine, and cost me about 40000 less G than Gotz was offering to do it for.
"Claire? Ah there you are." I turned around, it was Ann. "Claire, You've got to see this! Karen is dancing with one of your lamps. It's so fricken funny." Ann was drunk.
"No thanks Ann I think I'll stay out here a little longer." Preferably until Karen falls asleep, I thought. Ann shrugged
"Suit yourself, but your missing some seriously funny shit in here." Ann said disappearing into my house, closing the door with a loud bang. I walked over and sat down on the bench in front of my house, another thing I had built along with the deck. Something no one thought I would complete without Gotz's help. It was something that even Mary had thought would be impossible for me to do.
Mary…I wonder how she was doing right now, gee… I haven't talked to her in about a week now, and now this thing with Gray. Suppose I'll stop in sometime tomorrow and say 'hi.' I sighed then went back to quietly watching the stars.
12:08 AM
I sat for a while. Staring, staring …ok maybe I do little too much staring. It was however, getting quite chilly, so I decided it would be a good time to go inside. Opening the door I noticed, not the expected group of plastered female friends, but instead I was greeted with the sight of Ann, Popuri, and Karen piled on top of each other asleep. Popuri was on top of Ann, who was resting upon Karen's stomach. I was a pretty funny sight, one of things you need to see to grasp the full atmosphere surrounding it.
Sighing, I began the task of turning off the lights in the house; I visited the bathroom, changed into my bed clothes, and sat on my bed brushing my hair out. I was lucky it was only my arm and a few of my ribs that were broken. Sitting around I realized how badly I could have hurt myself just about two days ago. How badly would it have hurt me economically if I had broken my leg or my hip? Especially considering it was the fall season, I needed all the help I could get, even without being disabled in some way. Or worse yet what if I had…ouch, I hit a knot in my hair.
I finished, and slipped into bed turning of the last light, my little table lamp, and settled down for the night. However, even as I passed into sleep, one thought remained; What if…what if I had…died, would anyone care? Would anyone grieve about my loss? Sure everyone would be shocked, but would they care; or continue on like nothing happened? Would they care…if I died?
5:04 AM
Thomas: We gather here today to lie to rest a beloved resident our town…Claire.
??: Who?
??: That farmer girl.
Gray: Don't you people remember, she was your fr-
…I woke up. Not pleasantly either; somehow I had ended up half on and half off my bed. My night beforehand had been full of anything, but nice peaceful rest; just short little dozes that came and went with the approaching daylight; which was still amounting little to nil.
My ribs and arm hurt, but it wasn't anything new. In my childhood I had so many broken bones, it stunted my growth when I was 17. I am 5 foot 2. But I Digress.I sat up and gathered today's outfit, a pair of overalls, a blue flannel shirt, and a pair of panties I refuse to describe.
Ann and the others were still asleep, and by the looks of it would be so for a long while; caused by the blatant fact that they had exhausted all three cases of the wine I had bought just the day before.
I finished getting dressed and headed outside, and was greeted by one of my best friends, the rain. I welcomed/loved the rain; it saved me a day of the tiresome chore of watering my crops.
I collected the few sweet potatoes that had matured overnight; tossing them into the shipping bin, before heading to my barn. On them way I enjoyed the light rain that was falling onto my lone farm.
The previous summer had been riddled with drought, at one point it hadn't rained for almost three weeks. Luckily for me (and the village as well) the river didn't dry up or we would have had real problems. Kind of makes me wonder though...what would have happened had the river dried up? Food for thought? I think so.
My cows were up and mooing their morning song, which always seemed to be just a little bit sad sounding when it rained. When I reached the barn I stepped in, and out of the increasingly heavy rain. Immediately my first cow, Bessie, came trotting over and mooed happily as I petted her nose. Bessie was the first of the five cows that I had, and was a champion in more ways than one.
Bessie won the cow festival the first time she was entered, and it seems that wherever she went the rest of my cows would soon follow her. Even now as all the rest of my cows gathered near me, it seemed to a living testament to the greatness that was my cow.
I went about my usual morning routine; minus the use of one arm, and without the ability to bend down anywhere except at the knees. I finished in my barn, and then slowly made my way across the field to my chicken barn. I entered the small shack and immediately was greeted to the sight of all eight of my chickens; all happily clucking away, thankful for not being outside in the rain. Each of them laying an egg overnight. I filled each chicken's feed bin with the usual amount of feed. As I filled the last bin the shack's door opened to reveal the day outside and the person who had opened it; Gray.
"Hey Claire" He said.
"Hey Gray. What's up?" I started.
"Doug wants Ann down at the Inn. So here I am, because your door is locked." "I was just going back to my house; I just got done with taking care of my animals, so let's go."
So both Grey and me ran towards my house trying desperately to keep from getting drenched, but alas to no avail.
I unlocked my door, stepped in, and stopped in my tracks. Apparently I had overlooked the fact that Karen was, in fact, not wearing a shirt, or a bra for that matter. More over the fact, she had recently rolled over to reveal her very full chest. Thump "Grey?"
8:21AM
Grey finally started to come to about half hour later. "What happened?" He asked sounding dazed.
"Congratulations, boy scout. One look at boobs and your down for the count." I teased.
"Shut up...Where is everybody?"
"Well," I Began. "I got them up about 20 minutes ago. Popuri rushed out after glancing at the clock, Karen slowly left looking quite hung over. And Ann left shortly there after."
"Do-does anyone know why I uh..." He spat.
"Why you what?" I could have stopped there, but I decided to have some fun.
"You know...when I saw Karen's...um chest." Ah well, I was looking for "Boobs" or something of the sort, but the blush he had just given me made even the aforementioned moment priceless.
"No one except you and me" I assured him. Grey sighed then asked:
"What did you tell them had happened?"
"I told them that you had come looking for Ann and while you were waiting for her to get up you dozed off." I said sitting down on one of my dining room chairs. "What about Ann?"
"What about her?"
"Did she say anything about me?"
"She said not to bother waking you up if I can help it; cause you bite people's heads off when you wake up, and it's not like you have work today anyway."
"Um...yeah, thanks for the cover up; but as it happen I do have something to do today." He said trying to act proud of himself for finding eight and a half hours worth of crap to do.
"Really" I said, sounding interested. "Like going to see Mary?"
"How'd you know?"
"Well duh, you're always at the library on Thursdays...WOW!"
"What?"
"Do you realize how easy it would be if someone were out to kill you."
"Aw, Goddess thanks for the feedback." Grey retorted.
"Goddess nothing, is fact." I said, while munching on the grapes I had put out on the table.
"I don't get you at all..." Grey said, getting up.
"Do you really not get me, or have you made no attempt in the first place?" Grey only looked at me and shrugged. Then he slowly opened my door and stepped outside.
I knew it...he doesn't even want to get to know me.
Gray's PoV, 8:30 AM
I stepped into the library. As I approached the front desk I could see that Mary was quite preoccupied. She was writing on a piece of paper, in the form of a letter (Mary herself had taught me about the different writing formats there were.) As I approached she was still writing, probably a letter to some other library in a town that I've never even heard of. "Hey Mary." I said, quietly. However quietly didn't save her from being startled and nearly falling off her chair.
"Oh, hi Grey" she said trying covertly to hide the letter she was just writing. "Um...how are you today?" She stuttered.
"Better now that you're awake." I said laughing.
All through the day I couldn't get past the sneaking suspicion that Mary was trying to hide something from me.
Claire's PoV, 6:17PM
I was finally finished. It took several hours, but I had finally finished cleaning up the mess from last night. I sat on the couch and stared at the box full of random crap that was left at my house. The contents included everything from earrings to a lone bra (That wasn't mine.) Now the fun part began, tomorrow, when it stopped raining. Since the morning earlier, the rain had kept at a steady pace and showed no signs of stopping now.
I turned on my TV and was reminded of why I was in the process of getting satellite television, four channels. Who in the world has a TV with only four channels, besides me?
I couldn't do anything about it though until the guy came on Saturday. For now I had nothing to do, which wasn't probably the worst thing for a person in my condition, but God damned, I was bored. Something had to be done; it's moments like these that make me wish I was a mom. What am I 24? Most girls my age already had their innocence taken from them by now, either by their husbands or one of their random sporadic boyfriends they've had over the years. Big deal!
I was waiting for someone to call a husband, and nothing was going to change that. I was getting concerned however; this whole village only had a handful of available bachelors, and no one seemed right for me. I mean I have five options; Cliff, Trent, Kai, Rick, and Grey.
Trent is oblivious. Kai is looking for nothing but sex. Rick is far too judgmental. Cliff is well...Ann's territory; mind you I'd rather have two friends than a boyfriend, and a worst enemy. Finally Gray...Gray is...
I tried to put Gray into words, but I realized I couldn't seem to do so. It seemed that because of the tribulations of the past few days, my entire definition of Grey had changed completely. To the point of where I couldn't find words to describe him right now.
I sat for a while, thinking of nothing else in particular. Just going over what happened, just letting it sink in. No matter what though I don't think I'd ever consider Grey as someone I'd like to spend the rest of my life with. I mean, yeah he's kind of cute, but me and him?
As I thought even further there was nothing anymore telling me that I shouldn't cross him out anymore as someone who couldn't possibly be a candidate. Just about the pure fact that he had helped me at home; even after I had attacked.
My mind and I were now in a state of disagreement, and I know it's going to take a long time for both to find a parallel point to work on. It could take days for that to happen. My mind can be a very troubling place to be on more than a couple of occasions.
Travis: Well that's it for this time. Though this chapter is a little shorter than I would have liked (and don't get me started on how long it took me to release it.) Some will also notice that I have upped the rating to "M," this is simply to safe especially when I don't know myself where the story will turn next. On a lighter note a majority of this chapter was written at school on my TI-84 SE calculator for those of you who were wondering, or if any of you happen to be calc geeks like I am.
Hikari: So hopefully you'll get back onto a regular release schedule?
Travis: Yes, hopefully. Look for chapter 5 around the 20th. Depending on how much HM: ToT messes up my schedule.