"Hey, Clare," Eli replied, a smirk on his lips. I raised an eyebrow, but mostly I was stuck, gaping at the boy who was standing in my kitchen, a glass of water in his right hand.

I watched as his eyes traced over my outfit, which I had put on messily and carelessly, figuring it would be either Connor or KC down here, someone who was a little more familiar. Even though, I wasn't too excited to see either of them.

"Eli..." I let his name trail for a moment. "What are you doing here?"

He chuckled and took a sip of his water, bringing the glass to his lips. "I thought it was obvious," he began, a slight smile appearing on his face. "I figured we should start on our project a little earlier then planned. We're gonna need a lot of time to find out enough about each other to write a whole paper."

"I," I paused, unsure what to say. He was right, but I wasn't sure if he was really thinking what he was saying. I bit my lip. He always seemed to have that easiness and that smirk that he held the day we met. I was back to the old Clare, and honestly, I was feeling nervous, but I tried to switch new Clare on for just a moment. "You're right. We should start earlier, c'mon."

I headed toward the door, ignoring that moment when he raised his eyebrow, a little surprised.

He followed me out and I walked over to his car, glancing at him. He was smiling, a grin mixed with a slight smirk. I rolled my eyes playfully and got into the passenger's seat. And honestly, I was surprised at how I completely changed by switching to new Clare. I wasn't as nervous.

I wasn't sure how that just happened.

Suddenly, I was snapped out of my thoughts as the car started moving and Eli glanced at me. "We'll start with you first. What's your... favorite color?" He looked back at me with an amused smile.

"Really, you're going to start there? I think you're supposed to dig a little deeper than that. And it's purple."

He scoffed. "Favorite colors can be deep. Like, what if you're deeply afraid of blue because when you were little a blue bird flew at your head and nearly killed you. Deep." I rolled my eyes at him and fought a laugh. He continued. "Fine, what is the one of your childhood memories that scared you the most?"

I bit my lip, I had been worried about this type of question. I glanced out the window, since he was too focused on the road. "It wasn't really a childhood memory, I was probably thirteen."

He shrugged. "Still counts."

I looked over at Eli for a moment, watching as he drove down the road. "It was what made me scared of high school, of parties..." I paused as the memory hit me. "My sister, Darcy, she was on a fieldtrip, a school one. And she was raped." I shook my head, remembering what happened, the way it terrified me. "And it got to her, upset her a lot. She pushed me—no, everyone—away. She tried to commit suicide, the night haunted her so much."

Eli was silent for a long moment. I fought the tears behind my eyelids. "Wow," he muttered, just as he pulled into a parking lot in the middle of the park. "So you're scared of that happening to you, you're scared to be haunted like that."

I nodded slowly, opening the door as I forced away that memory.

"Hey, don't worry. I'm not gonna let that happen to you, I care too much to let someone do that to you."

I looked up at him. "You barely know me."

"I know you enough."

I'm not sure if I like this, it's kind of short. :P

But I've been thinking a lot about Darcy lately and since they were doing this project, I found it easy to fit her into it.

So, tell me what you think.