06 APRIL 2003
You know that pulsating rush of adrenaline you get when you do something you're not supposed to be doing? It's like you've suddenly got arrhythmia. Your pores start oozing sweat, you start to get a little hot, and your clothes stick to your skin. You become hyperaware of every little thing going on around you and you thrive on that feeling for as long as your body can produce it. That's adrenaline. And that's how Clementine felt.
Her fingers slid into the gap between her bedroom window and the windowsill. She pulled it up as quietly as she could before she manoeuvred her body to climb in. Sneaking out may have been the hard part, but with Lee's light sleeping, sneaking back in was infinitely harder.
When it came to goodbyes, Clementine couldn't say she was much of a fan. You'd be lucky to even get a hello out of her in the first place. As expected throughout the vastity of life, finding a connection with someone is one of the biggest struggles you face. When you get to school, you soon realize that no one gives two shits about what you have to say or what goes on in your head. So you keep your mouth shut. But God forbid you keep your mouth shut in a place where mindless kids love to show you just how loud they are. No one talks to you, but when they do, they don't stop. People either use you as their journal or their punching bag – an object of their own desires. Billy knocks your books out of your hands and calls you a weirdo because you won't look anyone in the eye. Samantha vents about how irrational her mom is while you're trying to study in homeroom. Just sitting there makes you realize that ultimately, no one knew what the hell they were talking about, or why. People only focused on what was happening to them, not to the other humans around them. What they lacked to understand was that everyone had just as complex mental function as them. Instead, they considered you a background character to their rich lives. So, Clementine did the one thing she knew how to do from the very beginning – she stuck to her guns and she shut the world out. Trying to make friends and being walked all over was a thing of the past, she became the total antithesis of what a model human being was. Whether you're behaving how you want to behave or you're conforming to the social hierarchy like a mindless zombie, one ever-damning trait will always be present: people's perception of you. Clementine realized that people liked to paint their own picture of her, whether she was minding her business or not. So, what was the point in trying to be likeable if you weren't going to be liked anyway? Disappoint people, because that's what you're good at. That's what she was good at.
Clementine's breathing hitched as her bedroom light switched on. With only one leg through the window, Lee had caught her red-handed. Her widened eyes settled on his cross-armed, defeated figure. Her heart sank a little before she inevitably broke eye contact with her foster father, resting her expression.
"You can't be doing this anymore, Clementine," he told her, his voice low and fatigued. "Why're you doing this?"
Clementine sighed quietly and pulled the remainder of her body into the room.
"I just wanted to see Naomi before I leave–"
"Seeing people this late at night is what got you in trouble in the damn first place… Doin' all of this smoking an-and sneaking around – it ain't good for you, Clem," his voice hardened with concern.
"Me? Smoke?" she placed her hand over her chest, forcibly dumbfounded. Lee's worrisome glance morphed into a glare.
"You make things harder for yourself, Clem. Harder for us. You think I want to send you to some out of state boarding school like you're some wild child? Some burnout?" he frustratingly threw about his hands, stepping towards her.
"Then don't," she shrugged dismissively, walking over to her bed and slamming herself onto it. The walls of her room were painfully bare, eradicated of her drawings and posters. After the incident with her…car, Audrey lost her mind and tore down all of Clementine's posters.
"You ain't giving me much choice, Clem. How do you expect me to work, take care of AJ, and pull your ass out of trouble every single week, huh?" Clementine immediately glared at him. His words sparked fear in her mind – fear of abandonment, of burden, of frustration. But she knew Lee wouldn't dare to do that, so why did that spark turn into a flame the more she dwelled on it?
"You do it because you love me," she bitterly insisted.
"I do," he looked to her, "I do love you, Clementine, and that's what's got you messed up to begin with," he snapped, his agitated arms uncrossing fiercely. Lee's reassurance had washed over her a sense of relief she knew she didn't deserve. "Don't you care about what you put me through? About what you put your mother and brother through?"
"Her? My mother?" she scoffed. "I'll start calling Audrey mom when my middle name isn't Diana."
"Clem–"
"And if by some miracle that ever happens, shoot me, Lee," she demanded. Her bitter words were like a foul ringing in his eardrums. While sighing and rubbing his forehead, he allowed silence to settle in with the hopes that it would calm her down. Eventually, he made his way over to the foot of her bed and sat down.
"Alright. I get it, you're mad," he spoke tenderly.
"I am beyond mad, Lee!" she sat up from her bed with passion. "You let that fucking–"
"Language."
"–that, that thing send me to a boarding school! I can't see you or AJ for God knows how long and it's all because of her!"
Ordinary school was boring and excruciating enough as it is, but going to some namby-pamby, clean-cut, uniformed boarding school? It's like they wanted her to stick out like a sore, broken thumb. More than ever before.
"No, Clem. You're going to that school all because of you," he glanced at her through his brows. "What you did? In front of all those people? That's your responsibility. That's the mess you made. We ain't doin' this to hurt you, we doin' this to help you. Help your wellbeing. You are too damn smart and too damn valuable to let yourself go, sweet pea. I don't want to see that, and neither does Audrey. The last thing I could ever hope for is that you throw away all the good things you got goin' for you. You're not ruinin' your life over this bitterness you got inside of you," he sedately expressed.
"She lying to you, Lee," Clementine bluntly replied. "She's doing this because she hates me. Because I know things."
"Know what?" he raised a brow at her, "What do you know that makes you think she's got it out for you?"
Clementine almost broke through the skin on her lip as she bit down. No matter what she told him, how much she told him, or how passionately she told it, or how passionately she told it, all she knew was that he wouldn't believe her. He wouldn't believe a damn thing that came out of her mouth.
"Nothing," she sulked and folded her arms. "She just hates me. I know it, you know it – we all know it."
"You really think a woman who hates you takes you clothes shopping? Or gives you lunch money? Or buys you a dog for your birthday?" he raised his eyebrow at her. "And I know how much you love that dog, so don't give me nothin' about him being crappy."
"...He's alright," she mumbled before shaking her head and glaring at him again. "That doesn't mean she doesn't hate me," she insisted, causing him to sigh with frustration. He shot up from the bed and marched over to her window.
"Clem, if you ain't gonna listen to me then I don't know what the hell else to do, alright? Maybe you really do need to spend time away from everything or be disciplined or somethin'," he rambled, shutting her window and flipping the latch.
"So you're just going to send me away? Just like that?" she stared at him incredulously, overcome with desperation.
"You got all your bags packed?" he asked her dismissively while slowly pacing around her room.
"Lee–"
"'Cause I ain't driving all the way out of state twice because you forgot your underwear or something else important like your tooth brush or deodorant–"
"Lee!" her resonating voice blared on the verge of brittle desperation. She glanced up at him painfully, her brows furrowed. "I can't go there. Please don't make me go there," she shook her head slightly. The look on her face wounded him, his head dropping into his hand as he sighed.
"Look… until I see some improvement, maybe then we can talk about letting you come home, okay?" he compromised, but Clementine resisted.
"No, but, Lee–"
"It's for your own good," he repeated sternly, pausing at the drop of her expression. "Don't let me down, Clementine."