Violet's Pov:

I walked down the sidewalk with a certain brunette next to me. Our fingers tightly intertwined which caused me to silently giggle to myself every time I would glance at our hands. I think Clem caught me because she laughed at the smile on my face. "What's got you so happy?"

I pointed at her and mouthed the word you, which caused her face to turn a light pink color and only added to my laughter. I let go of her hand and form a heart with mine before reclaiming my grasp. From the way I can get Clem to blush at a simple gesture, I guess she had it just as bad as me when we first met.

It's been three days since I or I guess Louis proclaimed my love for the brunette. I'm still ticked at him for reading something from my personal journal and almost ruining the relationship I had with Clementine. But I can't stay too mad at him since it actually kind of helped me. There was no way I would have been able to tell Clem how I really felt on my own.

Louis honestly made a mistake since he thought he was reading one of my little stories. But it doesn't change the fact that he deliberately kept reading when he knew I didn't want my inner thoughts to be made public. Whether it's something I've written for fun or something personal he should have dropped it then and there when I told him...er...signald him to stop. So once he returned my notebooks to me I took one and hit him over the head with it, which he admitted he deserved. Thank god he didn't read anything else from it. I'm actually lucky it was just a page about my crush on the girl.

We keep walking as I pull Clem along with me. She has no idea where we're going but doesn't question it as we walk down the crumbling sidewalk and make a turn down this little dirt path that's been worn down with bike tracks from me and my friends. I'm literally leading her just like the sentence I've written in my book, and the fact that I'm living out my fantasy is making fireworks go off inside that only builds my excitement.

We keep walking for about another five minutes as we enter the woods. The tree leaves blocking out the sun with the shadows of the branches littering the ground in mismatch shapes. The path sort of stops and we walk down this short slope careful not to trip over tree roots that stick up from the ground. Then at the bottom is a small clearing where the trees open up and lead to this little stream that's about a foot deep. I let go over her hand and raise my arms in a sort of "Ta-da we made it!" kind of gesture.

Clem looks around and takes in the breathtaking scenery. She runs her hand across the bark of an oak tree. "Wow, it's beautiful here." I smile at her words taking it as she likes that I've brought her here. "Where are we?" I hear her ask.

I slide off the leather satchel that hangs from my shoulder and I sit down on the grass in front of this huge red maple tree. It's always been my favorite out of all the trees that surround the area. I can't explain it, but there's just something about it that makes it special to me. Clem walks over and sits next to me as she sees me pull out a notebook. The front cover was a dark blue with a large tree taking up most of the page and a heart in the middle of it. The cover sparkled with glitter used to interoperate stars against the deep blue background that seemed to drip down from branches as they intertwined with the sky.

This is by far my favorite notebook, but I haven't written anything in it yet. I've been debating on what I wanted to use it for and it creates sparks of joy to ignite inside me that I get to use it to communicate with someone as special in my life as Clementine. "Me and Louis found this place years ago and it's been a hangout for all of us since then. No one else seems to come down here."

Clem reads what I've written for her and grins. "It's cool that you guys have a place like this all to yourselves. I had a treehouse in my backyard growing up, but it wasn't anything like this. I'd take my walkie talkie up there and play for hours."

I send her a smile, but I see her attention is pulled somewhere else. I follow her gaze and my eyes land on some red words painted out on a large boulder that's down by the stream. "What's Texas Two?" I get asked and it causes me to blush.

I quickly write down a response. "It's the name of our base. We used to play this game called Hide n' Survive and we came up with a name for our group. Mitch painted it on the rock."

I see the look of confusion still on her face and realize I have to explain what Hide n' Survive is. "Basically we pretended to be in the zombie apocalypse and we would gather supplies and weapons. Then we'd build a wall out of tree branches and pieces of wood that we'd find to keep the 'walkers' out"

I can see the look of amusement on Clem's face at our little game. "It sounds like it was fun, but why Texas Two?"

I blush at her words and Clem smirks at me. "You named it that, didn't you?" My blush deepens and that's all it takes to confirm her answer. "Aww, Vi, that's cute."

I playfully shove her which only gets her to smile more, but the moments cut short when Clem gives a hiss of pain. I see her jerk her hand back as if she'd just been shocked and I recognize it's the hand that she punched Minerva with. She catches my look of concern and tries to hide the mark that's still present across her knuckles. "I'm fine, it's nothing."

"Why'd you get in a fight with Minerva?" Her eyes widen as she reads what I've scribbled down. "How'd you know?"

"I noticed your hand was bruised and so was her face." I smirked as I wrote down the next part, "Plus Minnie doesn't back down from a fight, so I figured you two had history."

"Well yeah, we have the same history class, but what does that have to do with our fight?" I slap her with my notebook at the smart remark and roll my eyes as she starts laughing.

"So what happened there?" I write down, the serious look back on my face as concern for my girlfriend takes over. I'm glad Minnie got a taste of her own medicine, but I'd rather not have it be at the expense of Clem's well being.

Clem sighs. "Well I was walking out of the school at the end of the day and I overheard this group talking about you."

This isn't really news to me since I'm pretty sure everyone talks about me behind my back, but I'm definitely intrigued.

"There was this one girl who kept going on and on saying how you were a freak for not talking. You can guess who that was. So I stormed up to her and told her off for talking about you like that. I pretty much figured out it was Minerva once I saw her. She looked just like Sophie but with a different haircut. Anyway, she wanted to know why I cared for someone as pathetic as you which pissed me off so I hooked her right in the jaw."

Clem demonstrates this for me and I honestly wish I could have seen it. "I think I was just as surprised as she was, but damn did that hurt. I'd punched her the wrong way and fucked up my hand a bit, but I'll be fine. It's just a bit sore, I didn't break it or anything. But I wasn't just gonna stand there and let her talk shit about you."

I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear and allow a small smile to form at her words. "That's really sweet. But you don't have to do that. Minnie says shit about me all the time."

I can see anger flash over Clem's eyes as she reads this. I know she's pissed at Minnie for what happened, but I'm not exactly innocent in the matter either. "Yeah, what's up with that? Why does she have such a problem with you?"

I bite my lip in hesitation and for a moment it's silent except for the sound of water running over the rocks in the stream. I really don't know if it's safe for me to tell Clem about my history with Minnie. I don't want to lose her if she decides she doesn't approve of what we once were.

Clem can see the fight going on in my head so she decides to back off. "Hey, it's okay. You don't have to tell me if you're not comfortable with it. I understand."

I shake my head because that's not fair to her. I can trust her, she has a right to know. "Minnie is...my ex-girlfriend."

"Oh?"

I couldn't tell if that was a good Oh or an Oh, you hang out with that kind of person. Either way, it made my stomach flip with nervousness. But I was already in deep enough that I had to explain.

"Minnie hasn't always been a bitch. She used to be sweet like Sophie once." I explain.

"Oh, so that's when you used to date her, back when she was nicer?" Clem asks.

I flinch at the question dreading what I have to tell her. "Um, yes and no. I wasn't always the quiet writer that you know me as. Minnie just happened to fall into the wrong crowd of people and she ended up pulling me down with her because I was too afraid that she'd leave me."

I let Clem read it before I continue. "Then when I tried to change, Minnie didn't really approve. I went into one of the silent spells that I get and Minnie didn't understand so she kind of lashed out and that's when I ended it with her which she's always been bitter about. I caused a lot of trouble and I...I hurt some people that I cared about. And I didn't want any of that."

I look down at my lap as I allow Clem to read over what I've written. She doesn't say anything as she hands me back my notebook. She just gives me a sorrowful look. I hold up a finger to let her know I need a minute. I rush to write a long paragraph because I don't know any sign language except for 'I love you' and there's no way I'd be able to say all of this if any.

"I've cheated and I've lied, I've broke down and I've cried, but I'm not who I was anymore. I've loved and I've hurt. I've broken people down with words. Honestly, you've shown me more grace than I deserve. I've known to be crazy, known to be wild. My parents had themselves a little devilish child. I'm no stranger to the troubles at my door."

I let out a depressed sigh as I continue on. "None of it was really by choice but, I've been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Chasing all the wrong things most of my life. Been every kind of lost that you can't find. I'm the kind of girl that my parents don't like. Running with the wrong crowd on the wrong nights. 'Cause I've been wrong about a million times."

I pass my journal over to Clem who takes a minute to read over it all. I nervously fix my glasses as I wait for her reaction. I don't say any specifics but I've gotten the point across that I haven't always been the shy and quiet type. But I've learned how to avoid that toxic relationship that I had with Minnie and I've been able to fix all of...er...most of my problems. I still have some inner demons that I'm dealing with, but it's fine. Nothing my pencil and paper couldn't fix. I just wish I could say the same for Minnie. She changed and not for the better as she continues to hurt people.

I find with all that I've been through not much happiness has come out of my life. I've just always been dealt a bad hand. I didn't intentionally become a trouble maker I just got mixed up in the wrong crowd. Though I still know it's my fault. Everything's always my fault. I was lucky that my friends had pulled me back before I tripped and fell into the darkness. But there's always been more than one kind of darkness in my life.

There is something that crosses my mind, though. After everything that's happened my friends have still stood by me, Louis especially. All the nights I've stayed over at his house because the tension that's forced down my throat at home it's too much to endure. All the times I've broken down in his arms. And he still continues to support me even if I don't tell him what's bothering me. I really should just drop the notebook incident, honestly.

I've got something else in my life too and I realize that my wish had been answered that night.

I lean over and quickly write something else down before Clem can say anything once she's done reading. "...but I've got one thing right..."

She smirks at me. "And what's that?"

I surprise both of us as the words actually come out of my mouth.

"...You."