Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Revenge, I Just Love It
A/N, I'm really glad this story has sparked up a bit of interest xD, and thank you for all the lovely comments I received, they honestly make me so happy =D. Anyway here's chapter 2, I hope you equally enjoy reading it.
Chapter 2: Exchange Of Names
She was there again the next day...there sitting on the small wooden bench by the lamppost overlooking the lake. She was wearing all dark colours, having switched her black sweater for a dark grey one, and her earphones were plugged in, no doubt to drown out the world around her.
With her sketchbook in her left hand, and a pencil in her right, she was intently sketching, looking completely absorbed by whatever it was she was trying to create...as though she were in her own little world, a safe world he presumed.
Hesitating from his spot afar, unsure of whether to interrupt her when she looked so peaceful in her solitude, Daniel's sense of intrigue towards her got the best of him; propelling him into slowly walking up to her, and muttering, "Hey Again" to get her attention.
She looked up at him slowly, and once again he couldn't help noticing her striking brown eyes, so rich in deep colour, though sadly expressing such a pained and troubled manner behind them, which he felt had been there a long time.
Pulling out a single earphone from her ear, as if she was unsure of whether she wanted to pay him any attention, she warily responded, "Hey" as she quickly shut her sketchbook so that he couldn't catch a sneak peek of her drawings if he tried to.
He wouldn't do that though, he caught the sense that they were private, and that was something he could understand with his own poetry. It was something he could respect.
"I was wondering if I'd bump into you again...not that I was looking, I just came here to…"
"Write" the girl muttered, rolling her eyes at him, before looking down at the leather journal in his hands. "You even any good?" she flippantly asked.
Daniel shrugged, before taking a seat beside her, making sure to leave a good space between them, they still only were a little more than strangers. "I like to think so" he replied, "but being that I'm the only one who has ever read and critiqued my stuff, I can't say for sure".
Smiling as if remembering something funny, he continued and said, "Well actually there was this one time, I read a poem of my own to my little sister, but I wanted an honest opinion and I didn't want her to know I wrote it, so I read it under the guise that it came from some book in school." He paused chuckling, "I don't think she really got the poem though, she quickly dismissed it as boring...but then I just like to think she hasn't acquired a good taste towards poetry yet."
Catching the tiny smile that flitted across her face, he jerked his thumb towards her sketchbook, and asked in return, "You any good at drawing?"
She shrugged in response as well, "maybe" she muttered, though something told him, her drawings really were something special, whether she knew it and was hiding it...or whether she truly didn't know her own ability. "I just draw to…" she paused mid-sentence, as if catching herself about to divulge something she didn't want to, "never mind" she muttered, casting her shaded eyes away from him.
She drew because it was the one thing she found a semblance of peace in. She drew because for a couple of hours a day it cleared her mind from all the pain that consumed it.
She drew, because it made her feel connected to her mother, a mother she'd lost too young, a mother whose face she had to strain herself to see...to remember.
Still, one memory of her stayed imprinted on her mind, it was of them sitting outside together, an easel and canvas in front of her mother, and a smaller one in front of her infant self. They were painting together, well her mother was painting quite skillfully too, while she was simply swirling random shapes and colours on her canvas. Still, the feeling she felt, the innocent love, the simple happiness, the peace...maybe if her mother hadn't died, it could have all been different...she could have been saved.
"Wait...what?" Daniel gently pressed, wanting to know what she was going to say, but she only shook her head in return. There was no reason to let him into such deep thoughts even if he stared at her with such sincerity in his chocolaty brown eyes when she talked.
Finding the need to fill the silence that had transpired, Daniel quietly began to speak. "I guess for me I just like the feeling of sitting down with my notebook in one hand, my pen in the other, and my hand moving, splashing words linked to my thoughts and emotions across the page…I don't know " he murmured, feeling suddenly sheepish, unaware that his words had made perfect sense to her, "I guess I write because I find it peaceful, and there's just something about poetry you know...so simple...yet so complex, like a paradox in itself."
Shrugging her shoulders indifferently at his last words, she murmured, "I wouldn't know I don't read poetry, couldn't even name one myself".
"Well...want to hear something from off the top of my head then?" he suggested, to which she merely shrugged in response, despite the small sense of intrigue she felt.
Catching it in her eyes, he smiled, before softly reciting his favourite line from an Oliver Wendall Homes poem he was familiar with, "Where we love is home...home that our feet may leave but not our hearts."
"It's rather short" she murmured her interest clearly waned, with the words he spoke not resonating with her in the same way it had him when he'd first read it.
"Well it's only a line, from a much longer poem called Homesick In Heaven. Still, for some reason, it's just always stood out to me."
"I don't see why" she muttered tiredly, narrowing her eyes at him before adding, "there's nothing special about it, homes just an illusion after all".
"Homes where you're rooted to, like an anchor for a boat...it's where you feel safe, be it with a person or a certain place. There's nothing fake about that", Daniel replied, justifying the line's significance and his own liking towards it.
"Unless you're not rooted to anywhere or anyone" she countered, his comment stinging her heart by reminding her of the simple things people took for granted, things she didn't even have, "Or did you forget such sad people exist in this world" she quipped, her eyes staring into his unwaveringly, until he averted them away, not knowing how to respond.
"Anyway", She muttered, standing up, and grabbing her sketchbook. "I have to go", and by have to, she meant want to. She preferred to be alone; the fewer connections; be them strong or weak, the fewer opportunities to get hurt...and therefore the overall better. It was a simple philosophy that she followed and right now he was already challenging that and invading her desire for solitude.
"See you tomorrow then" Daniel casually replied, watching with amusement at her reaction to his words which implied a further meeting. He wasn't so ignorant as to think that she'd suddenly taken an interest in him as he had unintentionally taken an interest in her. But still, it's what he wanted because when she wasn't glaring at him or completely closing herself off, he quite enjoyed talking to her. Her words were full of rawness and truth, as opposed to in the Hampton's where everything said was sugarcoated, as to preserve one's image. His mother was the greatest at that, she could spit spite and malice upon a person with the sweetest of tongues and the brightest of smiles...she was deadly in that factor, like the serpent hidden between the foliage of flowers.
Swivelling around to face him, the girl frowned, her eyes narrowing in irritation as she looked at him, and frigidly asked, "You're coming back?"
Daniel merely shrugged, "I like this spot" was his infuriating response, causing her to tensely snap back, "You can find another then". This spot was the one place in Connecticut where she felt both a sense of peace and a sense of safety...and she wasn't ready to give that up yet, especially to some privileged boy who didn't need it like she did.
"You can't claim a spot of your own, unless you actually own it". Daniel challenged, "I'm just asking to share it with you for a couple of evenings...that's all."
Crossing her arms defiantly across her chest, she sighed heavily "Then you're gone?" she questioned, too enthusiastically for his liking.
Daniel nodded his head, "I'm just here for a football tournament with my school" he explained, "and if we make the finals...which we will", he couldn't help but confidently add, "then Saturday will be the finals and by Sunday we'll be back home and this spot will be all yours again."
She hesitated as though she had a choice in the matter and could stop him from coming to her spot if she said no. Still he waited for her response, smiling brightly at her nonetheless after she begrudgingly muttered, "Fine", sighing to show her contempt.
It was a kind smile though, a welcoming one, the kind that was never usually directed at herself….a smile that unintentionally softened the sharpened features on her face.
"Thanks" Daniel replied lightly, "..and if I bother you so much, no ones saying you even have to show around this time. Though if you do, you might find that I actually make pretty good company."
"If I do" she rebutted, "then you'll probably find that I don't make pretty good company"
Daniel only laughed, his eyes focusing in on hers as he muttered, "Somehow I don't believe that".
She scoffed in reply, casting her eyes away from his warm brown ones, confused by his lighthearted attitude, "You don't even know me".
He shrugged, "True, can I at least know your name ?" he indirectly asked, causing her body to inadvertently tense up, as she hesitated.
Exchanging names, was such a simple action…yet to her it was an action that caused an overwhelming sense of anxiety due to the name she'd been condemned with; Clarke. A name, that instantly made people freeze, or recoil, or glare in disgust as though she was the manifestation of her father's actions, instead of one of his most crippled victims.
She didn't want to be Amanda Clarke...she was tired of such a loathsome, unforgiving burden, for once she wanted to be someone different, someone unknown, someone without a past that people knew...for once she wanted to be free.
"Emily" she replied slowly, tentatively.
"Emily Thorne" she said again, this time with resoluteness in her voice, marvelling the way the weightless name rolled off her tongue.
It was a name she'd used when she'd first been placed in the foster care system. Those years were the hardest of her life. She had to come to terms with what her father had done by losing the innocent faith she'd lovingly placed in him. All while adapting to such a cold, unwelcoming environment. It had been unbearable, so as a coping mechanism; in her mind, she'd created another girl. A girl like her, but happier, free of strife. One with a father and a mother who loved her, and a warm bed that they'd tuck her into every night. A girl who was clever and strong, who knew how to fight the bullies, and cultivate friendships….a girl who never cried...a girl she'd named Emily Thorne.
"I'm Daniel" he warmly replied, satisfied now that he finally had her name. "Daniel Grayson".
"Grayson" she repeated quietly, causing her body to freeze once again. She knew that name all too well. The Grayson's were heavily involved in the trial against her father. It was through their company that her father had channelled money through to the terrorists responsible for the downing of flight 197. She had always felt as though there was more to that story though….an intuition that their connection ran deeper….that they'd dirtied their hands like her father, but somehow escaped the repercussions.
There was a secret too, one that was never brought to light, one that involved her father, and Victoria Grayson; the conniving and callous Queen of the Hamptons. The two of them had been having a romantic affair. Even now she remembered those cold, unwelcoming eyes of the dark-haired lady, who had followed her father up those steps to his bedroom, zeroing in on her childhood self hidden behind the cabinet carefully watching in her nightgown with mistrust.
Her instinct had been right even then, that women had clearly not held any real love for her father, for she'd betrayed him as soon as his allegations had come to light. Betrayed him, when she was probably the one who had poisoned him into doing what he had.
"You've heard that name before", Daniel guessed from her reaction, sighing tiredly. He too felt the weight of his surname upon his shoulders, and though he wasn't so ungrateful as to ignore the benefits it carried, he also knew all too well of the burden it posed...and often the unwarranted or unsuited responsibility it cast upon himself.
She nodded her head slowly, a sad smile flitting across her face, "Anyway, I should go" she murmured, turning around quickly, needing time to process what she'd unintentionally discovered, as she shoved her hands in her jacket pocket and began to walk away.