"Christmas is All Around"
Chapter 8


Friday morning, December 24.

-

"Clem, you ready?" Nigel called through her bedroom door, rapping at the wood with his knuckles.

"I'm up! Just give me a few minutes!" she grumbled angrily, the sound of something hitting the door following shortly.

She knew she was lucky Nigel had agreed to take her down to retrieve her belongings she'd left at the offices, but she wasn't at all in a pleasant mood. And who would be in her situation?

Rolling out of bed, and walking over to her closet, she began rummaging for something decent to put on. She wasn't really in the mood to impress anyone, so it didn't really matter if it was a baggy shirt and ripped jeans. Speaking of which, she decided on wearing her ripped jeans, but no baggy shirt. She picked out a plain black baby t-shirt. She grabbed her red leather handbag and long black coat as she went out the door, whistling for Nigel to follow her.

"Might want to fix your hair, Clem. You've got serious bed-head!"

Clementine pulled down the mirror for her passenger seat and retrieved a brush from her handbag, taking to carefully brushing out her long hair.

"What's with the natural look this morning? Usually you've got gobs upon gobs of make-up on," Nigel pointed out.

"I just didn't feel like putting any on. I was in a rush," she said.

There was a pause.

"So why did you quit?" he asked.

"Like I told Auntie, it was creative differences. Is that good enough for you?"

"As a matter of fact, not really. No," he answered. She cast him an annoyed glare, getting one back in return. He could be so childish at times.

"Well that's all you're going to get, and you can tell Auntie that too because I know she put you up to this," she said.

"Curses, foiled again! Yar matey, ye be too clever for this ol' seadog, yar! The Cap'n will not be pleased says I! Yar!" he went off into a pirate rant, as he often did with other vernaculars as well.

"All right, Blackbeard, just make the turn here and pull up to the gate," she instructed.


David was coming down the stairs, buttoning up his suit jacket, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a certain someone coming down the hall. Clementine was talking with one of the female employees about something, with a young blonde man standing behind her looking a little bored.

Just who is this? David wondered, a little twitch fluttering in the corner of his right eye– although that could've been caused by the bruise covering the whole immediate right eye area. No doubt some oafish boyfriend of hers, he frowned. Brilliant.

"Thank you, Mary. I will miss you very much as well. You'll tell the others I sent my love? I can't stand heartfelt goodbyes really."

"I'll be sure to tell them you were in tears at the thought of never seeing them again," Mary smiled.

"You're a dear," Clementine gave her a hug. "I've got to dash now. Brother dearest here has to dump me off before meeting his girl," she said, nodding back at Nigel.

David then let out a huge sigh, surprisingly relieved that the blonde gentleman wasn't a boyfriend. Which was odd, because he'd never felt such a complete and utter hatred for someone he didn't even know. After Clementine left, he went back up to his room to think for a moment.

"I do hope they found the place all right, with Karen's directions and all," he said to himself. "God, I hope this works."


"Clem, luv, some things came for you while you were gone," Vivi informed Clementine as she came in the front door.

"Some things?"

"Yes. Quite a lot of them actually."

Clementine looked a bit confused, but continued up the stairs with a little spring in her steps. She backed into the bedroom, removing her coat and hanging on the hook just inside the doorway. Once she turned around, she felt as if she'd been knocked back with unbelievable force. Practically covering every space in her room were dozens upon dozens of different coloured roses. They were absolutely spectacular! She carefully stepped forward, slowly looking around at all the roses. She was in complete awe. Soon, she came upon a single deep purple rose (the only one of its colour) with a white tag tied neatly to its stem.

I'm sorry to lose such a unique rose from the garden. There will always be that empty space that nothing but that one rose could fill.

I do care about you. Don't ever doubt that.

— David.

She read the note over and over, trying to find some other conclusion as to what the note meant. It was also incredibly confusing to find a certain word that was scratched out thoroughly before David's name. It was 'love'. That one single solitary word was scribbled out in the same black pen used to write the whole small message; this one word caused her to succumb to tears.

"Fuck," she ran her fingertips over the dark wine-coloured petals. It was unbelievable, absolutely. "That fucking awful, piece of wonderful," she began to sob, putting a hand over her eyes and fell to sit on her bed. "I can't believe he did this. Why would he do this? How could he do this!" she wondered aloud.

Everything was happening so fast now, nothing making sense in the process.


Friday afternoon.

-

"You've got to tell me. Why did you need to know her address?"

"I've already said so," David said to her.

"It wasn't a very good explanation," Karen replied. "Do you love her?" she asked bluntly. He didn't know quite how to react. So, he said the first things that came to mind.

"I do," he answered quietly.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I caught that. But… did you just say, that you did love Clementine?" she wanted to be sure. His silence said all she needed to know. "And I know for a fact, that she cares about you too. Even though she doesn't show it," she added. This was a more than welcome fact to him.

The two then said their goodbyes, hanging up their phones.