I'm so sorry for the extremely long vacation and not uploading this chapter sooner! I wanted to make this perfect since this was such an amazing moment for Tucker and Clara. This has got to be my favorite Tucker/Clara moment out of the many in the series and I wanted to do it the justice it deserves. Enjoy and I'll try to post more frequently! A handful more chapters and we'll be off to Book Two: Hallowed. I'll be writing a new fanfic for the second book when the time comes. Without further ado, enjoy! xD
I'm finishing tying up my hiking boots by five in the morning. I'm not usually a morning person (either Mom or Dad has to literally drag me out of bed to do morning chores) but today is an exception. I couldn't possible imagine sleep with my stomach churning. Today's just going to be like every other day we go out, right? We aren't dating or anything yet. So why was I so nervous? I start thinking about yesterday and how I held Carrots in the river. I quickly shake my head. That didn't mean anything to her. We're still just friends even if I wanted to be more.
I sigh and force myself to calm down. Carrots isn't going to be a happy person when I call her at this ungodly hour. I grab my cell-phone as I get into Bluebell and press the number two down until it starts ringing (yes, I put Clara's number on speed dial). After a few rings she picks up.
"What?" she asks in a fake cheery tone that screams "No, I'm not awake but when I find out who this certifiably insane person that is calling me right now, the devil's going to be on their heels." Or something along those lines.
"Oh good," I say. "You're up." I can't help but grin even though she can't see me.
"What time is it?" she asks. You're a dead man, Tuck.
"Five," I tell her.
"I'm going to kill you." Haha! I was right! I grin even though she can't see my face.
"I'm on my way over," I tell her. "I'll be there in about a half hour." I hear a muffled groan on her end of the line. "I thought I'd call so you had time to brush your hair and put on your face."
"You think I'm going to wear makeup to go hiking with you?" she asks. She doesn't need makeup to be beautiful. She has sort of this natural glow around her but I might just be imagining things. Jeez, Tucker, you're really head over heels for her. I wouldn't want it to be any other way.
"See, that's what I like about you, Carrots," I say. "You're not fussy." At that she hangs up on me and I go back to pull out of the Lazy Dog to pick her up whistling "Happy Birthday" on my way.
I pull up Carrots's driveway as quietly as I can so I didn't wake up the whole house. A minute later, she's walking out the front door and makes her way over to Bluebell. She looks amazing like every other day that we go out.
"Hi," I say when she gets into the truck.
"Hi," she says back, shooting me a nervous smile. I can feel my ears heat up. I guess she's thought about yesterday too. I try to act as normal as possible and it seems to work since I see her visibly relax. We start off with the 'You know you're a dead man, right?' 'Yeah, I figured.' 'Good, glad we're on the same page.' I'm speeding past the speed limit because I don't want her to miss what I have to show her. It's probably going to be the most beautiful part of the area that she's ever going to see.
"So what day is it?" she asks me.
"Huh?"
"You said it was a special day," she says. Oh, right. I did say that, didn't I?
"Oh," I tell her. "I'll get to that." Luckily before Carrots asks me anything else, we're at Jackson Lake. I hop out of the truck and make my way to her side to open her door. She looks up at me and gives me a dazzling smile as she hops out of Bluebell herself. I check my watch. Yikes, we better get going.
"We've got to hike fast," I tell her. She gives me a curious look. "Sunrise is in twenty-six minutes." I tell her.
She leans down to tighten the laces on her boots and we're off, her following a few steps behind me.
"So what classes are you taking next year?" I ask over my shoulder as we make our way up the hill on the other side of the lake.
"The usual," she replies. "AP Calculus, College English, government, French, physics, you know." The only subject I'm taking out of the ones she's named is government. Hopefully we're in the same class.
"Physics, huh?" I ask. I'd taken that class last year. It's was okay, not too hard and not too easy.
"Well, my dad is a physics professor," she says. Her dad? She's never talked about him before. Must be a sore subject.
"No kidding?" I ask. I know she isn't going to be kidding, but I'm trying to liven the mood up a little. Plus, we need to keep talking so we scare off the bears. "Where?"
"NYU." I whistle. Wow, that's hardcore.
"That's a long way from here," I say. "When did you folks split up?" I asked cautiously. I wouldn't pry to enlight me on that if she didn't want to.
"Why are you suddenly so chatty?" she asks and not too kindly. I wince a little. Okay, subject closed. I put on a mischief smile and turn around to face her.
"We've got to talk because of the bears," I say in a low tone darting my eyes around for dramatics. I glance at her and see her eyes widen just a little and quickly look away so I don't get lost in them. Although, that wouldn't be too bad. I give mentally shake myself. The last thing I want right now is for Carrots to see me drool while starring into her.
"The bears?" she asks a little nervously. I almost reach out and comfort her, tell her that I'll protect her. I force myself to stay where I am.
"Got to make some noise," I tell her. "Don't want to surprise a grizzly."
"No, I guess we don't want to do that," she says. I nod and turn to start up the trail again.
"So," she says. "Tell me about this thing that happened with your grandpa, where your family lost the ranch." I knew it was a bad idea to start on touchy subjects. I ball my fists together and clench my teeth. It was a long story and one that I didn't take to kindly to. "Wendy says it's why you hate Californians," she continues. "What happened there?"
"I don't hate Californians. Clearly," I say, trying to avoid her question.
"Whew, that's a relief," she says sarcastically.
"It's a long story," I tell her, my voice hard. "And we don't have that long to hike."
"Okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to—" she starts but I interrupt her.
"It's fine, Carrots," I say. "I'll tell you about it someday. But not now." And I will tell her about it. I plan on being by her side for a really long time. I start whistling and we stop talking. Thankfully it isn't awkward.
After a few more minutes of hard climbing, we're there. We come out of a clearing at the top of a small rise. The sky's bathed in a mix of gray and pale yellow, with a tangle of bright pink clouds hanging right about where the Tetons jut into the sky, anticipating the coming sunrise. The purple mountain majesties stand like kings on the edge of the horizon. Below us is Jackson Lake with waters so clear that they mirror the scenery so it seems as if there are two sets of mountains and two sets of skies.
I check my watch. "Sixty seconds," I say. "We're right on time."
I turn to face her and watch her expression. I've seen the sunrise many times here, each one more breath-taking than the last. Looking at Clara right now, I can't help but compare her to those moments. Every time I sneak a glance at her, or manage to make her laugh and smile, they seem to be more beautiful than the last. She's gazing at the mountains with joy radiating off of her in waves.
"This way," I say gently and turn her to face the opposite direction where the sun is coming up across the valley over a distant, less familiar set of mountains. I continue to watch her as she gazes at everything, taking it all in. The way her eyes are shining makes it seem like we're standing in a little patch of heaven. I tear my eyes off of her to see the sun rising for us, only for us. I look at her some more, noticing the small smile on her lips, her eyes drinking in the sunrise, and the way her cheekbones we accentuated by the rays of sunlight making their way over the tips of the mountains. Once the sun clears the mountaintops, I take her gently by the shoulders, feeling the soft brush of some of her orange curls on my cheek, and turn her again back toward the Tetons, where the lake was shining as if it were filled with liquid gold.
"Oh," she gasps as if she couldn't that anything could be more beautiful in this moment.
"Makes you believe in God, doesn't it?" I ask without thinking much. I look at her startled expression gazing up at me and I feel my knees turn to jelly.
"Yes," she agrees, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Their name means 'breasts,' you know," I say. I mentally face-palm myself. How attractive, Tucker. And I just had to add "Grand Teton means 'big breast.'" You certainly know how to woo a girl. My ears are flaming and I pray that she doesn't notice.
"Nice, Tucker," she scoffs. "I know that. Third-year French, remember?" Oh, right. Sort of lost my brain there. "I guess the French explorers hadn't seen a woman in a really long time" she says, biting her lip to hold back her smile.
"I think they just wanted a good laugh," I say, biting my own lip.
For a long time we stand there, side by side, and watch the light stretch and dance with the mountains in complete silence. A light breeze picks up and blows Clara's hair to the side where it catches against my shoulder, a few strands tickling my neck. I turn to look at her as she turns to look at me and I hold her gaze and notice that her eyes have tiny flecks of green. I swallow. I want to tell her how I feel about her. No. I need to tell her that she's beautiful and that I wanted to hold her every day in my arms and never let her go. If I don't, I feel as if I'll combust right there with the love that I've been hiding from for so long, waiting for the right moment to say something to her.
"I think you're—" I begin to tell her, but I hear a rustling in the brush behind us at the same moment. We turn.
A bear has just come onto the trail, it's a grizzly. The bear's massive shoulders glowing from the rays of the sunrise as it stops to look at us with it's light brown eyes. Behind it two cubs tumble out of the bushes. This is bad…
"Don't run," I warn Clara. If she runs, we'll both be mauled. I slide my backpack from my shoulder and slowly kneel down while the bear lowers her head and makes this snuffling sound.
"Don't run," I say again, a little more loudly this time. The adrenaline is pounding in my head and I feel a drop of sweat run along my brow. I glance down and fumble with my backpack, trying to find that bear-repellent can. Where is it?! I look back up to see the bear is tense, ready to charge right at me. Accio bear-repellent. I know you're in there. Come out so the girl I love and Iwon't die on my birthday!
Then, I hear something but I don't know what. I look up to see Carrots with determination and fear mixed in her eyes, holding up her hand as if she could hold her back by the force of her will. I turn to look at the bear and see it pause, her gaze swinging to Clara's face then her hand. The bear then begins to rise and stand on her hind legs, huffing. I continue to search through my bag with more fervor. I feel the cool metal of a can of what I hope was bear-repellent and take it out of my backpack, standing up slowly. I try to read the instructions but my eyes blur at the words. I'm panicking slightly because I know the bear doesn't notice me, just Clara. I can't let her get hurt. I just can't. I look back at Clara, ready to jump in front of her when the bear charges.
I see Clara's lips move but what came out wasn't like anything I'd ever heard before. This sounded like whispers of tree branches dancing with the wind, a little creek bubbling with rushing water, and the sweetest note you've ever heard combined into one. What is she doing?! The bear makes a noise like a half-roar, half-bark that makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I raise the bear-repellent in my hand, not sure what I'm supposed to do with it. Clara seems to stand her ground and even looks into the mama grizzly's eyes. Clara says something else that sounds a little like a clap of thunder and heavy rain beating rain. I look at her in shock. She looks like she's glowing just a little, but that might just be the early morning sun behind us. I watch as the bear drops on all fours, lower and head a woof at her cubs. I hear her whisper something and the bears turn and crash back into the brush, her cubs falling in behind her. Gone as suddenly as she appeared.
I turn back to Clara just as her knees give out and my arms immediately wrap around her. I crush her to me, one hand on the small of her back, supporting her, and the other on the back of her neck. I pull her head to my chest. Relief courses through me like a tsunami and my breath comes in panicked shudders.
"Oh my God," I breathe. I feel her shift and pull away to look at my hand.
"Bear repellent," I say.
"Oh," she says a small, tired smile forming on her lips. "So you could have handled it."
"I was trying to read the directions on how to spray the thing," I say with a grim laugh. "I don't know if I would have figured it out in time."
"Our fault," she says as she sinks down and sits near my feet. "We stopped talking."
"Right," I say, still trying to calm down. We're safe. That's all that matters right now. I can't stop thinking about how Carrots warded off that bear. I know she wasn't singing to it, she was talking to it somehow. She's hiding something, Tuck. Something big. I shake my head. I'll ask about it later. We just survived a possible bear attack.
"I'm thirsty," she tells me. That snaps me out of my thoughts. I slip the bear repellent back in my bag and retrieve the water bottle for her. I open it and kneel beside her, holding the bottle to her lips. I know I'm acting weird. It's just the after-shock of a near-death experience. I try to tell myself this and I manage to convince myself. Barely.
"You did warn me about the bears," Carrots stammers after she takes a few swallows. "We were lucky."
"Yeah," I say. I turn my gaze down the trail on the direction that the bears went, then back at Carrots. I know she sees the question in my eyes, but she looks away. Later, then. "We were pretty lucky, all right."
I don't push her to talk about it, so we hike back down and drive into Jackson for breakfast. We got back to my house later in the morning for my boat and spend the afternoon on the Snake fishing, postponing the inevitable. For now.
I hook a few fish, but throw them back. In the end, I could a big rainbow trout and decide to eat that for dinner along with the fish I caught the day before. It feels like eons ago rather than hours.
I don't bring up the bear incident until we're in the kitchen, me teaching Carrots how to gut a fish. I decided to be straight forward about it.
"What did you do today, with the bear?" I ask her as she stands with the fish at the kitchen sink, trying to make a clean incision up the belly like I showed her.
"This is so gross," she complains. I know she said it to stall for time. I turn to look at her, my expression hard the way I get whenever she tries to get something past me. I'm a little hurt. We've spent so much time together this summer. I don't understand why she won't tell me when I know she wants to. She's looking at her fish and biting her lip as if she's contemplating on what she should say. I cross my arms.
"I sang to the bear," she says. Yeah, right.
"You talked to it," I say with certainty laced into every word. You can't lie to me, Carrots.
"I sort of hummed at it," she says slowly. "That's all." Why won't she tell me the truth?
"I'm not stupid, you know," I tell her. She winces at my sharp tone.
"I know. Tuck—" she starts to say until the knife slips. I watch as it slices through her hand below her thumb, a sudden rush of blood. She instinctively closes her fingers around the gash, trying to hide it from me. It looked really bad, like, stitches right away bad. I panic a little. Idiot! How could I be so stupid! I was confronting her, distracting from using a bloody knife!
She tries to joke, "Okay, whose brilliant idea was it to give me a knife?"
"That's a bad cut," I say, willing myself to keep the panic from my voice. "Here." I curl back her fingers to press a dish towel over the wound. "Put pressure on it," I tell her before letting go. I dash out of the kitchen as fast as I can to look for the first aid kit. Hurry, hurry, hurry! I find the kit in the usual spot and rush back to the kitchen, seeing Clara flexing her fingers back and forth gingerly. That is NOT a good idea! I dump kit on the counter and cross over to her quickly. She puts the dishtowel tight across her palm and tucks her hand into her chest protectively.
"I'm okay," she says quickly.
"Let me see," I order and hold out my hand, not convinced that she was.
"No, it's fine," she insists. "It's only a scratch."
"It's a deep cut," I tell her, knowing what I saw. "We need to close it."
She slowly lowers her hand into mine. I take it and gently turns it so that her injured palm faces up. I tug back the dish towel, preparing myself to rush out to the hospital but the cut was just a scratch like Carrots said. What? I could have sworn that it was serious.
"See?" she says. "Only a minor flesh wound."
I continue to stare at the scratch intently, as if it's going to get any worse. I notice her relax. Why was she tense in the first place? Today was getting stranger and stranger. I have no idea what is going on. First she speaks to the bear in a language that sounds as if it were music written by God's choir that somehow warded off the bear as if it understood her and now I'm looking at her hand which I could've sworn had a cut that needed immediate stitches. These are the only weird things I've noticed about her. Like speaking fluent Korean, or skiing and riding like a pro. Wendy's mentioned some stuff too. I started to think that maybe she was a supernatural human being like a vampire or something. She's not a vampire since clearly hasn't turned to ashes at the touch of daylight. I mentally slap myself. There are no such things as supernaturals.
"Are you going to read my future?" she asks me with a weak laugh.
My mouth twists into a grim line. "I thought you were going to need stitches for sure," I say.
"Nope. False alarm," she says a little too cheerily. I decided that I should stop wasting time and fix her up. I smear a bit of ointment on her cut and smooth a bandage over it carefully, making sure I don't hurt her.
"Thanks," she says when I'm done.
"What's going on with you Clara?" I don't know why I suddenly said it. I wasn't thinking, or I was thinking way too much about this. I look at her fiercely, willing her to tell me the truth. I was hurt that she didn't trust me. We've become friends, but it hurts to think that the girl I'm irresistibly in love with is lying to me about something big. Something important.
"What—what do you mean?" she stammers. The way her eyes widen and her lips part assures me even more that she's hiding something.
"I mean," I start to say… but I don't know what to say. "I don't know what I mean. I just… You're just…" I trail off, unable to complete my thought. An awkward silence covers us like snow. I can feel her eyes on me. I glance at her at the corner of my eye and see that she looks tired. No, exhausted. I suddenly have the urge to go up to her and wrap my arms around her, reassuring her that she can trust me, that I would be her friend no matter what the truth was.
"It's just me," she says so softly that my ears barely heard her. I scoff. There's too much of you that's a mystery, Carrots. I want to know you more than anything, but you won't let me in! I pick up the dish towel and hold it up, her blood soaked into the middle of it.
"At least now I know you can bleed," I say. "That's something, I guess. You're not completely invincible, are you?"
"Oh right," she retorts sarcastically, trying to lighten the mood. "What, did you think I was Supergirl? Vulnerable only to Kryptonite?"
"I don't know what I think," I say seriously. I manage to tear my gaze away from the bloody dish towel and look at her again. "You're not… normal, Clara. You try to pretend you are. But you're not. You talked to a grizzly bear, and it obeyed you. Birds follow you like a Disney cartoon, or haven't you noticed? And for a while after you came back from Idaho Falls, Wendy thought you were on the run from someone or something. You're good at everything you try. You ride a horse like you were born in the saddle, you ski perfect parallel turns your first time on the hill, you apparently speak fluent French and Korean and who know what else. Yesterday I noticed that your eyebrows kind of glitter in the sun. And there's something about the way you move, something that's beyond graceful, something that's beyond human, even. It's like you're… something else." Carrots looks at me with wide eyes and fear. She shivers and hugs her arms together, casting her eyes away from mine.
"And there couldn't possibly be any rational explanation for all that," she says, but she knows that I know she's hiding something. She knows she can't cover it up anymore. That she has to tell me sooner rather than later. She knows I deserve that much as her friend.
"Considering your brother, the best I've been able to come up with is that maybe your family's part of some kind of secret government experiment," I say half-jokingly because for all I know it could be true. "Some kind of genetically altered animal-friendly superhumans and you're in hiding."
She snorts. "You sound crazy, you know that?" she says. Another silence envelopes us. I sigh.
"I know. It's crazy," I say. "I feel like—" and I clam up. I can't tell her how I feel now. It'll only make the situation worse than it already is.
"It's okay, Tuck," she says gently. "We've had kind of a crazy day." She reaches out to touch my shoulder but I shake my head, not knowing entirely sure why I did that. I'm about to apologize of change my mind and go ahead and profess my love when the screen door opens and my parents walk in, talking loudly because they know they're interrupting something. My mom is the first to spot all the bandages and ointment from the first aid kit on the counter.
"Uh-oh. Someone have an accident?" she asks.
"I cut myself," Carrots says quickly, avoiding my eyes. "Tucker was teaching me how to clean out the fish and I got careless. I'm okay, though."
"Good," Mom says.
"That's a nice fish," Dad comments, peering down in the sink where Carrots dropped the big rainbow trout. "You catch that today?"
"Tucker did, yesterday," Carrots says with a hint of pride in her voice. I'm stand there a little shocked. "Today he caught the one over there." And gestures to the open cooler in the middle of the kitchen. Dad looks at it and gives a low whistle of appreciation. I blush slightly.
"Good eating tonight," Dad says.
"You sure that's what you want for your birthday dinner?" Mom asks for the hundredth time. "I can make anything you like."
"It's your birthday!" Carrots gasps, her eyes wide with surprise. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that earlier.
"Didn't he tell you?" Dad asks as he laughs. "Seventeen years old today. He's almost a man."
"Thanks, Pop," I mutter, my face flaming. I wish Wendy were here, Dad would embarrass her first before me.
"Don't mention it, son," Dad says, giving me a wink as if we shared a secret.
"I would have gotten you something," Carrots says softly. That was one of the reasons why I didn't tell you. You're all I could ever want from you.
"You did," I tell her. "You gave me my life today. Guess what?" I say to my parents. "Today we ran into a mama grizzly with two cubs up at the ridge off Colter Bay, and Clara sang to it to make it go away." My parents turned to stare at Carrots, aghast.
"You sang to it?" Dad repeats.
"Her singing is that bad," I tell him, and my parents all laugh. Just try to have a good birthday while Mom and Dad are around. Then Carrots and I can settle things. Carrots with a shy smile on her lips and a faint blush.
"Yep," she says. "My singing is that bad."
After Mom fries up the fish for dinner, there's cake and ice cream and a few presents. Most of the gifts are for Midas, my prize rodeo horse. My dad bragged to Carrots about the way Midas and I can pick a single cow out of a herd.
"Most horses that compete are trained by professionals and cost well over forty grand," Dad tells her. "But not Midas. Tucker raised and trained him from a colt." Carrots raises and eyebrow and turns toward me.
"I'm impressed."
I'm a little restless at all the attention. I rub the back of my neck, something that I do when I'm wildly uncomfortable.
"I wish I could have seen you compete," Carrots says, throwing me off a little. I look at her and see she's being completely honest. "I bet that's something to behold." I smile at her sheepishly.
"You'll have to catch him this year," Dad says.
"I know!" she says and drops her chin into her hand as she leans on the kitchen table and grins slyly at me. The uncomfortable meter went up a hundred more notches. Is she going to flirt with me? In front of my parents?! I have to get away.
"Let's go out to the barn and show Midas the new bridle," I say. With that I whisk Carrots out of the house before I turn into a lovesick fool. And we still have stuff to talk about.
Midas comes to the front of his stall the moment we go in, his ears cocked forward expectantly. I go over and stroke under his chin and put on the new bridle my parents gave me.
"You should have told me it was your birthday," Carrots says.
"I was going to," I tell her. "But then we were almost eaten by a grizzly." You weren't going to tell her it was your birthday, you were going to tell her she was beautiful. I willed my brain to shut up.
"Oh, right." She says. "What about Wendy?" she asks.
"What about her?"
"It's her birthday, too," she states. "I'm the worst friend ever. I should have sent her something." She looks really upset about not knowing. Wendy and I agreed not to tell her because we didn't want Carrots getting us anything.
"Did you exchange gifts?" she asks.
"Not yet," I say as I turn towards her. "But she gave me the perfect gift."
I see her blush faintly in the little light the lantern at the front gives off.
"What?" she asks me, her eyes focused on me just as intensely as mine are on hers.
I intake a sharp breathe. She looks stunning. Too beautiful to be real. For all I knew, I couldn't be sure if she was real or not. I didn't want this to be a dream. I pinched myself just in case. Nope. Not a dream. I'm wide awake.
"You." I comes out soft but clear. I know she heard it because her flush deepens a little. You finally did it, Tucker. Well done. I just admitted that I had feelings for her. Her lips are slightly parted in a silent 'Oh' and I have to fight off every urge to go up to her and kiss her.
"What are we doing?" she asks. She takes a step back from me. I wasn't expecting that.
"Carrots…" I say.
"Don't call me that," she says shakily, like she's afraid of me for some reason. "That's not me."
"What do you mean?" I ask her. What did I do wrong?
"An hour ago you thought I was some kind of freak," she says.
I tug a hand through my hair in agitation. No, she's not a freak. I didn't think that. I thought she was different, special, but never a freak.
"I didn't ever think you were a freak," I tell her, pouring every fiber of sincerity I had into what I'm going to say. "I think… I thought you were magic or something. I thought that you were too perfect to be real."
In the dim light, I could see her pained expression but I kept going.
"I know I said some stupid things today," I tell her. I have to say it. I'm going to say it.
"But I like you, Clara. I really like you." She looks at me shocked. It's the first I've ever said her name since we first met. I see the hesitation in her eyes.
"It's okay," I say. "You don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know." I needed you to finally know how I really felt about you.
"No," she says. "Tuck, I can't. I have to—" I thought I could hear my heart shatter right then and there. My chest ached so much, it was hard to breathe. My face fell and my vision started to get foggy. She can't possibly still like Christian Prescott. He doesn't deserve her after what he did, playing with her emotions. I had to make sure…
"Tell me this isn't about Christian Prescott," I say, my voice so low that I didn't even recognize it. "Tell me you're over that guy."
"You don't know everything about me," she says so sharply that her words could have cut glass. My vision clears and I look at her. Really look at her. I think I do, Clara. And I think you know I do.
"Come here," I say. I see her shiver and I would give anything to hold her in my arms right now.
"No," she says. Her eyes say otherwise.
"I don't think you really want to be with Christian Prescott," I say.
"Like you know what I want," she retorts, but I know I'm right.
"I do," I tell her. "I know you. He's not your type." She breaks eye contact with me and stares at her hands that are trembling just slightly.
"Oh, and I supposed you're my type, right?" she asks a little weakly.
"I suppose I am," I say. Then I'm crossing the distance between us that seems to stretch for miles instead of a few feet. I take her face in my hands gently before she can stop and before I register what I'm about to do.
"Tuck, please," Clara manages in a quivery voice. I'm not sure if she's telling to stop of keep going.
"You like me, Clara," I say with certainty. I can see in her expression that she does. "I know you do."
She looking at me, trying to form words to deny it, but she knows it's no use.
"Try to tell me you don't," I murmur, our lips only a breath apart. She looks up into my eyes and I can't think of anything other than how much I love those eyes and how I want to see them every day for the rest of my life. I manage to draw her closer, not sure how it was even possible.
"Tuck," she breaths and I kiss her.
It was a slow and tender kiss. I didn't want it to end. I hoped to God in heaven that I wasn't dreaming. And if it was a dream, I prayed I would never wake up. I gently brush my lips against hers, memorizing how they feel. My eyes are closed and I could see sparks shooting and my head is swimming with little details. How her lips are soft and taste of strawberries, how soft her orange curls are on my fingertips and how she smells of sunshine from all the time we've spent outside. I kiss again a little more firmly but pull away to look at her and wait for her reaction.
"Again," she whispers. I can the corner of my mouth lift as my heart soars. We kiss again, but not so gently this time. My hands drop from her face and grab her waist and pull her closer to me. A small groan escapes my throat. Clara winds her hands around my neck drawing me closer and kisses me without holding anything back. My heart thunders a mile a minute, my breath coming faster, and my arms tighten around her waist as I kiss her back, pouring all my emotions into it as if my life depended on it. I love you. I love you I love you I love you. I love how she feels in my arms, how she fits me like a missing puzzle piece. I love the smell of her hair, the color of her lips, and her flushed cheeks. I love her blue-gray eyes that seem to stare into my soul, her breath-taking smile, the way she makes my knees feel weak when she looks at me. I love her more than anything.
I draw back and open my eyes. All the air leaves my lungs are I squint at her through the light. All of a sudden I feel light-headed and a little sick. My knees are shaking so much that I have to focus on standing up. I can feel the blood rush from my cheeks and my mouth hanging open.
She opens her eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asks, smiling. It's so dazzling that I feel my eyes start to water. I notice that her hair isn't orange anymore, instead it's gold. She notices how I'm looking at and how there's too much light for this hour of the night. Her eyes widen as she suddenly realizes that she's glowing, radiating light as bright as the sun radiating off of her in waves. She looks shocked, as if she didn't know she was capable of glowing until then.
It hurts to look at her. She looks so beautiful, so powerful, so… angelic. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid of Clara, the girl I fell in love with. Pain flashes across her face and just like that, the glowing stops. We're standing a few steps apart from each other now and my stomach starts to churn violently.
"I'm sorry," she says she watches me.
"I don't know what…," I try to say something to her, to reassure her, but I can't speak. I don't have anything to say. This was what she was hiding? That she wasn't human? That she was this supernatural being that could glow and make the strongest man on earth cower in her unearthly presence?
"I'm sorry," she says again, her eyes wide. "I didn't mean to—" but I cut her off.
"What are you?" I ask her a little harshly. I saw her flinch at my words.
"I'm Clara," she says. She puts her hand out and steps toward me to touch my face but I shy away from her. Before I know what I'm doing, I grab her hand with the cut and jerk the bandage away, hearing her gasp.
The wound was completely healed. There wasn't even a scar. We both peered down at her palm. Then I let my hand fall away.
"I knew it," I say in almost a whisper.
She looks at me, her face a mixture of emotions. Panic, relief, confusion. "Tuck—" she starts
"What are you?" I demand again, staggering a few steps away from her. Her eyes are swimming with tears that are threatening to spill out, but I couldn't focus. She lied to me. About everything. Even her hair color was a lie.
"It's complicated," she says.
"No," I say. I shake my head. It's not complicated. She just doesn't want to tell me. Even after this, she won't open up. I feel dizzy and sick all over again. I continue to back away from her until I'm at the barn door. I turn and run toward the house, trying to get away. Maybe to think, to get my bearings, I don't know. But I run as fast as I can to get away from all of it. To get away from her. I don't look back. I'll probably regret it later, but I don't want to think about it right now. I just keep running, tears slipping through my eyes.
I stumbled and fell on my knees. My hands followed, bracing me from falling face first. I clench at the grass beneath my palms and let the tears fall. How could she keep something like that hidden from me? She didn't trust me enough to tell me she wasn't even human? She lied to me about everything. How could I ever trust her again? But you do trust her, Tucker. You love her more than anything. You would move heaven and hell to be with her. You know that. It was true. I love Clara Gardner, if that was even her name. I loved her more than words could ever say. And now, by running away, I probably just messed everything up. I wonder if I'll ever see her again. If I'll ever be able to kiss her again.
You will, Tucker. This was just the beginning.
Okay, so the ending was a little anti-climactic and I'm sorry it was cliffhanger-ish, but don't worry! We all know they get better! I'll update ASAP! Thanks for reading! x)P