Lacking inspiration, so this is just something I threw together.

Clare's POV

I walk into the Dot and order a coffee as usual and take my seat gently on the stool by the counter. I sit there and wait patiently for the coffee and pull out my phone to look at the time. 5:00. My mom would usually be making dinner at this time, but I really didn't want to see her.

"Clare," I hear a few tables away from me. I look around and notice Alli flagging me down, just in time too because my coffee was ready. I pick up the cup and take a seat across from her.

"Hey Alli," I say to her and take a sip of the coffee in my hands.

"How are you?" She asks sincerely.

I shrug. "I've had better days," I answer simply and set my coffee down on the table. "So what are you doing at the Dot all by yourself?"

She shrugs. "I had homework," She says and gestures to the pile of papers in front of her, which I just noticed also. "What about you?"

"I just needed to get away from things," I say. "I do not feel like explaining anything to my mom right now."

"What happened?"

"She caught me sneaking in late last night." I say to her. She gives me one of those please-go-on-I-want-to-hear-more looks. "I didn't do anything bad; I just had a talk with Eli."

"So are you two back together?" She asks.

I lower my head. "…No." I answer quietly. "Do you know how many times we've been on and off? It's ridiculous."

She lets out a small 'hm' and says, "That shows that you can't get enough of each other."

"Alli, I love Eli, I do, it's just, I don't think we can be together again just yet."

I hear the bell ring and the door of the Dot swings open and out comes none other than Eli. Me and Alli exchange looks. "Well," She starts. "Speak of the devil." My eyes widen as it starts to process that Eli is really right there after the talk last night. I couldn't talk to him, I couldn't.

"I'm gonna go," I start and swing myself up from the chair and dash out of the dot with all my might. I lean against the side of the Dot and fight my tears.

"Clare?" I hear be that sounded a bit like Eli. I perk my head up and swing it to face the guy standing there and it was most definitely Eli.

I shake my head at him. "Eli," I say. He looks at my sad face closer and then gets a concerned look on his face. I start to back away slowly. "I'm wasting your time." I turn around and I hear footsteps coming behind me.

"I'm just trying to help you," He says. His hand grabs my arm and spins me around. "I'm not doing this because I feel that it's right, I'm doing this because I care about you. "

I shake my head and then there comes the water works. "I'm just overwhelmed that I was able to tell you that…I promised myself that no one would know about it."

"Clare, you can't just keep something like that to yourself."

I shake my head. "You're right," I say. "I need to talk to a councilor or something."

He shrugs. "If that's what you feel will work best for you."

Xxx

I walk into the school and walk over to Ms. Suvae's office but stand by the door. I reach for the door knob, but quickly retreat it back. I couldn't go in there. I wasn't ready.

I didn't get why I couldn't just talk to her about something like this. I was able to tell Eli and Alli, but they are people I've known for a while now. I think the real reason was because I was scared that they would tell my parents.

The door opens and I stand there frozen. "Clare," Ms. Suvae says. "I was just going to come and find you. Why don't you come inside?" She says and gestures me to come inside.

What? Why was she coming to see me? I walked in and slowly took a seat on the chair across from her desk. "Ok, Clare," She starts and takes a seat down at her desk. She looks at me and sighs. "You're mother is worried about you."

"Oh really," I snap sarcastically. "What else did she say?"

"She didn't go into full detail but she told me she was concerned."

"That's crap."

"Excuse me?"

I stand up. "There's nothing wrong with me!" I say a little too loudly.

"Clare," She says sounding as if she was trying to calm me down. "You need to sit down."

"No," I start getting not angry, but furious. "I need to get out of here." I say and grab my bag from the floor and stomp out of the room and into the gym, the first place I could think of to be alone without another word.

It was class period, so no one was in the gym, which was good. I go down by the outside basketball court and sit under the basketball hoop and cry. I couldn't figure out why my mom would choose now to care but I couldn't even think why she would be worried. I mean, she doesn't know about the ravine, and she doesn't know about the cuts…does she?

But this time I didn't care. I pulled out my scissors from my bag and pulled up my sleeve to a part where I hadn't thought of cutting: my upper wrist where all the veins were visible. I was scared to cut there because I thought that the blood loss could be bad, but this time, I really did not care.

I slide open the scissors and position my arm in wide form so I could just cut it and be done with it. I took the scissors slowly to my wrist and slide it across. The pain grabbed a hold of me and caused myself to be paralyzed. My motionless arm dropped the scissors to the ground and my other hand slammed across the throbbing cut. I couldn't feel my arm as it started to turn pail, but I just sat there in no obvious motion for anybody to see.

Eli's POV

I trudge to my locker and notice that a few rows down, where Clare's locker is, she wasn't there. That was strange considering we usually get to school at the same time, but this time, she was no where in sight.

"Eli," I hear a high voice, supposedly a girl's voice, but it sounded nothing like Clare. I look up and see her best friend Alli running towards me. "Where's Clare?"

"I don't know," My stomach dropped and I started to feel really nervous. "Have you seen her at all today?"

"No, I have no clue where she is." She looks around and her breath sounded like it was shortening a bit. "Do I have every reason to be worried?"

"Completely," I say. "I'm worried too. It's not like her to be late."

"Help me look for her," She says.

We both start walking around the halls and Clare was no where to be found. We even ran into Adam along the way and he helped us look also. "Where haven't we looked yet?" Alli asks still sounding worried, but even worse than before.

"We didn't check the gym!" Adam says and we walk quickly to the gym and swing open the door.

"Clare?" Alli shouts out. Adam and I start to check the perimeter of the gym. We start to hear Alli breathe hard. "Clare!" She yells. Adam and I perk up and run over to where Alli is to see her kneeling by Clare who is sitting on the ground.

"Oh my god," Adam and I both say at the same time and I kneel down. She wasn't dead, I mean, she was breathing, and she knew we were there. She just looked like she was scared half to death. "Clare what the hell did you do!"

"I'm fine!" She says, but barely. Alli lifts her hand off of her right wrist and gasps. We all look down and see that she had a huge gash on her arm that was bleeding pretty severely.

"Adam, get Principal Simpson!" I tell him and he runs off to get him.

"I'll get a towel." Alli says and then runs off to the girl's locker room. When she comes back she has a towel in her hand and then bunches it up and presses it on Clare's arm.