TheCliffhangerGirl : after Googling what AU means, I can confidently confirm that this story is!
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"I don't understand why you're so upset," Jake says, flicking open his lighter with one hand. As he stands, leaning against the closed bedroom door in a casual stance, he gazes curiously at the passive small girl staring glassily at the floor. Bringing the cigar to his lips and taking a long drag, he exhales a small puff smoke. "You're only sixteen- running away with a guy you hardly know seems a bit reckless, don't you think?"
Her hands remains folded, unmoving in her lap. Her shoulders aren't heaving up and down as she was sobbing in the car, and her face looks completely dry from tears. Clare doesn't answer. Doesn't even acknowledge his presence. All she does is stare at the wooden ground.
"Your mom is downstairs. She wants to talk to you," he continues, twirling the chalky cigarette with his lanky fingers. "Are you coming?"
Still no answer. Not even the slightest shift to let him know that she was alive.
"Okay, well I'll see you later," he half-waves, smiling lopsidedly before twisting open the door know behind him. He quietly shuts it behind him, leaving Clare some time to collect her thoughts.
As soon as the sound of his footsteps could no longer be heard by the strained ears, all the walls comes tumbling down, crumbling around her curled toes and sore heels. She begins to violently gasp and pant, vertigo quickly slipping out from beneath her feet. Stumbling forward and colliding against her drawers, she frantically rips the second compartment open, desperately searching for something- a reminder, anything.
Books and paper flies over my shoulder, landing haphazardly in a mess on her floors. Her breathing hastens, and Clare is at a full state of panic.
"Where is it?" she pleads in a barely audible murmur, proceeding to yank out the bottom drawer. A small photo comes flying out, and in an instinct she knows it's the one. Even drifting freely in the air, she recognizes it. The doggy-eared corner and dents from all the nights she held it before going to sleep, smiling a soft smile on her tired face. When nightmare strikes her hard in the middle of the night, she would flicker her lamp open and dive for the reassurance the picture provides- the warmth, the sense of security would immediately flood her body, and the fright would die just like that.
There are only two photos in existence of them, one of which lies in her possession. The other in his. And when Clare sees it, the effect remains as potent as it had been the first time around. Something about his dark, tender gaze enables her gaze fondly at him for hours on a run. In the photograph, their index and middle fingers and hooked onto each others, and Clare is holding their arms high up in the air. She's smiling brightly at their entwined fingers, craning her neck while keeping her body in a delicate little ballerina position on the sidewalk. Eli, on the other hand, is gazing directly at her face. His gentle smile is ever-present and loving, a sharp contrasts to his rough leather jacket jet-black hair. His free hand is gingerly lifting her dress as it flutters in the breeze, and try as she might, to this day she hadn't quite figured out what he had meant to do there. Asking him the day the photo developed, he just smiled sweetly and cocked his head to the side. You look pretty today, he had said, cutely scrunching up his face.
Something tiny splatters onto the picture, something wet. Glancing up at the roof over her head, Clare wrinkles her brows together in confusion. It couldn't be raining indoors…
Swiping her eyes with her fingers, she realizes it was her. Oh.
"Clare," a voice says, a knock following closely after. "You mom wants you down."
Scrubbing her face raw until the tears are wiped clean, Clare grips the drawer for support as she tries to stand up. Her legs are wobbling underneath her, but she presses forward. There's no use in delaying the inevitable.
Endeavouring to descend the stairs without having her knees buckle was a task that required a considerable amount of concentration. The way she staggers is not of a drunken person, though- it's the inability to process something she can't comprehend that's sapping her energy, her strength. Had he really been ripped away from her? It feels so surreal.
"Clare. Diane. Edwards," Helen says in a low, deadly voice. If looks could kill, Clare would certainly be ten feet underground, and that's excluding her frightening body language. The way her arms are folded over her chest would normally scare her to the state of crying, the way her hands are clenched underneath her armpits. She's practically quivering with fury, teeth gritted with utmost anger and eyes narrowed into tiny, livid slits.
Clare bows her head, but not from shame of fear this time. She's too emotionally drained to even think about what trouble she's in with her mother.
"You ungrateful troll!" she screeches, hands striking her cheek with a sharp, slapping sound. "How dare you disobey me? How dare you try to run away with that boy?"
Her cheek is stinging, and she gingerly touches it out of instinct. The pain is numb and dull, just like the rest of her body. In spite of her mother's red-hot infuriation, her body is slowly shutting down. She doesn't even try to manoeuvre herself out of another fit of physical and mental abuse, or throw herself at her mercy.
It's because it has happen so many times before, she knows the worst that can happen. And whatever she can do to her, will never compare to what she has already done.
"You," a booming voice shakes the entire household, followed by the slam of the front door. Randall comes storming in, face red with extreme fury, and throws his briefcase to the side as if it's nothing. In one, swift, motion, he grabs Clare's arm with such strength, she's lifted off the ground. "Do you have any idea what you have just done? Do you?"
Feet dangling off the floor and nails digging into her flesh, it's all the same numb feeling. She doesn't even react. She doesn't cry. Not this time.
"You bitch, look at me when I talk to you!" he roars, shaking her violently.
"You do not run away. You are not to see that boy, speak of that boy, or even think of that boy again, do you understand me?" Helen hisses. "You will be Jake's wife. You will obey us as long as you are our daughter, and you will not do anything otherwise. Do you understand me?"
Silence and tension only occupies the air now, and the possibility of another angry breakout lies on Clare's shoulders now. Lifting her head up slightly meet her parents' red-rimmed eyes, she swallows.
"Yes," she whispers.
"Good," Helen says, and Randall releases his vice-tight grip on her.
Jake clears his throat a bit in the background, subtly making his presence known. Three pairs of eyes flash towards him in an instant, and he just pressed his lips together in a tight line.
"I should probably go home now," he murmurs, eyeing the limp girl speculatively.
"Alright," Randall mutters, straightening his tie. "Clare, go say good-bye to him now."
With a pleased smirk on his face, he watches Clare move robotically towards him. Stretching up on her toes, she places a small kiss on his cheek. "Good-night, Jake," she says quietly, stepping back immediately.
"Night, Clare," he says, and then makes his way to the door. "Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards."
"Drive safe now, Jake," Helen nods.
Here comes the silent tension again, and though the clock ticks and Clare wishes she could be anywhere else her feet stay planted on the ground.
Here comes the feelings that come subsequently after a livid confrontation, and though her father wordlessly makes his way to his office and her mother is fixing another strict dinner for Clare her feet stay rooted to the ground.
Here comes to deep yearning to be uplifted from the mess she's tangled in, and though she's standing alone in the room her feet stay standing on the ground. Because this time, it's really over. Months of hiding and sneaking out, months of living like she had something worth living for become something of the past.
She was always meant to marry Jake. She was always meant to follow her parents' orders. That's how it was already meant to be.
"You will eat peas, beef, and brown rice today," her mother calls from the kitchen, evidently already over the last heated lecture. Another bland meal with set portions she is preparing, none of which Clare has any say in.
"May I go take a shower?" Hoping to remedy some of the numbness with hot water, Clare clears her throat, as she sounds raspy and nearly mute. She repeats herself, and is and answered with a long silent at first.
"You may shower for ten minutes," Helen allows, the sound of chopping filling the empty.
But even hot water can't cure the acne in her heart.