a//n: This is an experiment where I tried to write something light, and maybe...funny? :O I hope you readers will enjoy my attempt! :)
a driver and a drunk
She didn't know what the prevailing factor was that made her turn the key in her car. She didn't know how it convinced her for the whole ten minute drive, arriving in front of Cassie Lombard's yard, feeling the music shake the '98 Camry off its foundation.
She sighed, blowing fog onto the window. This was not her scene, parties like these. The people, the cliques, the potpourri of blurred, foul smelling dances—she had been before. It wasn't as fun as she thought it would be. There were no dream rendezvous with a mysterious, fantasy boy. There were no make-out sessions in a closet. Beer, however disappointing, did not taste anything like her mom's homemade bread.
All in all, that night wasn't the most memorable.
So. Why was she here again?
An earthquake startled her out of the lapse of doubt. She looked wide-eyed through the front windshield only to see, in all his glorious stupor, Nathan Carlson. He leaned over, peering into the glass as if it was a thick fog, tilting his head. He tapped on the window while, getting over her initial shock, her lips started twitching and her hands started to grip her seat cushion.
Oh, yes. He was the reason. He still is the reason. But the ever elusive why was still tumbling in the air, up for grabs, but—out of her reach.
She ripped the car door open and stepped out.
"You freaking moron! Get off my car!"
He stumbled a bit, his shoe slipping against the wipers. "Clem?" The beer sloshed out of the bottle, and as it dripped down, recognition blossomed on his face. "Clem!"
She kept her eyes on the liquid, following its trails as it fell into deep, not necessarily cleanable places.
She looked back up at him, glaring. "Yes, Nathan. Who else would it be?"
He was smiling, a goofy grin plastered on his face. "I didn't know you were gon' make it! You shoulda told me."
"You were the one who called me."
He looked confused. "I did?"
She put her hands to her face, rubbing her forehead with her thumbs. "Yes, Nathan. You did. And everybody in the background sounded drunk, and you don't even have your car in your possession anymore, and all of your friends are druggies and dumber than a herd of sheep…." She let her hands fall down to her sides.
He snorted. "Mooo…" he imitated the wrong animal. Trying to jump off the hood, he almost broke his ankle instead.
"Ow…"
She looked up to the stars. "God, why do I even bother with this irresponsible—"
"Clementine," he squandered on the ground. "Hand—pleaaase." He lifted his hand sideways and she tipped his side with her boot.
"Actually, I think you can get up yourself."
He moaned dramatically. "Stupid bitch."
She rolled her eyes and grabbed the back of his shirt, hauling him to his feet. He only tripped again, feet bruising the grass, and fell back down.
"Damn it!" he laughed.
She mumbled about his incompetence, and he laughed some more. After several thousand, or what sure seemed like a thousand, more attempts to stand, he pulled himself to a semi-decent standing position. He lifted his bottle, looking at it curiously and pointed it upside down. Two drops leaked out.
"Awww," he threw the bottle into one of the bushes, missing a window ledge by two centimeters. "More beer time!"
He thus tried to gallop toward the front door of the lavish home of the ever popular senior, but she caught him in the nick of time.
"Whoa, whoa buddy," she said, latching her fingers onto his sides. "Where the heck do you think you're going?"
He looked at her as if she was the drunken one. "I need more beer!" He pointed to the empty air beside him. "See? It's all gone." He turned again, but she caught hold of him firmly.
"I think you've had enough for tonight."
"Noooo—"
"Tomorrow's another day. You can drink all you want, but I didn't come—"
"Beeeerrrr."
"—all this way only to—"
"Kiss it…hug it, drink it…uhm."
"—let you drag me all over this—"
"Chug it! Yeah!"
"—godforsaken mansion in the middle of—"
"No...manhood!"
"—nowhere!"
She had been able to bring him around to the passenger side of the car, but she found that if she let go of him with one hand, it wasn't possible for her to keep him in place with the other.
"Nathan, please, you've gotta—"
"Jeff!"
"What are you say—" but she was interrupted.
"You're not kidnapping poor Nathan, are you?"
She looked up, startled by the close figure leaning against her car. "Oh!" She put her hand on her chest, losing her grip on Nathan's shirt. He fell sideways onto the door.
"Sorry about that," he said. "I'm Jeff." He smiled.
"It's—it's okay," she shook her head. "I'm Clementine. Nice to meet you."
His eyes glinted with acknowledgement. "Ah, so you're the famous Clementine, huh?"
She just shouldn't have left home. The last thing she wanted was another acquaintance at midnight on a Friday. "What?"
"Nathan here talks about you, sometimes," he smirked in his friend's direction. Nathan was slowly inching away.
"Oh," she felt her pulse quicken slightly. "Well, I didn't know any of that." Flustered, she felt as if she wanted to get in the car as soon as possible. Jeff looked at her, thoughtful.
She glanced at her fingers, then to Nathan who suddenly wasn't beside her anymore. She saw his hand on the other side, trying to heave himself up (how he fell again, she wasn't sure) while the other was trying to find a holding on Jeff's dark shirt.
"Nate, what did I tell you about molesting me?" He pulled him up, giving him a good natured smile. "All you have to do is ask, remember."
"Aww, Jeff!" Nathan hugged him. Jeff looked over his shoulder to her, winking. She smiled a little.
"Hey, well lookie here. And I thought you couldn't smile."
Clementine gave him a look. "What? I smile all the time." Then she glanced at her surroundings, seeing juniors and seniors in groups and masses, standing and running, grinding or dancing or kissing senselessly. It was a smudged photograph, ugly and terribly overwrought. So she had been ignoring her surroundings. Dad would kill her. What if she'd been raped?
She cut her eyes to him. "How long have you been watching us?"
He shrugged. "Who said I was watching? Maybe little Nate here told me."
This made her become even more flustered and unsure, if not a tiny amount hopeful. But she couldn't afford to be confident in any way. It wouldn't be right. In fact, it probably would have been illegal to her conscience.
"I, um," she slipped, brought out a last minute idea. "It's late. I should probably go, and since you obviously aren't drunk, you can take him home?"
Which was a good question, she thought. She hadn't even noticed that he didn't have a drink in his hand, and he was fluid and perceptive. She guessed that, maybe, Nathan's crowd wasn't as bad as first perceived.
Jeff looked thoughtful again. "Well, I had been thinking about going with Cassie to the basement and chilling with our stash and stuff…"
Okay, she thought exasperatedly. Never mind.
"Or you know, you could stay, and we could hang out." He jabbed a finger at Nathan. "This guy will just puke his brains out either way."
"No, no, that's okay. I hate parties." There was no way she was going to let herself hang out with him at this kind of party. She didn't know anybody, the one person who could be considered a friend was piss drunk, and there was no outlet she could run to in case of immediate distress. It was too bad she hadn't taken those Tae-Kwon-Do classes.
The paranoia of rape still niggled at the back of her mind. Nobody would come running if she screamed.
Yet… Jeff was a smidgen on the cute side…Would it be so bad to let him have his way with her?
She looked over to Nathan again. It wasn't as if she could rely on what he'd decide in the end anyway. Actually, thinking logically, there was nothing for him to decide. Whichever way she viewed it, nothing turned out into her favor. Who was she, then, to come here and expect him to go with her, in her car, out of nowhere? To trust her to take him home? He didn't even want to go home in the first place.
She sighed. What a reckless decision. It was something she never did. What was she thinking?
"What you talking 'bout? No parties?"
"Jeff…" Nathan kept tugging on his arm.
She shook her head. "Nah. Not my style."
He scanned her, openly inquiring with his eyes. She felt herself automatically blush under the scrutiny.
"Jeff…"
"That makes sense," he said at last. "You being such a good girl and all."
Her mouth parted slightly and he waved his hand in the air, brushing off his doubts. Her eyes flickered, and she couldn't help the next burst of dignity.
"What? Where did you get that from? I've known you for five minutes!" Her hands became fists against the steel of the hood.
His lips parted into another smile. "You just seem to be…different from others, and I'm curious." He shrugged again. "I didn't mean it as a bad thing. It's just what I've gathered from people," he nudged Nathan.
She pursed her lips. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe you shouldn't listen to everything other people say? That maybe, I'm just a bit frustrated about this whole situation?"
That damned smile, though, never left. "Now, now, don't get so defensive." He held up his hands in a placating motion. "I'm sure you aren't a stickler for the rules, I get that. But it sometimes isn't a bad thing."
She looked down, embarrassed. She did not like how she got so uptight when it came to her personality.
"So," he paused. "Was that still a no for my offer…or…?"
She sighed. "I'm leaving."
His grin finally faltered. "Wait, look, I'm not the drinking type. I'll take him home later, like I was supposed to, and," he rubbed the back of his neck. "And—"
"Jeff."
They both looked toward Nathan, who had been forgotten, leaning on the car with his back towards Clementine. She tried gauging the abrupt change in Jeff's face, but she had never been good with reading into them. He was still laid back and nonchalant, but there was something about how Jeff's stance readjusted.
He looked back to Clementine, and the glinting, flirtatious sparkle in his eye was trying to disappear. "It was nice meeting you, Clem." He pointed his thumb toward the house. "I guess you should just drop him off at his house, since you came so out of the way and everything." He grinned falsely. "Cassie's waiting for me, and it wouldn't be the gentlemanly thing to do to leave her hanging." And Clementine couldn't get a hold on what just happened.
He turned, patting Nathan's back. "Don't throw up all over her interior, bud. It's cloth."
Just like that, he turned and was gone. The crowd ate him up like the piece of meat he was. For a second, she played with the idea that he was a ghost, and he wasn't real. He left so fast that she didn't put it past herself that he could be a figment of her imagination.
She let her eyes examine the newly vacated spot. It was tinged gray and blue from the streetlight overhead, showing the condensing dew. Suddenly, she felt as if she missed her chance. Maybe he was the mystery boy she was supposed to rendezvous with, to make memories with, to jump from the roof and into the pool with…
She glanced back to Nathan, whose eyes were still droopy and mind was still drunk.
If it had been anybody else and any other night, she would have said yes. She would have forgotten about Nathan for a while, because he shouldn't be in her thoughts so much. It was unhealthy, she knew.
But she did this to herself, and she knew that, too.
It just sucked that she actually got what she came for, right when she decided she didn't want it.
"Come on, Nate. Time to go home." She walked over to the driver's side and grabbed the crook of his elbow. He didn't protest or make mumbling noises, and he didn't stumble as much as he fell into the passenger seat.
She took her own seat behind the wheel and started the car. She gave him a suspicious look over.
"Are you going through withdrawals or something?"
He gave her a strange glance. "Clemmm, what? I don't do drugs…no more," he sagged against the seat. "This seat is nice. Feels like…soup."
"Yeah," she said. "That's right. Soup."
Conversation went on like that, meaninglessly and about nonsensical things. But she liked it; it kept her mind from regret and more toward murder.
He would blow on his window and draw several circles together, calling it a giraffe.
"I drew lots when I was younger," he said. "Maybe I shoulda gone professional."
He went through her glove box and found something she meant to take out a long time ago.
"Play…" he squinted. "Vex?" He looked at her, her cheeks red. Then his eyes widened exponentially.
"Clemen! I didn' know you were a witch!"
Her hands jerked, and she swerved for a few seconds. "Oh, ah," then she shook her head a little, wanting to laugh but not being able to. "Yeah, I—I guess I never thought to mention…that."
"Is this your wand?!" He ripped through the plastic, waving the white stick around. "Alakalamazaloo!"
"Hey, put that down. Playing with magic wands is dangerous, you know," she half-smiled awkwardly, using one hand to try and catch his to stop flailing.
"Teach me!" he kept trying, peering down the hole for something she couldn't fathom. "I need this!"
"Sure, Nate," she finally grasped his hand. "Maybe tomorrow, or during third on Monday." She tore the wand in question away and put it in her trash bag she had below the wheel. "Just please, not now."
She focused on the road and the hotness of her cheeks. She thanked God he was drunk, because if he wasn't, she would never hear the end of it come—
Something grabbed her thigh. She jumped and shrieked, swerving again into another lane. "Oh, my God!" She looked down at the fingers gripping her and then to Nathan, who was silently shaking with laughter.
She watched incredulously as he belted out in guffaws, trying to control the steering. "I don't…what?!"
"You actually—" he wheezed. "You actually believed that I was drunk out of my mind just now?"
Her face crinkled. "Obviously."
"You actually believed that…" he trailed off, his grip tightened on her thigh. "Tampons? In the glove compartment?"
Her mouth opened. "You—you," she spluttered, "You're supposed to be drunk! And what are you—" she thwacked his hand away. Growling, she pulled to a stop on the side of the curb.
He grabbed her arm again. "Drunk? Me?" He scoffed. "Being drunk is a state of mind." He leaned in close, making their eyes converge. "And when I want to be drunk, I will be drunk."
And..this was Nathan Carlson. And the thing about Nathan was his brutally shamelessness. He was a tease, nothing more than a foolish seventeen year old who had nothing to lose except himself. He didn't seem to care, however. He didn't seem to care much of anything at all.
"So when you got on top of my car and didn't know who I was for five minutes, you weren't drunk?"
But there was one thing that kept her coming back to him. It was silly, really, thinking about it, because it wasn't his okay looks or his lightly speckled eyes or his lady killer tendencies.
He sat back a little, but he kept his face toward her. He pondered.
"Well…maybe I was sort of pissed at the beginning…" he gazed back to her, and he grinned sheepishly.
She glared. "If there's any nicks or dents when I get to examine my car…"
He lifted a brow. "What'll you do, my dear Clementine? Hurt me? Scratch out my eyes? Bitch-slap me into hell?"
He became closer with each suggestion.
"I guess a bit of all of those combined, really."
And she inched backward. The moment seemed to take forever to pass. Then there was the complication with the closed door ending any escape…
As if she wanted it.
He chuckled. "When did you get so daring, Clem?"
She didn't know if it was rhetorical or serious, but now all she could think of was the chilly, chilly window touching the back of her head and the hot breath that was brushing against her nose. For a guy who had been drunk a few minutes ago, it sure did smell nice.
"Whoever said I wasn't ever daring?" Her eyes darted from his face. "Maybe I've always been daring, deep down."
"Well," he said, "it's a good thing I've never noticed."
"Huh?" Have their hands been latched together this whole time?
"Because…" he wasn't trying to be this alluring on purpose, right? "If I did, I would have been doing indecent things to you a long, long time ago."
His left hand was on her thigh again, and the other left her hand bare as it held her neck.
For some reason, at that moment, the one silly, stupid thing popped right back into her head. Confidence. Of all the things she could see in him (that might not even be there), his unrestrained fidelity to life was the main attraction. He could make bold statements, do what he wanted, when he wanted, without caring about the consequences. Where she would hesitate, he would take action. He would stand above her and jump over all the potholes she'd fall in. It was unfair.
Her nose twitched. Of all the things to be enticed by, to be inveigled by, it just so happened to be his reckless superiority. It didn't matter that he used it for fucking girls or persuading teachers or letting him have his way in any other thing.
She breathed in profoundly, feeling the lava of certain anger bubbling under her skin. If he could be so audacious, couldn't she?
"Lana would be disappointed in you."
Exhaling in relief, she watched him stiffen, shoulders tensing. He leaned backward slightly, and she felt herself foolishly wanting him to stay.
He penetrated her with a burning stare, but a small smile curved its way up.
"Lana and I broke up about a week ago."
If anything, her blood only boiled more. "What?"
"It was mutual, don't worry."
"You were taking her to prom."
He grimaced. "Why does that even matter?"
"She gave you herpes!"
He grimaced to the point of cracking his face. "What the hell?"
"You know it's true! I have some very reliable sources and—"
"Clementine. I know the reputation sleeping around gives me, but I do not have herpes."
She was going to keep going, saying Yes, Yes, Yes, you do, you're just denying it because I would never tell anybody if I had herpes, and if they suggested that I did, I would defend myself with unrelenting, passionate ardor and—
But of course, he wasn't her, and she wasn't him.
"Open your mouth."
He looked shocked. "What?"
She pointed. "Mouth. Open." His obstinacy made her take action, and she gripped the bottom of his jaw.
He huffed like a bull, and she smiled at his obvious displeasure. "You think I would knowingly give you herpes without telling you?"
She kept losing her grasp, her hands finally caging each side of his head. At his implication, her fingers slipped, and she hesitated.
"After all this deception today—yes."
He gave her a split second, a lapse of the braided defense surrounding his lips. His mouth had parted, and she tugged.
The strategically placed streetlight streaming through the window was, she thought, predestined glory. She was going to find him out. She was going to be so indescribably disgusted that she would be able to disintegrate his memory in her mind. After this school year, he'd be ashes. On her mantle. And she'd laugh.
But there must be some mistake. Concentrating through his pulls and jerks, all she could see was the reddish color of normal skin. Try as she might, there was no evidence of lumps, bumps, or unnatural disfigurement. All she could do was stare in sinking hope. "Move your tongue."
"How the hell could—" he started to argue, trying harder to dislodge his face. But in his position, he felt the rise of uncomfortable pressure in a terribly vital area. Not trusting her sympathy as of now, he relented.
His fidgets stopped at her sigh.
She gave up. She felt herself go slack. She shook her head in defeat.
"Now do you believe me?" He smirked down at her.
She ignored him, and if she had been paying any attention, would have heard his forced mirth. "I thought, for a time," she admitted, "you two were going to get married. You'd have a truck-full of babies you couldn't take care of and be drug lords and get rich and…" she shook her head.
His eyes became half-lidded. "I'm astonished by all of your high expectations of me."
"I thought…I thought," she groaned, putting her face in her hands. This was just too much stress for one night.
But stress? She thought. I should be happy and kiss him right now. If I kiss him, all of that fear will go away. He'll be mine for a minute or two. Herpes-less (hopefully) and free.
Just for a minute, she could let herself indulge in what she really, really wanted.
Except when she looked at him looking at her, she grew more scared than she ever was before.
It's because he's confident and arrogant, larger than life, she thought. That's all it is, merely the shadow of his colossal figure.
So she sighed and brought her knees up to her chin. "I wish I just stayed with Jeff."
She tasted the rusted tinge overwhelm the atmosphere. "Jeff?"
"What's wrong with Jeff?" she snapped. "It would have been a lot less stressful and complicated than right now, and who knows! Maybe we could be hanging out and laughing. You know, what normal people do who want to have fun?" She tried jerking her hand away, but his fingers only got tighter. "All you think is fun is drinking or having sex."
His grip loosened, then it left. His eyes were livid slits, and he became a king cobra right then, ready to strike.
"First off," he said, quietly, "Jeff is a man whore."
She almost protested; he was the last person to talk. But his eyes created a lump in her throat, so she didn't.
"Secondly," he continued, "he doesn't know you as well as I do."
Again with the almost protesting.
"And lastly," his eyes changed. "I—saw you first."
She swallowed the lump and barely contained her choking.
"I stopped him, too. I sobered up when he tried to take you away. I knew that even before you ever came into the picture, before you drove up to the mad house tonight. But it's only because I had a feeling he'd been interested in you, for about a week or two." At her face, he continued quickly.
"Don't get me wrong, Jeff's a cool guy, but," and for the first time, the very, very, very first time, Nathan Carlson looked unsure, "but I think I'm cooler." She had to give it to him, though. He tried to keep it light, with his smile and tapping of his fingers.
But she didn't know what to say. She had never heard him talk with a serious mouth and an uncertain face in her life, and she always had a retort, no matter how mundane or unnecessary, tension breaking or stupid. Tonight seemed to be themed all around firsts.
She blinked and sought refuge in her lap. The air was solidified, and she had a hard time breathing even.
After a few minutes, Nathan shuffled. "Sorry for ruining your night."
So, Nathan apologizing? Oh, yes, of course. She shouldn't be surprised. "It was my decision to come. You didn't have anything to do with it."
"But wasn't I?" he encouraged. "You said so yourself. I was drunk and so was everybody else."
She kept her silence.
"Clementine. I wanted you to come."
She got curious and couldn't stop glancing sideways.
"That's right," he smiled. "I had this huge, extremely thought out plan just to, hopefully, get you to ride there." His smile grew. "And it worked. You came."
Then he laughed, more to thin out the air than anything. "You came because you thought I'd get into some crazy wreck with me flying out of the windshield." He touched her shoulder. "Right? You wouldn't have if you didn't care."
She moved her arm away and wrapped her hands around herself. "I hate you."
She turned and was looking at him now, and his eyes were incredibly effervescent.
He opened his mouth, but he hesitated. Then he tried again.
"I guess I know you better then you think, huh?"
Uncomfortable, he lost her eye contact and her hands wrapped around herself tighter.
"You sound like my dad."
"Aww, ew."
"Yeah. All know-it-all, I-can-see-your-soul wise."
She heard a squeak and then felt her back up against the driver's window. She didn't feel skin, but she could feel the vibrating warmth, his hands on either side, his legs in an almost straddling position, and she wasn't sure if that magnified the situation to be better or worse.
His black shirt encompassed her vision and, daring to look up, she was overloaded with his face.
He grinned crookedly. "I can see your soul, you say?"
"Figure of speech," she breathed. Her fingers shook. She dug her nails into her skin.
"Well…" he curved in, taking extra care in not touching her. His only misconduct was his smooth lips brushing her earlobe. "I like what I see right now. Does that count?" The hot moisture fell into her ear canal and she blinked viciously.
"Um."
He reversed, being in view of her face. She was pink, flushed, and his eyes grew heady.
Her lungs were expanding with an overabundance of force, and she didn't want to look up. She couldn't bring herself to say it was okay to look up. But…
But it was like that DO NOT PUSH red button. You had to see why it couldn't be pushed, that need, that curiosity. She became deluged under the prospect.
She peeked.
Her air canal shifted into being smothered. Her lips were being overpowered.
Before she knew it, his hands were on her hips and she was limply dragged along into him, putting all her free pressure on top. His fingers teased her hair, and the sloppy ponytail she twisted her hair into fell of its own accord. His thighs squeezed her legs together, not letting her squirm, but it was in vain. She couldn't feel anything except the friction of their faces.
When he broke away, she immediately felt her lips searching for his again. But she came to her senses and quickly scooted back onto the cushion. She put her face in her hands, feeling the red apples of her cheeks painting her palms.
"Ugh!"
"Gah," he said, breathlessly. "I haven't lost my touch that much have I?"
She found his face through the bars of her fingers. She let a smile lightly dust her face. "No…" At his expression, she frowned and added, "But it wasn't mind-blowing or anything. Please tell me you were holding back."
He started to crawl over, a devious eyebrow rising. "I wanted to you try to relish it. I just stole your lip virginity, and here I thought you'd thank me for being gentle."
"I'm not a lip virgin!"
"Not anymore, no."
"I wasn't before!"
"Really."
"Yeah," she said with conviction. "So stop assuming things about me. You know what they say about people who ass—"
He kissed her again.
"Stop!"
"What?"
"You keep giving me herpes, I can just feel it."
"Shut up," he frowned. "Just enjoy this STD transfer as long as you can."
He went in, but she turned her cheek. "Maybe I should go to Jeff. He seems like a guy who takes care of his sexual health…"
He growled in her ear, and it sounded possessive. "I wouldn't be so sure."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes."
"So if, say, I found him tomorrow and told him to turn me over and—"
He plugged her mouth with his tongue, and she forgot what she meant to say.
"You're not gonna find him tomorrow." His forehead was touching hers and he wrapped his arms around her back. She decided that it wasn't so bad to relax into him. Not to completely relax into him, but just slightly.
"And why's that?" She placed her hands on his chest—his…defined, hard chest—to keep up the bravado, the defense just in case.
"Because." His eyes shined. "I'm holding you hostage for a while."
She refused to be fully taken. "Why?"
"Why what?"
She launched off his chest, like she planned. She tried to sound confident. "I'm the last kind of girl you'd go for."
He smirked. "What makes you say that?"
She glared. "Stop acting. It makes you sound stupid."
His playful demeanor faded. "Why do I need a reason?"
"Because I don't understand!" She burst out. "I don't understand, and there has to be some reason why you stay in this car with me and flirt with me when I'm so—me." She spat it out like snake poison.
Nathan found himself staring. "And I don't understand that."
She felt completely disconcerted. "You should. You're Nathan Carlson. I'm Clementine Parker. As in, not blonde."
"Oh, my God," he said. "You just want to make this complicated don't you?"
On fire and increasingly frustrated, she said—she said—but she didn't. Because he started to answer her question.
"You know what, Clementine? Attraction doesn't need reason." He grabbed her waist, relishing her squeaks. "In fact, I don't think either of us would know how to explain anything if we really thought about it."
He contradicted himself, and he went on trying. "One day, Clem, I was talking to Lana, and all of a sudden your head replaced hers. I kissed her, then, because I was kissing you for a second. We skipped fourth that day, and then I realized I was insane and she wasn't you. We hung out, we went to a playground, and when she'd talk, I'd think about you and how you'd never say those things." He rubbed his hair. "It was fucking weird."
He shrugged, smirking again, fully content and obviously over his apparent lapse in sanity. "It didn't stop. You kept showing up everywhere, but you'd disappear right after. So I ended it. Then I went to third the next Monday, and you smiled at me. I figured my decision was pretty good."
Clementine was caught off guard. She hadn't expected that, or the clarity in which his words struck her. "Oh."
But it didn't matter. Perhaps he was right about not fully being able to relay the reasons. Perhaps to figure out something, you had to let logic go, maybe even some of yourself, or whoever you thought you were. Perhaps she liked him so much because she...did.
He laughed at her changing expressions. "Yeah. Great reasons, right?"
She looked up at him. "It's okay. I know half of your brain is gone from all the alcohol and drugs anyway."
He pulled her closer, grinning, letting her joke slide. "So what's yours?"
She shrugged, trying to mimic him. "I think you know it better than I do," she answered.
"Hmm," he hummed. "I thought so." Then he smiled.
As it turned out, he kept up his hostage duty. For a week. Then it became a month. Then it became six months.
Clementine didn't know if it was going to stop, but she thought about it...
And she came to the conclusion that she'd leap into the pothole face first.
Please review! :D