Author's Note

Thank you guys so much for all your support! I know I can't say it enough but I love you guys soooo much.  You make me smile every single day.  

I think it's time to put a little "twist" to the story.  I mean as of now is it's been a very kind of happy environment (which I feel grateful for) but it's time to spice it up a bit ;)

Uniquent

The day ends pretty quickly and before I know it I'm making my way into the school corridors, shifting books in my arms and trying hard to go unnoticed.  I bang open my locker and stash my books within before grabbing my bag.  I start to close the locker door before I accidentally skid backwards and hit the wall behind me, curling inwards as I'm shocked by the sudden impact before sliding all the way down to the floor.  

My spine hurts a bit, a reminder of my fall down the stairs around half a month ago and instantly I want to curse my bad luck for injuring it again.  

As I try to get up a pair of scuffed blue trainers skid to a stop in front of me.  They're basketball shoes, scrubbed within an inch of their life and as soon as I recognize them I raise my head quickly. 

 He makes my heart stop beating for a second and I struggle hard to breathe.  So many memories when he was someone else entirely float back into my mind.

1 and a half years before...

"Hey" A boy with black hair and entrancing blue eyes slides into the seat across from me at the library table.  I can feel the blush heating up my cheeks but I just give a shy smile, trying to look away from his handsome face.

"Hi" I respond, shaking my head slightly at the amount of nervousness in my voice

"Mind if I sit here?" His voice is smooth and light and I just want to drift in it for a bit so it takes an awkward pause before I respond.

"No, go ahead."

"You're Clara right?" He cocks his head at me and smiles.  God, that smile. 

"Yes, that's me.  Are you Davie?" I've heard of his name being mentioned a couple of times and we did pass each other in the art studio sometimes.  It's good to be able to put such a nice face with a name.

"Yup." There's a pause and I bend my head to look at the small journal I have in my hands, trying to forget that he's there and hoping that he'll walk away.

"Is that a diary?" He says, craning his neck and leaning over the edge of the table so he could get a better look at the book I'm holding in my hands.

"No." I try to move it out of his sight but his fingers catch onto the edge of the book and he holds it there for a moment.  I can feel the warmness radiating off of his skin and flinch away slightly.

"What are you doing, then?" He asks, his voice gentle and curious

"Drawing." I lift the book slightly so he can just about see my scribbles on the page before I bring it out of view abruptly. 

"What prompts you to draw in your free time? I see you drawing just about every moment anyway." He genuinely looks interested in what I have to say and I have to keep a smile from spreading onto my face as I try to answer.

"Problem?" I let out a huff of laughter, surprising myself.

"No I was just-"

"Life." I answer his question.  

"Oh" He looks away, almost shy by my answer and I blush...yet again.

"Yeah"

"I..."

"It's nice to distract myself a lot of the time...if not all the time." I don't understand why I'm saying all of this but I am.

"I get the feeling."

I glance up and look into his beautiful eyes, light from the high arched windows in the library casting shadows over his profile. The blue in his eyes turn warm and soft in the presence of the buttery yellow light and I feel myself relaxing in their presence.

He looked kind in that moment.  Like a beautiful, innocent creature.  Nothing that I've seen so far had ever entranced me with is kindness before. Everything was willing to take me down, to reduce me to a shivering, empty mess.

"What do you have down then?" His words snap me out of my reverie.

I flip the book shut and tuck it into a canvas bag, a finger held teasingly over my lips as a signal that I wouldn't answer. 

My bun comes a bit loose and the pencil holding it together falls onto my lap.  As I put it back together I notice how bad I look.  I have paint splatters all over my worn jeans and my loose band shirt is covered with them as well.  I get up and make to walk out.  I was kidding myself.  No one really wants to talk to me anyway.

"Where are you going?" His voice is surprised, as if he didn't expect me to walk away when faced with such warmth.

"Away." My voice is surprisingly cold.

"Clara.  Wait." He gets up from his seat and reaches out a hand before he falters and lets it fall back to his side.

I turn back, my canvas bag swinging against my hip and raise an eyebrow. 

"What?"

"You're always so...divided from everyone else.  When we leave the art classroom right before lunch I see you stay behind everyday.  I come back to get my stuff and every day I see this new painting or sketch tacked to the inspiration wall. I see your signatures on all of them.  C.L. I just-I don't know why you would just draw all day? Distance yourself from everyone else? You could be so popular, have so many friends."

"Davie, it's me." I'm exasperated as I go on "It's always just me and me alone in a world where everyone is out to get me."

"What's wrong with being yourself? Why would you choose that kind of life?"

"No one likes getting hurt, Davie."

"But you won't" So innocent, so warm in a world of cold.

"Oh trust me, Davie.  I will."

______________________________________________________________________________

The flashback ends quickly and I feel tears welling up in my eyes. In the past I was always a glass half empty, anxiety and a fear of people breaking my heart kept me in this corner.  It was my fault, not anyone else's.

"Clara? Are you okay?"

"Fine."

"You always say that."

"Go back to being Davie, Mrs. Julianna's nephew.  Go back to being him.  Act like you just know me because I sit in front of you in a class...Please, be anything but who you were." I try to get up.  It hurts.  Of course it hurts. 

"I'll help you." He reaches out a hand to me, his voice soft and just how I remember it.

"Stop, Dav." I realize in an instant that I just called him by his old nickname, the one everyone used to call him when we were kids.

"Dav?"

"I-it was a mistake, I'm sorry.  Now just walk away from me now.  God knows I've walked away from you many times before." I give up trying to get up and rest my spine against the cold walls.  

I pull out my phone from my bag still slung on my shoulder and text Zoe to come.  She doesn't know the full story about Davie as she came in later in my life but she does understand that whenever I text her to come help I'm probably not in the best situation.

"Clara." He says this in such a firm voice that I look up and flinch.  So alike yet so different.  

Blonde hair instead of black and eyes not so innocent looking anymore.  The strong set of shoulders that the jocks all seem to possess in contrast to the shoulder that used to look so inviting to cry on.  I wince and look down.  My phone is heating up in my hand because the battery is running low. Zoe hasn't seen my text yet.  

It hurts so much now, a dull ache.  I hope I can get up.  I don't want any help from the guy who broke my heart, so many times, in so many different ways.

He sinks down next to me and turns to look at me.

"You look different."

"So do you." I try to mask the pain.  It seems like he doesn't notice though.

"You aren't so artsy anymore.  You don't have splotches of yellow and bright pink on your clothes anymore.  You still wear jeans though...I guess that's a constant."

I look down at my jean shorts and smile a bit, I've worn this pair for almost ages, it was stained by yellow and pink probably at one point.

"Your style is a bit different as well.  You used to hold your hair up with a pencil or paint brush but it's in a braid now and it's a bit more blonder...I missed it."

I fiddle with the ends of my braid.  Yeah, I do miss having it in a bun.  Forever whipping out a pencil on an impulse and drawing something in a small pad.  I shake my head, I wasn't going to fall for his words, not anymore

"You're wearing a new top as well.  I thought I'd never see you in anything other than a loose or flowy shirt...not that it bugs me, it's just different."

"I look more normal don't I?" I pull the rubber band holding the braid off and grab some stuff from my bag.  A pencil and a loose jean jacket speckled with paint. I slip on the jacket and deftly pull my hair back into it's pencil holding bun. 

"You...look like you." Davie takes a step back and smiles his old smile.  The one I thought was always for me.

"Don't I?" I can feel myself questioning my actions and my hands tremble a bit.  Why was I entertaining this?

"I like it like this." He smiles again, and I remember seeing that smile so many times, how I used to ache for his laugh, for his warmth.

"Feel like past times?" I joke, almost coldly.

"Yeah."

I grab something else out of my bag.  A small journal.  My back pain fades away now.  It was probably temporary and increased because of the pain of the memories so I get up, with no signs of any struggle, and throw the journal onto Davie's lap, slinging my bag further up on my shoulder as I walk off.

"Clara?" His voice seems to break with the syllables of my name.

"Yeah?" I turn back, only for a second as he looks at the journal.  All of my drawings, right from before our meeting and up until this moment.  He would understand everything that was going on from them.  He would understand me.  And now, so far from the start of our relationship...maybe it was time that I discarded that book and gave it to the cause of my pain all throughout those years.  

"Where are you going?"He turns over the book and runs a palm softly over it.  He looks up at me and for a moment, I feel the warmness of sunshine on my skin, I see his smile, and myself safe in his arms.  But those memories quickly fade as I breathe in and break his eye contact.

"Away."

_____________________________________________

OLD AUTHOR'S NOTE

 Feel so refreshed writing all of that.  I WANT TO WRITE MORE SCENES LIKE THIS. Okay but before you guys assault me with questions about Davie and where in the world did this come from? sorry but it just kind of popped into my mind.  Like all other ideas do.  I want to add more depth to a very kind of shallow character that you guys would assume is a cliched one.  ILYSM have fun reading!

AFTER EDITING NOTE

This chapter used to be my favorite chapter, and has remained so to today.  I made a few more edits so that this flows well and hopefully, you all enjoy it!

TRIVIA:

-Team Max, Logan or Davie?

-Songs you love?